Pride then was very much like a country fair they had Ferris wheels, men on stilts, drag, and it was open, with no charge for entry. And we thought: let’s all go to Kennington Park there were seven or eight of us, including Eddie, Tony and myself. One day in 1991, in Time Out magazine, there was a little article, like “Celebrate gayness at Kennington Park”. We started to have parties in abandoned buildings we had broken into, or in houses where a friend who worked in housing would give us keys to have secret parties. We soon realised there was a need for our own spaces, and our private meetings extended into hosting parties, and we became known as the Black Experience.
The network I formed in north London used to meet around cruising spots in Finsbury Park, because there weren’t many other spaces for us to congregate. Lloyd Young In the late 80s, early 90s, there was an emerging network of Black gay men.
Marc Thompson and Lloyd Young at Pride in Kennington, 1991.
