Anyone who has seen images from London’s early Lesbian and Gay Pride Marches (as they were called then) would have been struck by the large numbers of police in attendance. They might even be forgiven for thinking that this large uniformed presence was there for the protection of the marchers.

Not so.

In the days when ‘Pride’ was purely about politics and not about commerce, the police were there to keep the queers in their place. It was all very well to have a democratic right to protest, but when it was about something as tasteless as this then it had to be kept as tightly under control as possible.

In consequence, marchers often found themselves hemmed in on both sides by a double line of police officers. Such was the case in 1980. And, probably to no one’s surprise, police behaviour was also pretty belligerent.

One target for this belligerence was Frank Egan, a member of the Brixton Faeries. Decked out in full, pink drag, his outfit was topped off with a hat made up of plastic flowers, plastic fruit and a miniature plastic meat cleaver. As far as the police were concerned, the latter item constituted an offensive weapon – regardless of its size, its material, or the fact that it was glued to various pieces of plastic fruit and flowers. Frank was duly arrested and taken off to be charged.

When his companion, fellow Faerie Julian Hows protested he too was taken away. According to one eye witness:

“[the police] arrested anyone who tried to tell the march that someone had been arrested.”

When the march reached its destination – the University of London Union – the police told the marchers to disperse. This merely exacerbated an already tense situation, resulting in a number of marchers moving off to Bow Street police station where the arrestees had been taken.

In 2008, Rose Collis recalled the events in an interview for 3Sixty magazine:

“The rest of our group turned the march around and staged a sit-in protest, which is when the police got decidedly ‘hands on’. Spare Rib reported that “…several more women and men were harassed by the police.””

When the arrestees were released, the marchers returned to ULU and resumed the post-march party.

There is no record as to whether Frank, Julian or any others who were arrested were formally charged, nor if the cases ever got to court. I’m presuming not as I’m sure that a court case centring on a plastic assemblage of miniature meat cleaver, flowers and fruit would still be remembered today!