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Lewisham’s lost gay pubs

I grew up in Lewisham borough in the 70s and 80s but knew nothing of the thriving LGBT pub scene there. So it was a real adventure to find out all about it from former regulars and bar staff. The emerging picture was wonderfully colourful, delightfully grubby, at times hilarious but also profoundly moving. It became obvious that what was going on locally in Lewisham was part of a much bigger story about finding community; supporting each other through tough times; pubs as safe spaces away from prejudice and hate; and what we lost when those – and so many other – pubs closed.

I wove the interviews together to create this 2-part podcast. It was commissioned by Bijou Stories and made as part of In Living Memory: A People’s History of Post-War Lewisham.

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Chiming during the pandemic

When I’m not producing audio for Tickertape Productions, I devise and lead Dotmaker Tours alternative London walks. What links the two ventures is my fascination with sound. For several years I have been leading a Sunday morning walk that’s all about sound and listening: The London Ear. Here’s a piece I wrote for Dotmaker Tours about an interesting change to the City’s Sunday soundscape as a result of the Coronavirus restrictions.

Update: I entered this recording for Sound of the Year 2020 and it was shortlisted for the top award! Read more here.

Chiming during the pandemic

Spectral frequency analysis of the bell ringing in stereo (top line for the left channel, and the bottom line for the right). Each vertical column represents a separate chime, and the brick shapes represent the frequencies of the bell’s different notes and harmonics.

The sound I have missed most since coronavirus broke out is that of church bells change ringing. When the country went into lockdown the ringing stopped as services were suspended. But even after they were resumed most ringers stayed away because of difficulties social distancing up a bell tower.

I came into the City of London on Sunday 6th September 2020 because I’d heard that St Paul’s Cathedral bells were back in action. Before the pandemic, I’d often bring people to the courtyard to listen to them ringing for 11.30am Eucharist, as part of The London Ear guided walk. The full twelve bells would create an immense noise as they rotated back and forth on wheels operated by ringers pulling ropes. All the reflected sound, overtones and passing traffic would make it hard to discern the notes being rung according to ‘methods’ (a bit like mathematical formulae for the changing sequences of bell strikes). The whole effect was spectacular, uplifting and a little disorienting.

With those memories in mind, my experience that Sunday morning felt surreal. Instead of the usual sea of sound, I heard just six bells quietly chiming the changes. For the first time, I could follow the patterns of notes. Church bells are carefully tuned to produce a ‘strike tone’ – the note that we perceive – and a range of harmonics (see image above of the spectral frequency analysis). I found my ear latching onto the harmonics hovering spookily a minor third above each bell’s strike tone. Apart from the occasional build up of buses there was little ambient noise to distract; only footsteps, chatter and the occasional bicycle wheeling across the courtyard. I spent most of my time just listening and taking in the strangeness of the situation. I did though make this short recording for my personal collection.

I since contacted the Cathedral’s Guild of ringers to find out what was happening. They explained the bells were being chimed using the Ellacombe apparatus attached to bells 3-8 (or what I would think of as bells F to D). It’s a mechanism that makes it possible for just one person to perform change ringing. They do this by pulling on ropes in a fixed frame to operate hammers that strike the insides of the bells which remain static throughout. I gather that in the past the Guild used the apparatus to chime for the early morning service each weekday; and in more recent (pre-Covid) times for the 8am service on Sundays. Since the pandemic, they have been using it for all real-life Sunday services (when the rules permit).

The person chiming the bells that Sunday morning was Leigh D Simpson. Here’s what Leigh had to say about his experience:

In many ways chiming feels like any performance. Apprehension is supplanted by concentration: that sort of concentration where time starts to drift and other concerns fade away. Having worked as an organist these sensations certainly felt familiar, but chiming brings its own character. Bells are so much more audible than other instruments and the bells of St Paul’s even more so, but my experience is entirely disconnected from any “audience”. Hidden behind the walls of the ringing chamber I might have an audience of thousands, or of none.

After nervous glances at the clock it’s time to stop. The loneliness intensifies. The walls that divide me from the world used to be a welcome home for our band of ringers but now it is only I. The sound of the bells fades into a vacuum.

I was very moved by the sense of lonely disconnectedness he describes. It feels so much a condition of our Covid times; and is something that I think makes the recording all the more meaningful.

