Reading oral histories, as part of West Yorkshire Queer Archives, and meeting people for chats, AGEOFTHE have created an artwork commemorating the women’s, and lesbian discos of the old Dock Green and Woodpecker pub. Facing the site of the old pub, which still bears its name the clothing, described as a uniform, of the lesbian community in 1980s Leeds, namely dungarees and Doc Martens, are displayed here to remember wild nights on the dancefloor. The discos, alternating between the two pubs, were well attended and gave a place for lesbians to come together in a queer community often focusing on gay men. Lesbians in Leeds also formed all women squats and housing co-ops, supported those with HIV/AIDS and stood up against violence and murder of women.
Photo credit: West Yorkshire Archive Service Leeds, LC/ENG/CP, box 44, no.5
Lesbian Discos, The Dock Green
Free entry
23rd September 2023, 10am – 4pm
Location: Beckett Street, across the road from the site of the old Dock Green Inn
In an interview for West Yorkshire Queer Archives, Susuan, The other Susan, Val and Ray discuss the Lesbian Discos at the Dock Green, and the way they dressed. This has inspired us to commemorate these disco using imagery from their words, the words of workshop participants painted on to the uniform of their youth – dungarees and Doc Martens.
The other Susan: We were also involved in supporting The Miners’ Wives; and so that was also – it wasn’t only lesbians who were involved in that, but it was certainly led by lesbians – so it’s really interesting actually that lesbians were at the forefront of a lot of feminist activity that supported heterosexual women like the miners’ wives, and women fleeing violence, and Rape Crisis – I was involved in Rape Crisis as a volunteer for quite a long time and other activities like that.
Val: Just to say Dock Green disco was – I can’t even remember how often it was – it was something like once a month? But was a women’s disco. Again, it wasn’t only lesbians. But it was probably lesbians who organised it but I can’t remember. And it was through–- I lived in a housing co-op at the time – and it was through a woman who was a lesbian who lived in the co-op but she told me about it – again it was a lot of word of mouth, but it was, it was a lovely atmosphere, a lovely disco.
Susan: Oh it was! Do you remember it was upstairs wasn’t it? There was a bar there on the corner and a bit of seating down there and the disco was a bit further down.
The other Susan: That’s right.
Ray: What sort of music was there?
The other Susan to Susan: I would have no idea that we probably met then – way back – and never met again since.
[group laughter]
Karen: My wife was probably there as well!
Val: The music, I’ve no idea! Apart from I probably liked it in terms of dancing music cos I’ve always liked disco dancing – don’t do it so much these days – [laughter]. I was never on the scene and didn’t want to be. I’m not now and I wasn’t then in terms of going to gay bars or that sort of thing. I can’t remember the music, it’s too far back, but it was good dance music.
Ray: What would you wear?
The Other Susan and Val: Dungarees!
[group loud laughter]
Val: Or onesies
The Other Susan: Doc Martens
Val: No, I didn’t have Doc Martens
Susan: Yes, Doc Martens.
Ray: It’s all back in fashion.
Susan: I still have a pair.
The other Susan: Flat caps – if you were working class enough. There were quite a lot of class issues running at the time amongst Leeds lesbians.
Val: A lot!
Ray: Tell us more about that Susan.
The other Susan: Well, there was a sort of feeling of the working class women feeling that they needed to be heard more and they did… middle class feminism taking over and running the show So there was some conflict. There was also conflict sometimes around dress code, so we might have been in dungarees and Doc Martens, but there were some who dressed in leather and that wasn’t appreciated
Ray: Why?
The other Susan: So there was quite a lot of…
Val and The other Susan: It was to do with the S & M.
Val: Very male.
The other Susan: It was seen as part of the S & M scene and that didn’t fit with the feminism. So, it was quite a stressful time actually the ’80s in Leeds lesbian world [laughs].
——–
JD & NH discuss the discos
JD: Yeah, I lived in Harehills, so I’d – it was kind of, it was just dead exciting. Yeah, that’s what I was saying, the disco room was like a room upstairs, so you’d go in like the side entrance of the pub and you didn’t have to go into the bar, which was – God knows who was in there, in the bar in those days [laughs] I don’t remember – there was never any trouble between the two separate groups of the pub users. So, we used to go up stairs and disco just during pub hours, from I don’t know what, about half eight ‘til 11 o’clock. And I used to take – records are quite heavy, so I, I went everywhere on a bicycle in those days, so I used to strap all my records on the back of my bicycle, I had a cardboard box on a rack on the back of the bike or something… Yeah, that was good fun; that went on for quite a few years as I remember. I don’t even know when those discos stopped. I can’t, you’ll have to ask somebody else. But it seemed like the went on for a long time.
NH: Is this through the ‘80s then?
JD: I would say so, yeah. I’m sure. Probably, probably into the ‘90s, I dunno.
NH: Was it packed out? Was it just women that went there, did any men go?
JD: Yeah. No, they were women’s discos, so it was separatist in that sense. The bar staff would be women as well.
Develop by artists Alice Boulton-Breeze, China Duke and Hollie-Grace