“Suddenly, people realised that queer Manchester could be part of a cool Manchester'
On one hazy night at Manchester’s historic gay venue Number 1 Club, sometime back in 1992, an 18-year-old Paulette Constable - with ‘no equipment and no decks’ - was given complete charge of the playlist for five hours.
Having also spent time appearing on Granada TV and hosting shows on Piccadilly Radio with the one and only Chris Evans, she was also asked that same year to take part in a night at The Haçienda: one that would go on to pave the way for Manchester’s gay scene today.midweek escape into the world of flamboyance and excess through fashion, music, partying, and acceptance.
“You have to remember that, at the time, we were in amongst the AIDs crisis, we had section 28 full up and running where you weren’t allowed to talk about anything same-sex in schools, and we had a homophobic chief of police ,” Paulette recalls. “It was glamour, it was homemade, it was customised, it was sparkles, it was feathers, It was eye-popping, it was colourful. You’d go from fluffy knickers one month to denim bras. There was always something going on. There was always something more, it was never just a party and it turned into a bit of a lifestyle for most people who attended.
“For all of these kinds of plaudits to come in after 30 years time is a massive achievement for me,” she says. “But I also see it as a very positive development that anyone like me - any young Black, queer, woman or non-binary person - can look at it and think ‘oh, I can do that too’. “I would like it if Pride was a little less about the celebrity of it all, but you can’t really stop that - that’s how things move these days. But if it is going that way, we have to make exactly the same effort to remind everybody of what Pride is about and that Pride is a protest: it’s the one day of the year where we can make as much noise for queer visibility in all its forms.
Hacienda Hacienda Manchester Music Gay Village Manchester Pride Manchester City Centre LGBTQ+ Rights
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