Stories

“When I came out, my family were all very cool about it. If I could tell my younger self anything it would be that I could have come out sooner – accept yourself sooner.”

“Over time, things do get better and improve. Nowadays, I think generally the whole atmosphere for people who are LGBT+ is much better than it used to be.”

“I made myself a promise that I would never tiptoe around anybody on the issue of my sexual identity, ever again.”

“Libraries are amazing places to promote positive LGBT+ role models and resources. That’s what they’re all about: access to information.”

“My favourite part about helping with the LGBT archive is looking back on the timeline, seeing how we’ve built up more equality than we had.”

Dipak Dristi was set up to help women who speak Gujarati to come together in order to make them feel less isolated within their community.

Joan is retired and has been living in a tiny studio apartment with no broadband and poor ventilation for over two years. She has been trying to move out for some time but her requests to the housing association have been ignored.

Mark had been working at a telecommunications company for 24 years before being made redundant at the end of 2020, and at 55 was still a way off retirement.