Top nightclub a town safe haven
TUCKED away beside what is now a B&M car park are a set of doors that once led to Southport’s first gay club.
In the 1990s Top Floor Gays, known to locals as TFGs, provided a safe space for LGBT+ people to express themselves freely away from fear of discrimination.
TFGs was the brainchild of Southport nightlife connoisseur Maureen.
Maureen was the manager of Champers, a long-established nightclub on Coronation Walk in Southport. The ground floor of Champers hosted cabaret events, the first floor hosted a nightly disco and the top floor served as a function room for birthdays, weddings and parties.
On a quest to fill the often-empty function room, Maureen came up with a plan.
She wanted to create a space exclusively for the LGBT+ of Southport. Champers regulars backed Maureen’s idea.
While Southport struggled to get its LGBT+ nightlife scene up and running, gay clubs on Liverpool’s Stanley Street and Manchester’s
Canal Street had already started to thrive.
Maureen said: “Southport in those days was quite a conservative town. All the gay people had to go out to other places like Blackpool and Liverpool.”
She continued: “I wanted to keep it exclusive so gay people could have a place of their own to let their hair down.
“There’s plenty of straight clubs, why not a gay club?”
Thus, Top Floor Gays was born. It opened its doors in the early 1990s.
Located on Southport’s Coronation Walk, patrons entered the quaint and quirky venue via a side door in what is now B&M carpark.
Maureen said: “It was private and discreet. Usually, only management would use that door.
“There was a bouncer, you would knock, and they would let you in.”
Inside, patrons climbed a spiral staircase that bypassed the other two levels of Champers and led up to the private top floor club.
Guests would be greeted by the warmth of a coal fire, homely golden lighting and red crushed velvet curtains.
Drag legends from around the country including Betty Legs Diamond
and Ceri Dupree frequented the bar and provided entertainment for LGBT+ sandgrounders.
TFGs was a raging success. Often, the intimate top floor space outperformed its mainstream counterpart clubs and took in more numbers than the floors below.
Maureen reminisced about those intimate nights inside TFGs. She said: “The atmosphere every night was wonderful.
“There was never any bother, either. That’s the truth. Running a nightclub you get bother constantly, every night something kicks off. But not at TFGs.”
Former patrons of TFGs remember their time in Maureen’s bar fondly.
Photographer Stuart Linden, of Harrogate, runs a nostalgia Instagram account sharing photos and stories from the Northern gay scene of days gone by.
Stuart, now 65, said: “It was such a friendly place. The way everybody would just chat to you, you felt right at home.
“TFGs provided a sense of homeliness for LGBT+ people in Southport.”
Robert Lloyd, better known as his drag alias Roberta Lee, credits
TFGs with launching his career.
Robert said: “I had only just come out when it opened. I was 19 and I would go there all the time.
“We would do drag shows and cabaret shows there. It was a lot of retro 1960s stuff.”
In the mid 1990s, Maureen took a break from the nightlife scene for health reasons. Within a year of Maureen’s departure, TFGs shut its doors, along with the rest of the venue.
When TFGs closed, it left a massive void in Southport’s gay community.
Clubs, pubs and bars like The Crown, Amsterdam Bar and Davinia’s temporarily provided safe spaces for Southport’s LGBT+ community at various points through the decades, but all eventually closed to become mainstream venues.
Nowadays, the former home of TFGs and Champers houses Medhito Cuban Latin Lounge.
As of 2021, there are no gay bars in Southport.
Maureen added: “Somebody with the passion to start a new gay club in Southport should go for it.
“The community deserves a place to call home.”