OTP'20 Belfast "Mary Whitehouse and her Shropshire girls" Presentaion by Peter Roscoe

Abstract: THE LOVE THAT DARES TO SPEAK ITS NAME: MARY WHITEHOUSE AND HER SHROPSHIRE GIRLS. I have lived in Shropshire for most of my life, It was while Mary Whitehouse taught at Madeley Modern School (then a Shropshire County Council school) in 1963, that her determination to tackle (what she saw as a rising tide of immorality) came to fruition. It seems the response of her girls to the ‘Profumo Affair’ (their positive take on Christine Keeler and the other women involved, in particular), was pivotal.
A principal target for her was always the BBC and what she saw as its role in the decline of moral standards; she was the leading figure behind the ‘National Viewers and Listeners Association, formed in 1965. Along the way her targets were many; she became a ‘household name’ and developed a style of attack that was all her own.
Hostility toward homosexuality was a given. Her prosecution of ‘Gay News’ and editor, Denis Lemon, in 1977, was a very low point in our history. Many people today are unaware of her and do not know of her successful attack on the LGBTQ+ community. It now seems incredible that she was able to use blasphemy law to censure the newspaper ‘Gay News’ for publishing Richard Kirkup’s poem ‘The Love that Dares to Speak its Name’. It is equally astonishing, now, that the court handed down a suspended jail sentence to Denis Lemon. The Presentation reviews where she was coming from, why we had to endure her and how, with great ingenuity and fun, we fought back. The girls at Madeley Modern School do remember her; ‘Power crazed dictator witch!’ and ‘….evil old cow made me laugh kept going on about sex morals all the bloody makes you wonder’ are recent reflections. Peter Roscoe.

Presented at the OUTing the Past International Festival of LGBT+ History Belfast; hosted by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) on Saturday 14th March 2020 organised jointly by PRONI & Cara-Friend.

For more information see the following websites:
OUTing the Past [OTP] @ https://www.outingthepast.com/
Cara-Friend @ https://cara-friend.org.uk/
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland [PRONI] @ https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni

OTP is delighted to celebrate our Festival Patrons, Partners, Sponsors & Supporters, together delivering a unique annual public showcase of LGBT+ History, including: Arts Council of England |Belfast City Council | Ben Cohen Foundation | Birmingham Museums & Galley | Bishopsgate Institute | Bolton Library & Museums Service | Bournemouth University |Brighton Pavilion & Museums |Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives |British Museum |Campaign for Homosexual Equality |Cara-Friend | Charleston Trust | Cork City Council |Cork Gay Project |Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Government of Ireland | Diva | DLPiper | Exeter City Council |GFest | Gay Times | Harvey Milk Foundation |The Higgins @ Bedford | IMAGINE Festival | Imperial War Museum |Kilmainham Goal Museum | Lancashire Archives |LGBT Foundation |LGBT HM(UK) | Leeds Museums & Galleries | Leicester Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Centre | Liverpool John Moores University | London School of Economics | Museum of Free Derry | Museum of Liverpool | Museum of London | National Archive (UK) | National Gallery of Ireland |National Queer Archive of Norway @ Bergen University of Bergen | National Maritime Museum | National Museum of Ireland | New York Irish Centre | NW UNITE the Union | Peoples History Museum | Peter Tatchell Foundation |Pride Cymru | Public Record Office of Northern Ireland | Queen’s University Belfast | Schools Out (UK) | The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust | Shrewsbury University Centre |Södertälje konsthall | Somerset Libraries | Sunderland University |Tupilak: Queer cultural workers in the Nordic area | Ulster Museum | Ulster University |UNISON: Northern |University College Cork |York LGBT HM | Ulster Museum | Ulster University



Special thanks to our Academic Advisory Panel: Dr Elisabeth Engebretsen (University of Stavanger), Dr Emma Vickers (Liverpool John Moores University), Dr Fia Sundevall (Stockholms Universitet), Dr Jana Funke (University of Exeter), Dr Jeff Evans (Liverpool John Moores University), Dr Jen Grove (University of Exeter), Dr Jeremiah D. Scully (University College Cork), Dr Brian Lacey, (Retired Archaeologist and Former Director of the Discovery Programme, Dublin), Prof. Molly Merryman (Kent State University), Prof. Rainer Schulze (University of Essex) & Prof. Ken Valente (Colgate University, USA).