Int.: Okay, we’ll just start off with where you were born and where you grew up. 

Sandra: Born in Bootle in 1964. The eldest of 4. I’ve got two sisters and a brother, and it was like a little terrace house in Kipling Street and my Nan lived opposite. So that was great. And we never moved from Bootle until my Mum had a boy because, that’s what it was like with housing then. You couldn’t get a three bedroomed house. As soon as she got a boy, we got a three-bedroom house because obviously boys can’t be in the same room as girls and all that. So, we get shipped out to Netherton which was… I don’t know, I think as a kid I quite liked it because it was a bit like the countryside. But then, as soon as I realised there was nothing else in Netherton at about 10/11 I felt like y’know trapped and my Nan, I was very close to my Nan, and in fact she was a bit of a substitute Mother, and she took over from my Mum - I feel sorry for my Mum because my Nan never had a girl so I was always the daughter she never had - and me Nan used to call Netherton, “This godforsaken hole” [laughs]. So, I think that y’know - nothing against Netherton or the people of it, but it was a very sort of quiet place, but its advantages were you could do things that you don’t do these days. I could take my little brother in the pram with my sister and my mate and we used to go on walks sort of across the what’s the greenbelt to Sefton Church, across the farmer’s fields and all that with a bottle of water and a packet of jam butties and 10 pence for the Post Office and wander back.

I think that’s one of the tragedies of childhood now. Well y’know, there doesn’t seem to be as much stuff that doesn’t need loads of money or loads of technology to do and that kids aren’t y’know - well I know from my nieces and nephews they’re not as easily “Let’s just go on an adventure on our own as mates”. It has to Involve things, material things. 

So, I went to St. Joan of Arcs primary School, and then I moved to – when we moved to Netherton, I went to St. Bennett’s Primary School. Catholic schools, Catholic upbringing - I mean, don’t get me on Catholicism, because it’s scourge of self-love really, isn’t it? Y’know, I don’t know whether you know much about it, but I suppose I was the last of the sort off serious Catholics around the sixties, you had to be good or you’d go to Hell, but you might go anyway. Especially if you didn’t conform to norms which I’m mentioning that now because I think in that time there was an awful lot of angst around “How can you be a Lesbian and be a Catholic?”. So, I think there’s a lot of social influences, but I think the influence of the Catholic church in my generation - although we got the tail-end of it, was quite significant on… I suppose, your emotional self.  As you are trying to be something different, other than the perfect Catholic. So, I think that probably had quite an influence on my life. Probably less so now, because I’ve thought it all through but even still Sometimes, I think, y’know I used to remember - because I was quite a good Catholic y’know. Me and my mate Carrie* wanted to be Nuns, it was hysterical. That’s another story I think, where me and Carrie* wanted to be Nuns because we didn’t want to get married to men. [laughs] And my very first - I’m going right of the subject now, but my very first brave act was when I just come out as a lesbian, was going into News From Nowhere which in them days was not where it is now, it was like down by – below, in like a squat y’know where the busses stop down by the Old Haymarket. There was a book called ‘Lesbian nuns and convent sexuality’ and I sort of went in cause I was dead interested in this, but I was too scared to buy it. So, I came out again and I thought no one could possibly see me buying a book with the word lesbian on.Even though it was News from Nowhere - all dykes anyway. 

Int.: Did you ever get the book? 

Sandra: So, I went back in again and I sort of went quietly to the till with the book, and they picked it up and went “OOOHHH”, shouted right over the shop, “Betty haven’t we got a signed copy of this ‘Lesbian nuns and convent sexual…” - I could have died! [laughs] Now the whole shop knows I bought a book with the word lesbian in the word. [laughs]. 

So that was a little digression but erm… So, me main influences on my childhood, I don’t know if you want to go into this much detail? 

Int.: Yeah. 

Sandra: Obviously Catholicism, but y’know, my Dad suffered with alcoholism. So, that was really quite traumatic in lots of ways, especially as I got older erm… and I think especially on me in the family - as the oldest I always developed this sense of responsibility for everyone else, Oh I’ve got to look after, keep everything happy, keep everything not shouting. And I think erm… but the one - or the main beautiful memories I have about my Dad is like, he was a big socialist and I think that was all, lot to do with his sort of illness. As a socialist, he was sort of quite a left-wing socialist, he was in the communist party of Great Britain, and very, very active in the trade union movement. As a result of that, he got what you called back in those days ‘blacklisted’. Which you might think is a racist term these days, but what it meant was, that he couldn’t really, because of his political activity, ever get a job. So, we were quite poor as kids really, we didn’t y’know - and I think that affected me and all because I always wanted to have a car and money cause there were only two cars in our street, but the people next door had a car and that was amazing. So, there was all that going on as well y’know. And I think it was just when things, y’know the seventies, when things were definitely getting more materialistic, weren’t they? I never got the Kickers, or the PODS, which all the rich kids were getting but anyway that’s an aside. 

I think the one conversation my Dad had with me was about politics and Marxism. I was like 10 and I knew who Karl Marx was, I knew what the theory of Das Capital was, I knew about rich and poor, I knew about social inequality, and all those things from a very young age. So, it’s ironic now at the moment actually, because it’s like I have an abiding memory, it must have been from the early seventies, sitting in the living room and folding all these leaflets for my Dad and we were all ‘Say no to the common market’ [laughs] and I think Oh Jesus. But anyway so, quite a political influence from there but my Mum was quite active and all. She was involved y’know, in the school PTA. They did all kinds of marvellous things, like the women used to meet on a Saturday and run these dances to raise money and they eventually raised enough money to build a swimming pool for the school. So that was awesome as well. So, I suppose in terms of me parents, I had very social and political influences on me, so I look back now, and think no wonder I ended up being the person you was in terms of your politics and what you’ve done with your life. So, that was all very interesting. 

