Allan Horsfall, gay rights campaigner, describes setting up the North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee from his Coal Board house in Atherton, Wigan

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Interview with Allan Horsfall, conducted by Sylvia Kölling and David Govier at Allan's home in Farnworth, 10 Oct 2011.

Transcript of clip: "SK: What were the times like in the early sixties? What was the atmosphere like? Did people support your cause? What was it like? AH: Well, I never got any serious opposition. The fact was that Anthony Grey had an office in Shaftesbury Avenue on the third and fourth floor which was locked up when he went home. I, in contrast, was working from home. I was living in a house at that time which belonged to the Coal Board. And when we put out the AGM announcement the local paper did a front page spread with an eight-column headline, which they'd never done before, 'Homosexuals and the Law' and of course everybody thought we'd get our windows put through and all sorts of harassment but we didn't get anything like that at all. No trouble. I was in what was, what had been, a little mining community. All the ... two or three blocks of houses all belonged to the Coal Board. When the mining industry ran down they sold them to the council so they were in fact council houses. My immediate boss [was] the Estates Manager (I worked in the estates department of the Coal Board). Not my immediate boss but the ultimate boss after this big headline appeared giving the address said that since I was doing this thing in Coal Board property wouldn't I have thought it right to consult him first? And I sent him a message back to say that if I had consulted him first he would have said no! He didn't dispute that, and I never had any trouble after that. There was no harassment."

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