Oldest Gay in the Village....

One last picture from the Pride Parade on Saturday. This gentleman is 91 and was at the front of the parade on his mobility scooter leading it around the route from Castkefield to Canal Street. There was a huge cheer as he went past and he seemed to be enjoying it.

As he was 91 that means he must have been born in 1923. He spent the first 44 years of his life in danger of imprisonment if he acted on any of his natural inclinations. That was because of an Act of Parliament of 1861 that brought the prison sentences in. Allegedly it was also supposed to do the same for Lesbian women but Queen Victoria refused to sign it because she didn't accept that women could do anything like that. While we look at the 1861 Act as a backward step it actually was a step forward as it replaced the Buggery Act of 1533 (yup! that's what they called it) that had the death penalty for homosexual behaviour.

Since 1967 being gay hasn't carried the prison sentence in England And Wales but it took to 1981 in Scotland and 1982 in Northern Ireland. Now the age of consent has been equalised, there are civil partnerships and marriage.

This gentleman has seen huge changes in his lifetime. Manchester has gone from a position where gay people had to keep their inclinations and activities secret, a city where Alan Turing, who deciphered the Enigma Code and shortened WW2 and then went on to develop the world's first working computer, laying the foundations of the world we live in today, was forced to commit suicide because he was gay. It's now a city with a thriving GLBT culture where a 91 year old guy can ride along Deansgate on Saturday afternoon and be cheered for what he is.