When I was about 14, I was a youth activist. I got involved in a - it was a church based youth group actually, in Bootle, in St. James’s youth club and that was like - this girl Marcy*, who was amazing from the Catholic Youth Service and a gang of kids and we’d just meet every week and talk about what was wrong with Bootle, and what was wrong with the world, and what we could do, and we did some great things. Like we got a grant and used to help run play schemes in the Summer and do all trips to Ffrith beach with the kids and so, I got really - y’know I was really heavily involved in that, and we decided once that we all wanted to go to Victoria Park in Southport, and Southport was dead posh, and it was miles away and that was like your holidays going to Southport, camping. So, we wrote to the – I dunno whether we wrote to the,… but we done something, but we got refused to go camping. So, I’ve still got the letter in my house, because I was secretary of my youth group - the reply from the then chief executive of Sefton Council who was Reginald*, refusing us permission to camp in Southport, so of course we were right on that, made it into a big thing “Oh, the poor can’t go to Southport! It’s only for posh bastards!” [laughs] And I ended up being in the front of the Bootle Times and everything, so that sort of y’know, really got me going a bit. 

So, from there I just did all normal things, I did alright in school. I was good really, I was good y’know. We always used to - Me and Carrie* - who never ever turned out to be gay, used to fancy the prefects and we used to sit in our bedroom with Donny Osmond LP’s on fantasising about these girls. Not in a million years did we associate that with absolutely anything to do with sex or sexuality, at all. Because, quite frankly, there was no concept of lesbian in my childhood anywhere, absolutely no concept. People didn’t even know what it was, you didn’t even get skitted because there was no concept of that to skit you. So, it was different [pause] It was really hard, y’know because you didn’t know anyone who was lesbian, you didn’t have any lesbian role models, you didn’t know what it was, you wouldn’t have knew what it was or if you wasn’t. Which was quite, y’know - it was quite strange. 

I got involved in another community group, Church Street Community Association. This was round about when I was 16 and we did all kinds, we had a big community centre there and we started running the community centre, and I was meant to be doing me A levels at Hugh Baird college but, I spent more time at Church Street because it was only round the corner, erm… and did all kinds of political stuff there. We had housing estates demolished, I mean big style, I always remember being on a demo where all women done their homemade placards with the children in prams. I mean, I’ve still got the ‘photies’ somewhere, I’ll have to try and find them. This one woman used to bunk into the council meetings shouting in the chamber - this one woman, Peggy*, went in once with dead rats and threw them in the council chamber, and just went “Youse fucking live with them!” So, it was very much a sort of what there isn’t much of now, a sort off class-based conflict politics but it’s all partnerships now, isn’t it? Y’know, all the councillors go “Yeah you know we’ll all work in partnership”. I suppose my background was more your bog standard “This is right, this is wrong, we’re gonna fight and we’re gonna win, and we’re gonna campaign.” And running alongside that was lots of other things that came, y’know the people’s march for jobs, that started off from Liverpool, I’ve got a picture – there’s pictures of me still with a banner, CSCA, Church Street Community Association and me with this big banner we’d made, ‘Kids Against Thatcher’. [laughs] So y’know there was all them sort of political things and then, as I sort of moved from 16 - by the time I was 17, I was secretary of Bootle Federation for Joint Action. Which was an amalgamation of about 20-30 resident/tenants’ associations. We used to meet, there was a big network of community-based organising, that’s all gone! There was lots - it was completely different context than today. Through that, I got lots of opportunities as a young person, to do all kinds of things like go to conferences about community organising in Rotterdam, connect with people in Birmingham and Cardiff, and we used to network all over the country. Community development was a very big thing in the late 70’s, early 80’s, and it was all influenced really by – well I think the thing I was involved in was very much influenced by, there was a group of people who were associated with the World Council of Churches, this church thing just wouldn’t ever leave me. But anyway, we got - I was invited as a guest to the GDR, the German Democratic Republic for three weeks. Spent three weeks studying, meeting people, meeting young people, finding out what it was like to live in a Socialist society. [pause] Going to concentration camps, finding out a lot of history about the politics of Europe. Going through the actual Berlin wall, ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, y’know before it came down. Very political and marvellously blessed youth, in terms of the opportunities I had to grow, discover and things like that. Went to El Salvador, spent six weeks in El Salvador, a group of 12 people from Liverpool went. We all had to raise money and we went over there and we were one of the first groups over there after the revolution. Stayed with the Sandinistas in the mountains, y’know, absolutely amazing. Took the first computers ever into El Salvador. They were only like BBC, y’know them crap things, Amstrads and all that. I think Word had just come out. We went over there with them, we smuggled them in wrapped in football kits that Everton football club had given us, and we set up computers in the – about three computers in the primary school. Totally naïve, because obviously for a computer you need electricity, so we had to go back into Texas to get surge protectors and bring - There was just loads of political interesting and adventures. Clause 28 was around in my youth, loads of march – never going underground, do you remember that? All that imagery involved in  those marches in Manchester, big thing in the Manchester theatres with Ian McKellen, on the days when all the momentum around gay queer rights were hitting the public and then, I haven’t got to the coming out - I’ve been out by now, I’ll get back to the… 

Int.: Yeah, we’ll backtrack. 

Sandra: That was just amazing, and likewise there was lots of other political things happening. Apartheid was massive! We were all involved in ‘Say No to Apartheid’, there was a big thing on at the Philharmonic hall called Amandla, which means power in South African and there was a great big African group and we were all involved in that, big demos and y’know. I wonder as a youth worker, because I ended up being a youth worker - I used to think these kids haven’t got a clue about politics. There is no political awareness. But anyway, that’s one of my little things.

So, going back rewinding again because I’ve gone off the trail. So, I think I was twenty at the time I thought I might be gay, and that was because I met me first lesbian. 

Int.: Oh yeah, where was that?

Sandra: That was in a pla - that was at work. I got a job as community development worker by then in Bootle early twenties and was doing all like, great work. Dead exciting community development work, and Mel* came and worked on the project and that’s where we met. So basically, what happened was - I thought this is amazing. She took me this pub called Doctor Duncan’s which was right up at the top of Wood Street or somewhere up that way, I don’t know if it’s even still there. And that was like the lesbian place of Liverpool, or roundabout, there was nowhere else really. Everywhere else you know like erm, we used to call it Jodie’s and The Masquerade they were all mixed but there was no real lesbian meet place apart from Doctor Duncan’s. So, that’s where we used to go for a drink to Doctor Duncan’s and then we used to go into the clubs and all that, so she took me, and I went Oh my god! I was a twenty-year-old, absolutely gobsmacked that this existed. So obviously, two days later after going to this Doctor Duncan’s and seeing all this world, then coming home on the L3 bus from town, I was supposed to get off at Bootle, and Mel* had a flat in Waterloo and she’d go on to Waterloo but I just stayed on the bus and left her 29 years later. So, we almost y’know… - totally fell in love and we were just together for a long time. That was quite late really, to realise you’re a lesbian, but I suppose if you don’t know such a thing’s possible you maybe…

Int.: Yeah, if you’re not exposed to it.

