Border Women  

Coming out in the country

The Border Women network was established over the summer of 1988 when a group of lesbians started meeting at the community centre in Leominster, a small market town in Herefordshire, on the Welsh borders. We had all responded to an ad placed in the local paper and on noticeboards around the towns and villages by one isolated rural lesbian. We were surprised and pleased at the numbers of women who came forward. There were twenty of us at the first meeting which was wonderful in a conservative country place like Leominster. Several women had thought that they were ‘the only one like that’ and were overwhelmed to meet other women who could share their experiences and feelings.

More outings in Leominster

For the next year or so we met regularly in Leominster. We organised discos and socials, talks and quiet get-togethers. Our summer picnics in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside and visits to stately homes are memorable for dogs, children and ice cream as well as romance and the reverse! But inevitably we encountered hostility. A homophobic group of Leominster town councillors threatened to withdraw their funding of the community centre if our lesbian group was allowed to meet there. A fierce battle was fought in the letters pages of the Hereford Times and Leominster Journal. We were supported by the committee of the community centre and by many local people, we picketed the town council meeting and we won! The homophobes retreated, shamed. In the summer of 1989, we organised a big meeting in Leominster for the Clause 25 Roadshow campaigning against proposed national legislation which would outlaw local government from doing anything to ‘promote homosexuality’. Sadly the national campaign was lost and that legislation was passed and still stands (now known as Section 28), but our meeting was packed with supporters, local dignitaries and country people, lesbian, gay and straight.

Outing Ludlow

The Clause 25 meeting was the culmination of our Leominster days. Dealing with the open hostility and condemnation of neighbours in such a small place eroded our feeling of security despite the support. We moved our meetings eleven miles up the road to Ludlow in Shropshire which is unusual for a little rural town in having a Women’s Centre. The Women’s Committee has been very supportive to Border Women and their centre has remained one of our favourite venues. We still host lots of events there: socials, quizzes, concerts, dances and dinners. For example, two 1998 successes have been the concert in the summer, when a famous jazz diva sung her heart out to a rapturous audience of admiring lesbians - and the Mid-Winter Dinner on 5 December 1998, where a large party of Offa’s Dykes gathered to eat excellent food and talk (and talk and talk) in a festive ambience!

Shrewsbury too

In recent years Border Women have been very busy in Shrewsbury, the larger county town of Shropshire, which now has several pubs catering for lesbians, and lots of events organised by individual lesbians. Check out our events listings to see what’s going on there, and in other parts of the border country.

Border Women - The Newsletter

One of the best things to come out of Border Women has been the monthly newsletter. We started this in 1988 to keep rural lesbians in touch with one another, with what’s going on in their area (and elsewhere), and to reduce the feeling of isolation we often felt in the countryside. We’ve just published newsletter number 127! As well as events listings, it carries news items, articles, poems, letters from subscribers, advertisements for dyke-friendly items, holidays etc and personal ads. It has been edited by lots of different volunteers over the years, is entirely self-funding, and relies on the support of its subscribers who come from the border counties of Wales and England, and sometimes from farther afield.

How we are organised

Well, Border Women does not have a formal committee and any lesbian who subscribes can publish a contribution in the newsletter or can arrange and advertise an event in the area. It’s a very informal network and encompasses dykes of all ages and from a huge variety of backgrounds. Some of us have lived in this part of the country all our lives, some have moved here from cities, some have children, some have just come out, some have partners, some are single, and so on. Our only criteria for being part of the group is being a lesbian. (We obviously would not support any event or newsletter contribution that was homophobic, misogynist or racist.) We do have a Treasurer and she guards our small funds which may be called upon to aid events etc. Considering the relaxed nature of the network we think we’ve done very well to keep going so successfully for over eleven years!

If you are interested in our group, why not sign our guest book or send us a message?

Sophie Gosling
December 1998