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On weddings and all that love

On weddings and all that love


Some personal reflections on the wedding tributes we are producing for couples who have had to cancel their big day because of Coronavirus lockdown

I’ve been to some fabulous weddings of very dear friends and family over the years. But, if I’m completely honest, I didn’t really ‘get’ the whole marriage thing until recently. I think it had a lot to do with being gay and that quite painful sense that this was an institution from which my partner and I were excluded. Then, a couple of years after the laws were changed, we got married ourselves (that’s us in the photo!) and the penny dropped. The big revelation for me was the amount of love we felt on our big day – not just for each other (obviously!), but for and from all our family and friends.

Having had such a wonderful experience myself, I feel huge sympathy for couples who are having to postpone their weddings because of coronavirus social distancing. So it’s a real pleasure to be able to produce Audio Tributes for them.

One example is a couple — both NHS workers — who were due to marry in April. The sister of the bride-to-be approached me about producing something as a surprise gift. We discussed who would be good to speak to and she sounded them out about getting involved. I then set up and conducted recorded telephone and internet interviews with nine of the couple’s closest friends and family, and gathered voice messages from a further five.

After some very absorbing work mastering the sound quality and editing things into shape, the final feature took the form of a 25 minute ‘Lockdown Special’ tribute from people all over the country and even in Singapore. Between them they told the story of the couple and what’s great about them, and sent their well wishes. Here are some edited excerpts:

What struck me most from all the conversations and messages was the amount of love everyone had for the couple. There’s something rather magical about being able to capture that and bring it all together. Here’s what the bride-to-be said about it:

“Thank you so much for putting together the lockdown special. Everyone knew how disappointed we were when we had to postpone the wedding. It really was brilliant to hear my friends and family say those wonderful things. It really brightened up our day/week/month/year! I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and smiled till my face couldn’t take it!”

I like to think the tribute helped to recreate that warm fuzzy loved-up feeling that the couple would otherwise have had on their big day – as we did on ours.

If you would like to arrange an Audio Tribute for a couple you know, we’d love to hear from you.

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Ums and ers: the sound of thinking

I spend a huge amount of time listening back over recorded interviews when I’m working on Spoken Portraits and podcasts. Once I have organised and cut the ‘tape’ into a flowing, engaging story, there’s the question of all those hesitations. There can be hundreds of ‘ums’, ‘ers’ and long pauses in a lengthy interview, adding up to several minutes (I make no criticism here: I’m a big ‘ummer’). I love capturing the way people sound when they speak naturally. But there’s a balance to be struck between realism and holding the listener’s attention!

Here are a few ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ salvaged from the cutting room floor that I’ve mixed together. I like to think of it as the sound of people thinking.

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The shocking past

The shocking past

Image: Crying Girl by Roy Lichtenstein, 1964


Sometimes when I’m interviewing someone for a Spoken Portrait I learn things about the past that really shock me.

An extreme example came out of a conversation with a lawyer who had for a time specialised in family law. We were talking about women’s rights and in particular how things have changed for married women, and she gave the example of victims of domestic abuse (thankfully, this did not affect her personally).

Back in the 1950s it was generally denied that domestic violence happened at all. If a woman was being abused by her husband she might confide in her GP. Typically, however, doctors would respond as if it were a problem with the wife and not her partner. So, if she had been suffering as a result from depression and panic attacks the doctor would focus on that. Worse still, it was quite common for doctors to recommend that women in this situation be lobotomised (yes, you read that right).

A lobotomy, if you don’t already know, is a procedure that involves severing connections in the brain’s pre-frontal cortex. It used to be a standard medical treatment for mental disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia. The idea was that the surgery would cut off the source of the patient’s feelings of extreme anguish. The price for this, though, was that they would generally be left emotionally numb and intellectually impaired: think Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

The majority of lobotomy patients were women. 5% of patients died. Some were left suicidal, others severely brain damaged.

It takes conversations like these to appreciate just how much the world can change in a lifetime. Thankfully, the practice of lobotomising people with mental health issues was banned in most countries by the 1970s in favour of modern psychiatric drugs and therapies. Depressingly, there seems to be no end to domestic abuse. But thanks to the efforts of women’s rights campaigners, it is at least now recognised as a serious criminal offence rather than a problem with the victim. Law reforms mean that those who wish to stay at home with their children can apply to do so and have their partner excluded, where before they would have had to leave if the house was owned in the husband’s name. And those that dare not stay can seek safety in the network of women’s refuges started by Erin Pizzey in the 1970s.