Sandra: No, no, nothing - never a mention. Quite interesting. And I always remember telling my Mum, Oh I’m gonna have to tell me Mother. Obviously gay, we never said lesbian, that was too - going too far. 

Int.: It’s weird how lesbians always had that connotation attached to it?

Sandra: Well that’s why I wanna be a lesbian now, cause all this ‘queer der de der’, it’s lovely, fine, I’ve got no angst with it but I’m a lesbian. Because, it’s been hidden, the word is so stigmatised and so hidden, historically for long enough, why should we, after being - twenty years of ‘it’s okay to say lesbian’, we’re now all not lesbians. We’re queer or we’re something else. Someone has to keep being a lesbian, well done - ay. [laughs]  

Int.: We’ll keep up club lesbian.

Sandra: Keep up club lesbian yeah. So, I said to me Mum, and said “Oh Mum erm” – and my Mum always read Mills and Boon romances, I mean four kids all running around the house, she couldn’t hear a thing, she used to switch her hearing aids off and read a Mills and Boon romance [laughs]. So, she’s in the middle of a Mills and – romance, and I said “Mum, I need to tell you, like erm…, y’know, I’m gonna move in with Mel*. We’re gay.” And she just went like that with the book, looked at me and went “Are you love?” and just went back and carried on reading the book, which I thought y’know. [laughs]. Anyway…

Int.: That’s amazing!

Sandra: But it was like hot news in Netherton this. You can imagine, all the girls when I went my Mums, and I went the shops, they were all looking at me like this… y’know. People I’d been to school with, and like, if they were really brave, they’d come up and say to you “I don’t mind”. And you’d say “Aw, thanks, that’s really kind of you” [laughs].

So yeah, that was sort of the early concept. The sort of early days of me being a lesbian. And so then of course, I had to go into feminism then. So that was me next political journey. Never mind all this, rich and poor and the distribution of wealth, never mind all that, but what about women and women’s rights. So, I found myself on a woman’s studies course at University. Which I resigned from on principle… I mean who does that? [laughs] God knows why? I can’t even remember why? But I just remember I resigned from it, something annoyed me about it and I never finished my A-Levels because I was involved in the community, so I didn’t really – Oh I think I got me A-level geography, I don’t know how? I think I just turned up for my exam and happened to be lucky cause I could remember what a cumulus nimbus cloud was. [laughs]

Int.: I quite like geography because it seems to be more common sense on stuff, like as to why the weather happens. 

Sandra: Oh no, I might have got sociolo – yeah anyway. So my Mum was - that was really upsetting for my Mum, I think she was more unhappy that I hadn’t went to Uni then I was a lesbian.

Int.: I mean… 

Sandra: But, what a lovely Mum.

Int.: Yeah.

Sandra: Cause there was no concept of it for her neither and I think her thing was just erm… just wanting me to be happy, which is nice and I think that was probably more rare, it was probably rare because I think it was like panic attack. I know when I started doing LGBT youth work, I started it off in Bootle, Sefton youth Service, and I did it in Knowsley as well. We used to have to run support groups for the parents y’know because it was so traumatic for them as well, but anyway… 

Int.: Poor parents. 

Sandra: That’s another story. So, where was I? Where did I ramble to then? 

Int.: So, you quit Uni. 

Sandra: Oh yeah, no, I never went to Uni. So [pause] I sort of started this career as a community development worker, probably from about my twenties to about maybe my thirties, 10 years. I worked in Bootle in these dead radical projects which were brilliant. Where we used to like - the community development workers job was to maybe go around the street knocking on doors saying, “Have you got any issues in this community? Oh well Vera across the street thinks that, and her down the road thinks that. Should we have a meeting?” And then we’d have a big meeting in someone’s house about this issue, and our job was to try and support and educate people about the difference between government and local authority, who made decisions over what in your life, who had the power? 

And it was campaigning based in them days, it was campaigning based. We did loads of campaigns, until the government realised, community development it sort of got hijacked in a little way. I suppose it was a contradiction in terms when you started getting paid for it. Because obviously the power of someone paying you and a lot of the funding was local authority based so it got a little bit ‘is this community develop –?’ Y’know anyway and then it got into these farty arguments [laughs] based on what is and isn’t community development? It doesn’t really matter. So, then I got loads of nice jobs. I worked in Huyton It was just around about after the riots, which must have been about early 80’s was it yeah? I worked in Huyton on the Hillside estate which was just like so poor and we used to do like loads of children’s activities, playschemes. It was like the days before the children’s act, so you could just say - on a sunny, like this afternoon, and you could just say “Oh we’ve got the mini-bus there, fancy going camping? Go and get a change of clothes, get in the back of the van.” And then it would be like going down the street beeping, and the Mum would come out and we’d go “We’ve got your Tony in the back ‘ere, we’ll bring him back Sunday night, alright?” And the Mum would go “Alright girl, cheers for that” [laughs] And we’d just go with them, no consent forms, no medical forms, you did nothing. That’s how things used to get organised. People just used to hire coaches, everyone used to just get on them, and go to Chester Zoo. Once they came back to Bootle with a penguin in the back from the zoo, one of the kids had robbed, so I had some really… 

Int.: What? 

