Lavender Menace bookshop opened on Forth Street, Edinburgh in 1982 as a development of earlier initiatives around both radical and LGBT bookselling.

One of the two owners – Bob Orr – had previously worked in the First of May radical bookstore, which was effectively Edinburgh’s main stockist of LGBT books in the late 70s. He then teamed up with business partner Sigrid Neilson to run a bookstall on the premises of the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group (SHRG) on Broughton Street. Trading initially under the name Lavender Books, they named the bookstall Open Gaze.

In 1981 there appears to have been a dispute between the owners of the bookstall and the SHRG committee. Some have suggested that this was around the stocking of the Socialist Worker newspaper, whilst others have suggested it was around the stocking of an ‘anti-Christmas’ card. Whatever the exact reason, the key issue seems to have boiled down to who decided what was and was not allowed on the bookstall.

And the result seems to have been the decision to close Open Gaze and open Lavender Menace in its own premises.

With LGBT publishing just beginning to take off, with the likes of Gay Men’s Press, the Women’s Press and Brilliance Books, Lavender Menace went from strength to strength. However, it was not without its controversies. One of these was the stocking of Minor Problems magazine, a publication linked to the Paedophile Information Exchange and the subject of a police raid in the early 80’s. Another was its decision to ban a specific issue of Gay Scotland magazine, apparently on the basis that it was critical of the bookshop.

But then it wouldn’t be the LGBT community without disagreements and, thankfully, the bookstore continued to serve Edinburgh’s LGBT community for more than a decade. In 1987 it changed its name to West and Wilde and moved to a more prominent position, where it remained until the 1990s.

Sadly, competition from mainstream booksellers, who were now prepared to stock queer books, meant that West and Wilde was no longer commercially viable, so it closed in 1997.

But, after a break of 20 years, Lavender Menace has risen again – albeit in the form of the Lavender Menace Archive. The Archive has a number of aims, including:

“To collect a physical archive of queer and LGBT+ books, especially those Lavender Menace Bookshop sold and those which are out of print, in order to keep them alive for readers in a way the publishing industry’s business model makes it difficult to do.

To take part in or organise events such as meetings about queer and LGBTQ+ writing, history and theatre, and run bookstalls, in order to promote queer and LGBTQ+ writing and bookselling.”

The Archive is located at Edinburgh Palette, St. Margaret’s House, G25c, 151 London Road, Edinburgh, EH7 6AE and it’s opening hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays between 11am and 4pm. It’s also open every second and fourth Sunday for its Social Sunday Café.

[Image Credits: Alison Orr]