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Aunt Nell

@auntnell_

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We produce timeless podcasts popping with improbable connections and human stories.
Brought to you by the makers of #TheLogBooks
[email protected]

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Pale Horse is pleased to present ‘Gay’s The Word at Pale Horse’. From 15-17 October the gallery will host Gay’s The Word as part of Sean McKenzie’s exhibition ‘The Night Shift’. The exhibition centres on McKenzie’s Switchboard series, a body of work developed in response to the historic archives of Switchboard, the volunteer-run helpline that has provided 24/7 support to LGBTQIA+ communities since 1974. Authors Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, whose book ‘The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened’ also draws on the Switchboard archive, have generously curated a selection of six books for the pop-up bookstore.

Established in 1979 by a group of gay socialists as a bookshop and community space, Gay’s The Word is the UK’s oldest LGBT+ bookshop and serves as a touchstone for the broader LGBTQIA+ community. Switchboard is the UK’s LGBTQIA+ support line. Switchboard (previously London Gay Switchboard and later London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard) was founded in 1974 following the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK. At its inception, the information and support helpline operated for 5 hours every evening above a bookshop in London, near King’s Cross station. Due to rapidly increasing demand it very quickly became 24 hours. To this day, every phone call, instant message or email is answered by a volunteer from the LGBTQIA+ community.

Gay’s The Word at Pale Horse
15–17 October 2026
Extended hours: Thursday 15 October, 6-8pm

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From 1977 until 1982 I was a volunteer at a pioneering #LGBT phone service called Gay Switchboard. With two other ex-volunteers of my era, Keith Mason and Ian Rogan we have developed a website and blog about the origin and early history of Gay Switchboard, which has just gone live. You can view the site at
https://gayinthe1970s.uk

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🍌 READ. WATCH. LISTEN.

A mix of things we've found interesting, useful or just worth sharing. Hopefully you'll find something in there to inspire your RSE practice too.

👀 READ: Sexism in the History Curriculum (KS3)

📺 WATCH: This is Endometriosis

🎧 LISTEN: The Log Books

Want more? Check out our monthly newsletter for exclusive insights, recommendations, resources and offers. Sign up via the link in our bio!

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DELIGHTED to be curating some of my fave recent short queer films at the gorgeous @_ladbrokehall in West London, with @auntnell_.

Tues July 28th
7pm
£10 / free for Patrons
TICKET LINK IN BIO

From an 18th century secret pub to a gleaming modern hospital, from an European conflict zone to an apartment in Mexico City, people from the LGBTQ+ community are just trying to get along with life. This programme of short films traverses time and our planet to bring five intimate portraits of queer life. With an introduction from yours truly ;)

Pic from Buffer Zone by @lensman88.

Films:
@ragdolls_shortdoc
@sweetheart__film
@padelproductions
and more!

Filmmakers:
@lensman88
@lauriebisceglia
@aamyadler
@lukewintour
@1keagirl
@choruspinchoff
and more!

Please spread the word and bring your pals! X x

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👂👂👂👂👂👂🌈For your listening pleasure we’d encourage you to listen to The Log Books based around the archive of call records from @switchboardlgbt, the national LGBT+ helpline. We've been listening to it after talking to one of the programme makers. Did you know that @derbyshirelgbt Derbyshire LGBT+ started life as a helpline known as Derby Friend? We've yet to find our own log books from that time, but hope they turn up one day.

The podcast offers a fascinating insight into LGBT+ life from the start of Switchboard. There are references to Derbyshire and Chesterfield in the first season. At times they are a hard listen but there are moments of pure joy, love, compassion and humour. Give it a listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts.

#thelogbooks #podcast #derbyshire #derby #chesterfield #lgbthistory #hivhistory Image of people on listening on a telephone and text over the image in the style of old fashioned print. The text says The Log Books. Other text is written in the caption of this image.

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How did the petition for a public inquiry into Section 28 and LGBTQ+ censorship come about? What is a public inquiry?

Hugely grateful to @adam.zmith and @tashwalker85 for discussing our campaign on their amazing Logbooks podcast, and for their support right from the beginning ❤️

Petition link in bio @section28justice

#lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtqhistory #section28 #lgbtqplus

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Thank you @tashwalker85 from @auntnell_ for braving the rain yesterday to deliver a fantastic interview training session to team Heritage Hotline @campmargate!

We discussed why it is important to hear and preserve LGBTQ+ stories, learned active listening techniques, and considered ways to embed care in our practice.

Also, did you know that "Aunt Nell" means "to listen" in Polari?👂

We are starting to line up oral history interviews to archive @bishopsgateinstitute and share in a podcast series. If you have any stories about LGBTQ+ Thanet from the 60s-00's or know someone who'd be brilliant to talk to, please get in touch ☎️

The Heritage Hotline is a @margatepride project made possible with funding from @heritagefunduk 😘

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“F✨ck society for twisting people”, one entry that stuck with Tash Walker and stuck with me too.