Sandra: Honest, these are true. It was just a completely different - These were the days before the children’s act, and then the children’s act came in and we did get ourselves a little bit more organised in terms of thinking about safeguarding, or thinking about the safety of the kids because we - I mean they we’re dead safe, but it was more like we’re just a big extended family, so we don’t need permission for anything. We’re doing this community work and we know their Mum, we know their Dad, we know the kids. And the Mum’s are just made up for us to take the kids away for the weekend to get them out their hair. There were loads of adventures, with kids in minibuses for years. I don’t know how many times Roy* and me nearly got arrested, getting them unarrested. It was hysterical. So that went on for a long time. Also done some quite interesting street-based work, did street schemes, play schemes in the street all that sort of thing. After that, a job came up in Bootle, Bootle Maritime City Challenge, which I think was all off the back of Hesletine, the riots, the Tories trying to be nice. It was regen - that was sort of concept of regeneration came then. And so, with the concept of regeneration came “Us powerful people have got money, and we want to work in partnership with you lovely community people to make something different”. It became a less of a ‘them and us’ and became a different type of work and organising. Which I haven’t quite thought through what the merits and that were then. There was a community centre in Bootle called Queen’s road Community Centre and I got a job as the co-ordinator of the Queen’s road community centre. It was a really good job. It was just like timetabling and getting activities going and we had a youth club there, under 5’s in there and there was a pensioner’s luncheon club in there, and I used to do the big newsletter to the - knocking round on all the doors. We organised this big massive street festival, which was brilliant. Everyone came out of all the houses, we closed the roads off, we had flags up, loads of activities, music, things for the kids. It was all just about how-to bring people together, and organising - trying to make the shit around them a bit better. So that was, I’ve sort of gone on to my career a bit, so get that out the way because it’s quite boring. [laughs] So then from Queens Road I’d been working obviously in partnership with other people, and one of the other people I’d been working with was the youth service, and one of the earlier managers of the youth service was very, very impressed with me and basically it ended up with the head of the youth service coming down to see me and saying come and work for us. “We know you haven’t got your Dip. H.E.” Which is what you needed because I’d got off hadn’t I, cause of me A-levels, “But come and we’ll pay for you to do it”. And they gave me a massive pay rise, so I went to work for Sefton youth service and it must have been late 80’s, early 90’s I can’t remember all the dates. So, I went to work for Sefton Youth Service, did loads of stuff there. Did my qualification, and that’s where I campaigned as supportive manager like, but we  managed to establish, which was difficult because Sefton Council was conservative controlled at the time, and so there was an awful lot of argy-bargy and politics but we were finally given the permission to start something called Young Gay Sefton, which was a youth provision for lesbian and gay young people in Sefton. And the first girl Cathy* , cause we had a phoneline y’know and you could ring between and all that, and so the first girl Cathy*, she was the only one who rang for the first three months, so, it was just me, a male co-worker, and Cathy* just gabbing. For three months but then slowly…

Int.: I was gonna say, how did you even? 

Sandra: We advertised it, but we had to advertise it - and even in Knowsley, always when we’ve done targeted gay youth work [cough] you can’t say the venue - you couldn’t say the venue, you couldn’t say, so it was all ring this number and that’s all you could do - ring this number at these times. I mean the schools wouldn’t let us put posters up. Der-de-der-de-der y’know they hadn’t got there yet. It was very much the phoneline, which we advertised that wherever we could. Health were quite good, they let us put it up in health venues and then just word of mouth and then it eventually grew into a really strong youth provision. We did some fantastic things with them kids. I’ve done some fant – I’ve done loads of fantastic youth work stuff over the years, including taking groups of kids to Auschwitz - Birkenau, doing a big awareness peer education projects around discrimination. Them telling their story, taking It into school, Oh y’know, it’s like tons of stuff, you wouldn’t even know where to start. So, then I was a youth worker in Sefton for about maybe four years, and then I saw this job advertised in Knowsley, area manager in community and youth service. Went for that, got that, and then basically after that I was in Knowsley then for 19 years, 20 years. It wasn’t all the same job, because I was managing the youth and play service in Knowsley, and the community development - community centres, youth workers, development work it was just massive. Residents association, the lot. So, I went from that to - there was a poor OFSTED. The head of service got the chop and they offered me it, so, I went to Head of Youth Service in Knowsley and did that for a while, maybe about four years or something, can’t even remember five years. And that was really different, because then I was learning about how government really works, being in the local authority. Did lots of stuff there, loads of initiatives, more initiatives than soft Joe. I mean in the 80’s and 90’s, the 90’s in particular, early part of this century, you just couldn’t move for funding. It was fabulous. Youse’s would have loved it. Rhiannon would have been a multi-millionaire [laughs]. There was that much of it about. People use to come up to me and be like “Oh ‘ee’ar”, y’know the kids are breaking up on Friday, on the Thursday one of the directors comes up to me and he goes “’Ee’ar’, there’s £300,000 for the summer” Pffft “What for?” [laugh] “Splash!”, the government had just give us ‘splash money’ and it means you can – to do activities with the kids during the summer, I mean we’ve taken the kids fuckin’ scuba diving and everything. Come September tryna’ do a little activity with the kids they’d go “Fuck off, this is boring” [laughs]. So, I mean it was lovely, but it wasn’t because, it just puts people’s expectations on and that’s what this money does a lot of the time. It’s strange y’know? Especially in these days, when sustainability is so hard. So, we had - we were a wash with projects. And famously, one of the biggest, the funniest things in Knowsley that happened to me was one Sunday morning the director of leisure services, I think, text me and said go and buy the Sunday Times. So I went and got the Sunday Times, I’m on the front page. We had the Sure Start initiative and we gone the whole way about things. We started working with Dad’s and Father’s work and all that. Father’s work, it was support - It was to support men to start thinking about themselves as parents really, rather than just thinking “This isn’t anything to do with me, this parenting”. So, it was quite a good… so I was there, and it was a big attack on the government and it was called - and the headline was “The ministry of silly jobs”. And an undercover Times journalist had interviewed me for this Father’s worker job, and it just all ended up being a laugh. Because y’know, you couldn’t get any more left wing, well maybe not left wing but you couldn’t get any more red and labour than Knowsley so they all probably thought it was quite an achievement, pissing them off. [laughs] So anyway, that was ok.  Then we’re really getting into like, this century now… 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. Everything’s starting to tighten up. We’re getting the tory… Labour goes, Blair goes, which is fair enough. Then the Tories come in again, and the austerity. And by then, I met – I sort of met with the director of education, Daniel*. You’re not gonna put all these names in, are you? Maybe not….Daniel* and he said to me “Look Sandra”, he said “This austerity that’s started is going to get worse.” He said “And I’m just having a very honest conversation with you because there’s no way that I can fund the youth service going forward.” He said, “Your choices are either: you stick with us and become a commissioner of services, or we try and think of something radically different”. Well I said, “Let’s try and think of something radically different, because I don’t want to sit here telling people I haven’t got money to do what they need, because that’s what commissioners basically do”. So, we did a lot of work [cough] I did a lot of work with the team, and I mean at that point there was probably ninety youth workers still, there was loads of them, loads of them part time, but there was massive services, like £3 million pound a year. Loads of services all over the borough. All kinds of detached work, awards work, outdoor education work, targeted work, teenage pregnancy, sexual health, you name it, there’s a massive gambit of services there. So, over time, not very much time, we decided that we would try to take the service out the council and set it up as an independent mutual. So, we formed Knowsley Youth Mutual in round about 2010, god might it have been ’11, I can’t remember, the early part. I can check all them dates for you if you need the facts, but everyone is going to be asleep reading this bit by now [laughs]. So, we formed Knowsley Youth Mutual and we did it as a co-operative. Which was 50% ownership between young people and the youth workers that came out. 50/50 owned and the youth ownership was through membership. So, any profits would go 50% to young people, 50% to staff – No, 30% to young people, 30% to staff, for training not for cash reward, and 30% back into the thing. Knowsley Youth Mutual was a whole other story but I think that was quite a radical approach to try and do things differently, and fortunately it is still going quite strong as far as I know but I did retire on medical grounds about a year ago. So, I’m free now. [laughs] I’m gonna haunt youse in Comics youth, I’m not messing, but I’m meeting with Rhiannon after this. [laughs]

