The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) is not a name that you might associate with Britain’s LGBT history. However, it transpires that it played quite a pivotal role in the mid-80s. What is even more surprising is that it moved from a position of relative belligerence to one of serious advocacy in a very short period of time.

The belligerence was manifested by the union’s National Executive Committee at the 1983 annual conference in relation to its support for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE).

At a previous conference members had voted that NAPO should affiliate to CHE. In practice this meant paying – and renewing – an annual membership fee until such times as members voted to disaffiliate. For some reason, in 1983, the National Executive took it upon themselves to ask conference participants to vote again on CHE affiliation.

It may have seemed like a small issue but the reality was that no other organisation that NAPO was affiliated to had ever been singled out for such attention. Nor was any particular reason given for bringing this to a conference vote: the motion simply sought a Yes or No vote on paying the membership fee.

As chance would have it I was at that conference as I was, at that time, training to be a Probation Officer. Along with other LGBT members we successfully challenged the motion and the National Executive were told to get on and renew our CHE membership as they should have done in the first place.

In retrospect, it would appear that this episode marked a significant turning point in NAPO’s position on LGBT rights. Partly in response to the Executive’s mis-handling of the CHE issue, an LGBT Probation Officers group was established the very next day. Known initially as GayPO then LAGPO, membership grew quite quickly and so did activity.

Sadly, I didn’t get to participate in LAGPO for much longer: at the end of my training I was unsuccessful in getting a job as a Probation Officer. (A large question mark hangs over the role my sexuality played in this as I was the only ‘out’ gay student at that time, but I have no definitive evidence to ‘prove’ discrimination).

My own position notwithstanding, the next couple of years saw NAPO taking an increasingly active role in relation to LGBT rights. This culminated in 1985 – only two years after the CHE incident – when NAPO brought the first significant LGBT rights motion to that year’s Trades Union Conference (TUC). Seconded by another public sector union, NALGO, it essentially sought equality for LGBT employees in all aspects of employment.

The timing could not have been better. Union support for LGBT rights had been growing rapidly in recent years, partly as a result of lobbying by LGBT members but also as a result of LGBT support for miners during the 1984/85 miners strike. This latter action had brought a lot of ‘blue-collar’ unions – traditionally the most homophobic – on side. In consequence, the TUC motion was passed resoundingly.

But the impact didn’t stop there. A few weeks later an LGBT rights motion was presented to the Labour Party’s National Conference. Despite opposition from the Party’s National Executive, the cumulative impact of the TUC vote and increased union support saw the motion passed. The majority was not large enough to bind the Labour Party to action – that came at the Party’s conference the following year – but it was clear that an historic turning point had been reached.

And part of that was down to NAPO failing to renew its CHE membership fees properly!