Gay's the Word (bookshop)

Gay's the Word

File:Gays the Word.jpg Gay's the Word bookshop, July 2013
Industry	Bookshop
Founded	January 17, 1979 (1979-01-17)
Founder	Gay Icebreakers members
Headquarters	66 Marchmont Street, WC1N 1AB, London, United Kingdom
Number of locations	1
Website	freespace.virgin.net/gays.theword

Gay's The Word is the only specifically lesbian and gay bookstore in the UK. It is located in Bloomsbury, London. 2016 marks the 37th anniversary of the founding of the store, which first opened its doors on 17 January 1979. Inspired by the emergence and growth of lesbian and gay bookstores in the States, a small group of people from Gay Icebreakers, a gay socialist group founded the store in 1979. Various locations were looked at including Covent Garden which was then being regenerated before they decided to open the store in Marchmont Street. Initial reluctance from Camden Council to grant a lease to the bookstore was overcome with help from Ken Livingstone, then a Camden councillor, later Mayor of London.

History

From the very beginning, the shop has been used as a community and information resource for lesbians and gay men. A large seating area at the back where friends could have tea or coffee or check out the free noticeboard detailing various gay organisations and forthcoming events was very popular. There was a piano that could be used for musical evenings and on the piano, sat the score for the musical which inspired their name — Gay's The Word by Ivor Novello. As well as a bookstore and a place to meet people, various community groups used the shop after hours for meetings. Organisations using the shop over the years include Icebreakers, the Lesbian Discussion Group (still going after 30 years) Gay Black Group and the Gay Disabled Group. It's also the venue for the very popular monthly meetings of TransLondon. The piano has long gone as has the cafe but the free noticeboard is still in constant use and hundreds of people drop by every week to pick up the free gay papers.

When the shop was founded 35 years ago, gay books weren't generally available in ordinary bookstores. The early newsletters listed the few radical bookstores in the country where gay books were available and Gay News had an excellent and pioneering mail order service. The gay movement at this period in the United States was particularly vibrant and stimulated an immense amount of literature with many small publishing houses being established. Gay's The Word had to import a large part of its stock from the US as not enough gay books were published in the UK. Lesbian and gay publishing houses which were later established in the UK include Gay Men's Press, Brilliance Books, Onlywomen Press and Third House.

In 1984, Customs and Excise, assuming the shop to be a porn store rather than a serious bookstore, mounted a large-scale raid and seized thousands of pounds worth of stock. Works by Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood and Jean Genet were among the books seized. Directors were eventually charged with conspiracy to import indecent books under the Customs Consolidation Act 1876. Unlike the situation with the Obscene Publications Act, which governs literature published in the UK, the Customs Consolidation Act 1876 does not provide for a literary or artistic defence of titles that HM Customs and Excise have seized under this Act. There is thus a discrepancy between the law which applies to books published in the UK (Obscene Publications Act) and books which have been imported (Customs Consolidation Act) which makes possible the apparently contradictory situation where it would be illegal to import a book which could quite legally be published. A campaign was set in motion and the charges were vigorously defended. A defence fund was set up and raised over 55 thousand pounds from the public. Many well-known writers also gave their support and Gore Vidal donated 3 thousand pounds. Newspaper articles appeared, various MPs visited the shop and questions were asked in the House of Commons.

"I examined a parcel on February 13, 1981. I had selected it because it was addressed to the Gay's the Word bookshop which suggested a homosexual content"... Mr Riley said that he found copies of the book The Joy of Gay Sex in the parcel.

— Customs Officer at the North London Magistrates' court, 25 June 1985

The shop has hosted many readings and signings by well-known and emerging writers. Allen Ginsberg, Edmund White, David Leavitt, William Corlett, Armistead Maupin, Jake Arnott, Damian Barr, Charlotte Mendelson, Patrick Gale and Neil Bartlett have all read at the shop. It has also hosted talks by biographers Neil McKenna (Secret Life of Oscar Wilde), Sheila Rowbotham (Edward Carpenter); historians Matt Cook (A Gay History of Britain) and Matt Houlbrook (Queer London) and many other leading lesbian and gay academics. A documentary on the bookstore by Douglas Belford was shown in 2006 at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and can be viewed on YouTube.

The shop served in 1984-1985 as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners London group headquarters and hosted their meetings. The 2014 film Pride, directed by Matthew Warchus, featured these events.

Campaigns

In 2007, with rising rents and the effect of Internet book-buying, the bookshop faced possible closure. It launched a campaign to stay open which got huge press coverage in newspapers like the Guardian, Times and Independent as well as the gay press like QX and Boyz. The shop workers were taken aback by the public response to the appeal with news on the crisis featuring in blogs from Russia to Australia, to America and Europe. Its future, for the present is secure. Sarah Waters recently said of the shop "Gay's The Word is still Britain's best outlet for lesbian, gay and trans-interest books. The stock is wonderfully wide-ranging, the staff are friendly and knowledgeable and the atmosphere's great. I've been shopping there for years and I'm delighted that it's still going strong". The shop is a major supplier of books to libraries and resource centres across the UK and disseminates literature that promotes equality, understanding and freedom of information.