Int.: Ah, ha, ha, you’re always welcome here. [laughs]

Sandra: Erm… so, that’s the career bit anyway, let me have a breath, go on. 

Int.: You have a breather. 

Sandra: And I’m still on question 1. [laughs]

Int.: So, you have actually covered quite a lot of the stuff anyway so, when you came out to your parents and you were living with Mel*. Were you out in day to day life and in all your jobs that you had? 

Sandra: Always. 

Int.: Or were you still very closeted? Always, yeah. 

Sandra: As soon as I came out that was it, I was out to everyone, in every situation. And to be fair, even as a community development worker in them very rough estates in Huyton and in Bootle no one give a shit. I didn’t get - certainly, from any employer, or any resident that I worked with, I never got one single homophobic comment. 

Int.: That’s amazing.  

Sandra: I know [pause][laugh] I don’t know how, I was dead lucky. I have had other homophobic things, I won’t tell you about, but in point of view in my working life in Knowsley Council I was always welcome as an out lesbian, which is good.

Int.: Yeah. So, you’ve spoke about Doctor Duncan’s, was there anywhere else back in your youth that you would congregate to mainly as a LGBT space. 

Sandra: Well it was all - problem is and I’ve done a lot of research on it when I was younger, but it was all alcohol based, everything is alcohol based. So, it was either Doctor Duncan’s, over to The Masquerade, over to Jodie’s, then Jodie’s and The Masquerade closed. My partner Mel’s* family all lived in Derby, we used to go down there a lot because her two sisters they’re lesbians as well, which is great, three sisters all lesbian, and her mum and dad were fine in all. So, we used to go derby a lot and there were a few little gay bars there but, apart from bars no. There was nothing. And obviously, there was no social media, there was no online social communication. It was just ‘Go out to these pubs and meet people’and that was it. Nothing else at all. And the only one that I can remember anyway in Liverpool that was for lesbians was Tuesday nights in Doctor Duncan’s and that was it. 

Int.: Yeah, it seems to be a similar thing with most stories, even now. 

Sandra: No, there’s nowhere now really is there. 

Int.: There is the odd thing, but it is still very…

Sandra: That’s why I thought the LGBT youth worker was so important y’know because, it was a safe place for kids to meet, or young people to meet where they were with their peers, and you could do anything from art, sport, games, going on resi’s. We did all that with them, although that was really difficult as well. I think there’s - it’s probably rearing its head with the trans thing now. So how do you get consent for - a consent form for sixteen-year-old lesbian, from her parents, who don’t even know she’s out to take her to gay pride? 

Because we used to take them all to pride and we couldn’t - but how do you get the consent? It comes down to taking a massive professional risk, as you can imagine and I just kept taking, and fortunately it didn’t come to bite me on the arse at any point, but y’know, as a manager now I wouldn’t say “Ah don’t bother telling their ma’s, just take them all to pride”. It was different times, so it’s fraught even that, well you think That’s dead safe.

I’ve got a nephew; I’m trying to get him to come here actually. He’s gay and he just sits in his bedroom, he doesn’t go anywhere at all. He lives in Seaforth, he dresses differently than all the other kids, all of his peers, so he gets skitted and bullied when he goes out so it is a massive issue still. I think we come a long, long way but it’s a massive issue.

Int.: Still a while to go. 

Sandra: I was involved at one point in my life with MSF which is Manufacturing, Science and Finance union when I worked for the children’s society, and we were unusually gay. On the national committee there was me, a couple of gay men, and a couple of lesbian women, and a couple of just normal straight people but we were involved in a five-year campaign to even get the possibility of lesbian and gay fostering on the agenda and look at it now. One of my friends and her partner have just had a baby on the NHS. So, if you look at it like that, we’ve come miles and miles, but we’ve still got a long way to go, because my nephew has got nowhere safe to meet his mates. There’s no women only spaces, which I think would be nice for young women, and, it’s still not great is it? But y’know it’s fucking… it’s slow moving. So, there’s nowhere else, that was it. So you tend to - well what I did, was focus mainly on after you get sick of scene which is like a cattle market honest to god y’know, it’s not really - It’s probably the most unsafe place for a young lesbian or gay person go on the scene in the 80’s because it’s just like y’know. So, once you got sick of that it was just like, do your job, family, friends, no real lesbian identity stuff - communally that you particularly, that I particularly got the chance to join in with.  