Since December I’ve been listening to The Log Books podcast, starting with the very first episode from 2019. @tashwalker85 and @adam.zmith ‘s voices have accompanied most of my runs over the period. I planned to buy the book while in London at @gaysthewordbookshop ,hoping to get a signed copy as I couldn’t attend an event (maybe I did an inner happy dance when I found that there was one signed copy left).
I love the podcast, I knew I would love the book, but I didn’t know how much (that is to say A LOT). It completes the podcast so well. It is an essential history book, covering 50 years of queer Britain, from the log books of Swithchboard, the LGBT+ helpline and the national archive. But the way Tash Walker and Adam Zmith thread their own stories and experience with the log books entries and the interviews of contributors makes the book so much more alive and moving. It brought tears to my eyes on several occasions.
The word “care” is very present and you can feel the care with which they handle the stories they’re being told or reading, and you feel how much they care about the people the elders they met along the way. There is a lot of respect, love but also anger and outrage.
Being ace, that little paragraph mentioning ace people though absent from the log books and the interviews means the world to me.
THANK YOU !

Note: the font for the title is the one used for the podcast, whose artwork was created by Natalie Doto.

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We feel very lucky to include Tash Walker’s poem ‘Dear Section 28’ in issue 2 of Inherent Vice. The poem is a moving personification of Section 28 that draws on memory, history, and lived experience. In 2022, it was broadcast on Radio 4’s ‘Short Cuts’ but, excitingly, this is its first manifestation in print.

Tash is a poet, writer, podcast producer and community organiser, who has a special interest in using audio to bring hidden and untold stories from archives to life. They are a founding director of @auntnell_ production company, a queer historian, and the co-author of ‘The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened’.

Enjoy the full poem in issue 2 of Inherent Vice - LGBTQIA+ Activism in Heritage

To get your copy visit the link in our bio

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Slide 1
A drag queen in front of a bus in Albert Square, Manchester, UK, during a Stonewall rally for repeal of Section 28. 15th July 2000.
Photographer: Unknown
licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Slide 3
@tashwalker85
Photographer: Shoun Obana
Courtesy of Shoun Obana

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#QueerActivism
#Section28
#LGBTQIAHeritage
#QueerArts
#TheLogBooks

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That’s me at 15 - all big hair and big glasses - wouldn’t look out of place today tbf! It was 1988, the same year I wrote a GSCE English essay arguing against Section 28 - saying that you can’t “promote” homosexuality, that people are just born gay - before I had even come out to myself mind you. I didn’t know I was queer yet, but here’s me defending queer people in my English essay at an all girls, pretty conservative mostly South Asian secondary school in east London in Thatcher’s Britain. Living on the edge!

Swipe to listen to the last clip I’m posting from my interview with @adam.zmith for The Log Books about the hidden backstory of queer Muslim life in Britain from the 90s til now, and how me and a handful of others started a secret queer Muslim charity that became the longest running in the world. Check out the full episode in my bio 🔗

#queermuslim #lgbt #lgbthistory #section28

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🙈 Sharing a bit more of my queer Muslim story from my chat with the delectable @adam.zmith on The Log Books. Growing up British Pakistani and queer in the 80s and 90s I didn’t know any South Asian LGBTQ+ people, I didn’t know any queer Muslims. Not even one. I literally thought I was the only one in the world.
Turns out there were loads of us! All living completely separate parallel lives, all isolated, all wondering the same thing.✨

If you wanna know more about the hidden backstory of queer Muslim life in Britain from the 90s til now and how we started the first LGBTQ+ Muslim support charity @imaanlgbtqi , I’ve put the full episode on The Log Books in my bio 🔗

#queermuslim #lgbt #lgbthistory #queer

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✨Nervously shared some of my queer Muslim story with @adam.zmith and @tashwalker85 on The Log Books recently. Uff where do you even start.

As a young person I spent many many years isolated, battling this stuff alone before I finally found my people. Mid-late 20s, I co-founded @imaanlgbtqi - the first LGBTQ+ Muslim support charity in the UK. Honestly it was euphoric: suddenly there were people from my own background, same cultural and religious hang-ups, same battles with family, arranged marriages, racism, Islamophobia, all that stuff.

The feeling of finally not being the only one was such a huge relief and incredibly healing. I know loads of others like me are still waiting for that in 2026.

I’m gonna share more of this over the next little while - the hidden backstory of queer Muslim life in Britain from the 90s til now - for folks who never knew this history existed.

🎙️Putting the full episode on The Log Books in my bio ✨✨

#queermuslim #lgbt #lgbthistorymonth

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