Int.: So, what was the atmosphere like for you when section 28 was all coming in?

Sandra: Hmm, there was murder. I think because the people I was hanging round with, even though they weren’t gay, were political. Most people who I knew were pretty outraged by that whole concept of section 28, but I mean, it was tied up with a load of other political things at the time as well, so it wasn’t just that. It was like, unemployment was massive, there was racism stuff. There was loads of stuff, and I think erm…it just – I mean honest to god, section 28 had been repealed about 10 years, and I went into school about doing an LGBT surgery or doing some service in the school and they went “Oh we can’t do that because of section 28”, I went “Oh you’re having a fucking laugh aren’t yeah, that was gone 10 years ago”. So, I think the impact of it was really, really, really bad. I mean it’s all kicking off now isn’t it? I saw it on the telly with the sort of positive books and stories they’re bring in about relationships and all relationships education, and how it’s sort of resurfacing a little bit now. But no, for us it was like, right we’re gonna have to campaign, have a demo, write to so and so, we’re not gonna accept this. It was very much a time where if it happened, we’d all be on the bounce and we just stayed on the bounce and we just campaigned and campaigned until…until it went – whether it’s ever really gone. I think that’s the difference now, because y’know, if some of the things that are happening now would have happened in the 80’s or early 90’s, there would have been murder. I think there’s like - for me, it’s like there’s almost like a complacency around politics in the west, the more affluent and the more material and technological based things have got the more complacent people have got politically. There’s less awareness now, there’s less willingness, there’s less sense of a community and less willingness to put yourself on the line or be active in that, to make a difference. So, I think I’ve had a marvellous life, because I’ve had a chance to do all those demos. [laughs]

Int.: Have you seen a change in being LGBT in Liverpool and around this area? 

Sandra: Well in terms of – It’s like what you said before, in terms of services and support, and y’know, awareness of the real issues, probably not that much no. There’s probably pretty much, once you scratch the surface, it’s still pretty shite, being a sixteen-year-old lesbian. Erm…and I don’t know if it’s worse if everyone knows about it than it was before when it was just total ignorant bliss. I wouldn’t compare what was worse for people. I suppose the changes for me are… it is less of a shock to people, it’s more culturally acceptable than it was, it’s more okay to be gay or identify however you want, so there’s a little bit more freedom in terms of people’s awareness. There’s a lot more legal stature that means you can’t as easily discriminate, and I don’t mean that means you can’t discriminate but y’know there’s the gender recognition act and lots and lots of bits of legislation that we didn’t have designed to protect people’s rights and people’s right in employment, that’s a difference. It’s slightly more socially acceptable I think today, and I could be wrong because I’m not 17 and I don’t know what it feels like. I can just demand – I’m not one of these who goes “Arr, they’ve got it fucking easy now. We were persecuted”. Because I personally wasn’t persecuted, I think I was dead lucky. I don’t know whether it’s easy - I wouldn’t say it was easy at all, it’s just different. So, I think the difference is, as I said, people have got more legal rights and I think just culturally, culture might have calmed down a bit. I don’t think, the education was you see – the main sort of ideological controls of the state, is the educational system, the family, the church, the media, y’know that sort of thing. Well if you think about it, they’ve all relaxed a little bit. The church… is dead, it’s covered in dust, one of mine that, [whispers] ‘The church is covered in dust’, [laughs] erm… y’know it’s sort of been the victim of its own demise, who wants to live like that?  The church doesn’t – whereas we probably had a fear of “Oh my god, we can’t do that otherwise we’ll go to hell, and god won’t love us”. That might have gone a bit. Education system will at least mention it, teach it, allow people to be it. Try to save God, the myth, they are… and I know that it’s often just a load of rhetoric and they do fuck all, but in theory. The media, well I mean, since the Beth Jordache kiss in Brookside, that was the very first public representation of lesbianism on British television, can’t remember what date it was? 

Int.: I think it was ’90…

Sandra: See it was only, like, yesterday, wasn’t it? 

Int.: ’90 something. 

Sandra: Yeah it was nineties Brookside, I loved it - and then lots more women coming out, I mean, not because of Beth Jordache but y’know,I think the only out women were Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova, y’know, tennis stars. I think what’s her name, Joan Armatrading… Do you know Joan Armatrading? 

Int.: No

Sandra: Joan Armatrading was probably one of the first female singers to come out. Right, you listen to Joan Armatrading, she’s brilliant! [laughs]

Int.: I will. I’ll go away and listen to it after this.  

Sandra: Especially her old stuff. I went to see her last year in The Phil [The Philharmonic], she’s still knocking round. I’m going to see KD Lang next week. You started getting…. Y’know - who’s the other one who I loved? Black, guitar? 

Int.: Billie Holiday? 

Sandra: No, no - Out lesbian, it’ll come to me in a minute. So then you started getting more media. So there you go, the church, the school, the media…erm, the family then. So then, there was no such thing as a family that didn’t have a Mum or Dad and kids, or divorced parents and kids. Now, you just haven’t got the nuclear family, you’ve got same sex families, you’ve to different make ups of family, so that tenet of the state broke. If you look at all the little tenets of the state, y’know on the sort of, on the ideological side, they’ve all shifted a bit, so must made a bit of a difference, on the political side. You can’t be arrested for being gay now. If you’re a guy, you can be gay in the army, the laws are there to try and protect you a little bit more. So I think things have shifted. Probably quite a lot in a short time, but I still think we’ve got a long way to go. 

Int.: Oh yeah, for sure. 

Sandra: For sure.

Int.: Definitely. Are there any places that you have either in the past or now avoid?

Sandra: Right, well let me tell you my big homophobia story now because everyone’s got one, haven’t they? 

Int.: Yeah, unfortunately. 

Sandra: Me and Mel* moved into our dream house in Waterloo and we were buying it, which I think it was like, a lot of money - and we were buying this house and we were so happy there, and we had two little rescue dogs and the world was lovely. We were both working, we could afford to go on holiday and just y’know, nice little domestic bliss. 

All my nieces and nephews were always coming to stay for the weekend, lovely! But we had a really homophobic neighbour so, it started off of, he rang the environmental health over the dogs - He rang the RSPCA over the dogs and saying we were treating them cruelly. And then, it started with damage to property, so he keyed me car, and then every morning I’d get up for work my car tyre had been slashed, and once every car tyre and this went on - I got the Police involved, and this went on for about eighteen months, and it just kept escalating, and escalating, and escalating, and escalating. The fire brigade came in, they knew it was a hate crime, hate crime stuff - They put smoke detectors in every room, we had special stuff put on the glass to make it bulletproof, we had something put on the letterbox so if you put petrol through it, it wouldn’t set fire to the house. The police set up a big surveillance from our front bedroom - and y’know, that was eventually, after about 26 incidents, the Police eventually went “No, no it’s a hate crime. We agree with you, we’re on it”. Then I got a new car, brand new, well it wasn’t brand new, but it was brand new to me. It was only a couple of years old, and I got up the morning after I got it and it’d been acid attacked, and all the paint was coming off the car, all bubbling. And he was just horrible, every time we walked in and out of the house he was like menacingly aggressive, shouting something or saying something. And in the end - the acid attack and then two days after that he threatened to kill, he was going to kill me, he was going “Watch yourself” because he was gonna murder me.  In the end, as we said you just can’t – the stress of it, we’ve had two years of it. So, we just put a few things in a case and went to my Mum’s and the police advised us, they said “yeah, maybe get out for now”. So, we left the house, we needed to have a Police escort if we wanted to go back into the house if we wanted to get any of our possessions, that’s how in danger the Police thought we were. So, he got arrested, dur de dur de dur, it never went to court. The CPS threw it out, lack of evidence, although we had a file like that. So, he’d been arrested for all this and then let off because the CPS had threw it out, so the Police sort of said to us, “You aren’t going to be able to go back and live there now”. We had to sell the house, lost about twenty grand on the house because of the way the housing - if we stayed there, we could of rode it out, but the house prices dipped so we lost everything. All our furniture, all our possessions, were just in my Ma’s room. 

So that’s my worst homophobic incident - and nobody helped. The Police were great. They were blaming the CPS, the CPS were probably blaming the Police, saying “Well y’know that - you can see someone throwing stuff over the car, but you can’t work out it’s his face so, it won’t stand up in court.” So, it just all got thrown out and we lost the house.  

Int.: That’s horrible. 

Sandra: Yeah, I know, it was awful. It didn’t – I mean y’know, it didn’t help our relationship, because the stress we’d been under there and just after that I got diagnosed with breast cancer, and then Mel* got diagnosed with it the week after. So then we had nine months - a year of chemo, surgery, radio therapy, and nowhere to live. And then we eventually come round out of it and got somewhere else, but it was over by then. I think we’d just been through too much, we wanted different things in the end. We ended up splitting up about five years ago. So yeah, that was the homophobia. But you know, that’s the only main one I can think off, which was serious enough like, it cost us a fucking fortune and the emotional turmoil was horrendous.  

Int.: Well, it was full on harassment.  

Sandra: Full on, constant harassment but there wasn’t enough evidence to get him done, even though we had surveillance in the house for six months. He was always dead smart, he’d have a little balaclava on, or the camera had just missed him. We were in the bloody Police Station and the Police were like, “Oh look, look, look” and they were going “What, what, what?” “There’s a fox” I’m not fucking interested in a fox! “Ooh it’s an urban fox” [laughs] “Oooh yeah isn’t that great”.  

Int.: ‘That’s great but you’ve missed all the crap that’s happening to my house!’ 

Sandra: So that was – well there must have been - there was, over 20 incidents, and there was other sly bits as well. But I think just the stress of not feeling safe in your own home, which was our dream home, we’d worked fucking 25 years to get to buying that house. We put everything we had into it and we lost everything in it. And that was only - how long ago was that? That must have been around about 2005, I think, so, it was fifteen, less than fifteen, ten years ago. It wasn’t that long ago that that happened and I’m sure that sort of stuff is still happening now because, there are some wicked little shits out there, who just do stuff like that.  

Int.: It’s mad, the lengths that they’ll go to, to another person. It’s horrible. Well…

Sandra: On that happy note! [laughs] 

Int.: Well, I was gonna say, is that - do you avoid Waterloo now or?  

Sandra: Well I did. St. Johns Road.

Int.: Because everywhere else, do you feel pretty safe round most of Liverpool? 

Sandra: Yeah, I feel totally safe. I live off Lodge lane. I walk up and down Lodge Lane on my own in the night, I don’t feel unsafe anywhere. I have been going to St. John’s Road a little bit more in the last year, because a friend of mine, Carol* has got a little jewellery shop down there and I go to Caz’s - If you’re vegan or anything like that, you will love Caz’s cakes – she does this big vegan, and it’s on St. John’s road. So, I just sort of go and hope I don’t bump into him and I do feel a little nervous like, I’m always kind off vigilant, y’know, looking round but I don’t think I went down there for what, ten years, eleven years. I’ve just always avoided the place since.  

Int.: Yeah understandably. 

Sandra: But, I’m back now, I mean I don’t even know whether he still lives there. 

Int.: Yeah, but I guess it’s like, the unknowing. It’s unnerving, isn’t it?

Sandra: It’s just like y’know it triggers it all doesn’t it?  I go down there and I think Oh god, I’m gonna see the house. Oh I loved that house. I suppose you get to the point where - well I -  I can’t say where you, or anyone should be able, but I sort of think Well I’m just going to have to let it go, because it’s just making me feel…it’s just not making me happy. You just have to let go otherwise you’d just never do anything again would you? 

Int.: No. You’d just dwell on it forever and that’s…

Sandra: That’s not good. So, I just buried it somewhere in me garden. I’ve got a multi-story car park in me head where I dump things I don’t really want to deal with. Everyone else goes to therapy [laughs] but I’m happy with my little car park. 

Int.: Yeah, just leave it in the car park, it’s fine. In the basement. Bottom floor. 

Sandra: Yeah, that’s in the basement.

Int.: Where in Liverpool would you say that you congregate to most, and where you feel the most visible and accepted? 

Sandra: Ooh, I don’t know, everywhere. Well, in town, I’m always in town. I think the city centre is quite relaxed. Do you know what - and even though that’s happened to me, I’ve always -  I think it was because people just accepted, and I might have been lucky, but y’know dead, dead, rough, scouse people have always, sort of like, never been arsed. They’ve gotten over it dead quick and there’s never been an issue, and this is some of the most poorest and hardest places/communities, I’ve always felt quite safe being a lesbian, in Liverpool and in Knowsley and I think, I do feel dead safe. I feel safe walking around town, I don’t know if that’s just me.

Int.: That’s good. I think it does all come from experience, doesn’t it? I think, if you’ve grown up, apart from having one really serious major one. 

Sandra: Horrific one! I haven’t had - I mean obviously I wasn’t bullied me in school because no one knew what it was. So, no one could even conceptualise it to skit it. 

Int.: and your Mum was… 

Sandra: My Ma was fine. 

Int.: So it’s not, you’ve just sort of…

Sandra: My Nan. Even my lovely Nan who didn’t like - never liked Mel*. “Oh that Mel!”* She was always really quite disgusted, got over it and got on dead well with Mel* and just used to say to me things like, “Oh they’ll be marrying you, when they’re marrying odd ones” [laughs] and of course, they are marrying odd ones now - I’ve been married twice. [laughs]

Int.: So where would you like to see Liverpool go in the future in terms of the LGBT community, LGBT support, all that kind of stuff? 

Sandra: Right well I’ll tell you what upsets me most at the moment, as a lesbian, is sort of the reaction of some lesbian women to our trans sisters. 

Int.: Yeah. 

Sandra: I think that’s really upsetting and I think that needs dealing with because… 

Int.: You don’t even want to be associated with it. 

Sandra: I can’t even – I can’t even understand where they’re coming from. That they would, having been discriminated against as lesbians, that they would discriminate against other human beings who want to be identified as women. I can’t understand the logic of it. I think there’s this sort of fear in, sort of gay politics within them, that - I just can’t me head around, I think it’s really dangerous. I think, if they carry on this sort of excluding trans women path and campaigning, the cheeky bastards have even decided to campaign, because I know we were on a little demo the other year outside – I’m made up people march – Big love trans sister. That needs sorting out, I think at the very core of it, this sort of - I think what we’re seeing is trans women, and maybe even trans guys marginalised within a community, which I think is disgusting and it may as well be apartheid all over again. It’s like taking us back, it’s like turning then back the social clock, it’s like all the things we’ve fought for in terms of our humanity as human beings, in terms of our human rights. They’re trying to like… 

Int.: Deny someone else it. 

Sandra: What is that all about? I’m dead against all that, I think we’ve got to welcome - if a woman wants to identify as a woman, if a woman says to me, or a person says to me “I want to identify as woman” I’d say “Nice one sister. Come on, join. Let’s be friends”. That worries me, so I think that needs addressing, I think that needs dealing with. I think that there needs to be some awareness around that, because otherwise - But you see feminism, that’s feminism for you, it’s shit. It’s the most – feminism, as a political spectrum is as divided as the whole political spectrum. I think that’s why I resigned from the women’s study course now, it’s all coming back to me. Because it was like, categorising women y’know, ‘She’s a Marxist feminist, she’s a lesbian feminist, she’s a radical feminist, she’s a liberal feminist - Jesus, it just dilutes it all too much. So, that is a real issue, I think that needs addressing. I think there needs to be - I’ve got a passion for everyone, but in particular I’ve got a passion for young people and I think there needs to be a lot more, safe spaces for young LGBTQI- I’m gonna run out of letters, and I’m not saying that cynically… y’know, for people on the queer spectrum, there needs to be a lot more services and a lot more safe places, because I know them issues of - mental health issues, depression and self-harm, it’s so intense for young people and that’s why I think this project here [referring to Comics Youth] is fantastic. And I think most youth projects are pretty inclusive by today’s – in today’s standard.

Unfortunately, that’s where now, where all the austerity is a disgrace. So, I also think we need a different political…leader/system, that is more based on the welfare state, that was so wonderfully created and there was fuck all wrong with it, so why have you dismantled it? I think we need to get a lot back, more in terms of services for people. I think we need to have a more socialist outlook…erm, in terms of how we manage society. I suppose, my little Marxist also thinks, well, everything is about money and materialism and technology, which I’m not against any of these things, I love them all myself, but what about people’s emotional development, spiritual development – I mean I know there’s no church… y’know, what about people’s sense of self? How do they meet and connect to other people? I think that’s really important and we should be making opportunities like that for everyone, but y’know, maybe with a little helping hand for young people who are feeling isolated because of the way they identify.  So, I’d like to see that change. 

I’d like to see Everton win the league or at least one piece of silverware before I die. [laughs]

Int.: I’m a red, so… 

Sandra: That’s okay darling, I forgive you. [laughs] I think it comes down to the same as, it come down to in 1974, for me what needs to change is the balance of wealth and availability of resources for people, to be able to co-exist in an equal and safe way. Especially services for young people. They all need building back up, because they have been absolutely decimated over the past ten years and you’re seeing the results of it. I can imagine that you get loads of young people who are at crisis at the time when they get here. Which it was like that for some of them at KYM [Knowsley Youth Mutual - y’know. I think we need to stop building hotels and student accommodation, absolutely I’m sick of it, and we need more space for culture and art and sport and creativity in the City because there’s none, it’s all just about big business. I’d like to see some independent shops and boutiques because they are all chains. Is this what you mean? Is this what you’d like to see different? [laughs] Little things like that? 

Int.: Yeah and make them all queer. 

Sandra: Yeah! I mean it’s ironic, isn’t it? Primark have got a big rainbow shoe or something, on the window because it’s pride… That’s just to attract the pink pound. I bet you, they contribute nothing to pride, I bet you they don’t positively promote employment of LGBT, y’know …It’s wrong but I think the trans thing is the next – y’know I think if we can just see trans people just being allowed to be themselves …that will be a good sign as well, for the future.

Int.: Yeah definitely. So, if you had one message to your younger self or to the LGBTQIA+ community now what would that be?

Sandra: You’re wonderful and amazing. Keep going. 

Int.: Amazing, perfect.