PROUDLY OUT IN THE VALLEY
Hebden Bridge was once known as “trouser town” thanks to its association with clothing – now it is acknowledged as Yorkshire’s LGBT+ capital. Sarah Wilson reports.
You can hold hands here, nobody bats an eyelid. It’s just this really lovely atmosphere where you can be yourself – I lived in Rochdale before, which was far from it.
IN MOST small UK towns, a piece of homophobic graffiti might be painted over, scrubbed away or even ignored. But when some residents in Hebden Bridge found a homophobic phrase sprayed onto a piece of tarpaulin in 2015, they did something a little different: they turned it into a work of art.
“We got people to write on it and draw on it”, says Sean Pert, a gay man who has lived in Hebden Bridge for the past five years. “All the artists joined together”.
It was this incident, in fact, that sparked the foundation of Happy Valley Pride in the town; an alternative, weeklong LGBT+ pride event that’s got bigger and better year on year, punching above its weight with legendary acts and international performers.
If such a visible LGBT+ scene in an old mill town of just a few thousand people seems somewhat unique, that’s because it is. In the early 2000s, it was reported that Hebden Bridge had a higher concentration of lesbian residents per head than anywhere else in the UK, and since then its LGBT+ friendly reputation has only grown.
“(Today) there’s a lot more gay men, there’s a lot more bi people and trans people”, says Sean, who had been visiting the area for around 25 years before moving permanently.
“You can see all sorts of weird and wonderful families”, says Sean, heaping praise on Hebden Bridge’s “out there” attitude and pride in what makes them different.
Yet just a few decades ago, few could have imagined that Hebden Bridge would be the thriving, vibrant and alternative community it is today. The town was once home to so many weaving mills that it was nicknamed “trouser town”, owing to the large amount of clothing manufactured there. By the 1960s, the mills were long gone and Hebden Bridge had fallen into decline, with many buildings left abandoned. It could easily have become another former mill town casualty, left to crumble, were it not for students from nearby Manchester noticing the abundance of cheap and abandoned property up for grabs in the late 1960s.
Professor Darren Smith, who has conducted extensive research into the regeneration of Hebden Bridge, says that the modern day town has this initial move to thank for its unique community today: “Once a group of students had moved in, pamphlets were produced about the abandoned property available for counter cultural groups. In the late 60s, early 70s, counter cultural people moved into the town, then the process accelerated quickly”.
Later, in the 1990s, Prof Smith was himself in Hebden Bridge conducting door-to-door research on the town’s regeneration when he discovered a high concentration of lesbian couples living there.
He believes that the lesbian community’s involvement in the antinuclear movement in the late 60s, 70s and 80s may have brought same-sex couples into the town along with other protest groups, artists and alternative communities.
Once this had happened, he says, the reputation of Hebden Bridge as a liberal, open-minded place was forged, “attracting like-minded people into the area”, and growing the lesbian population.
Long before marriage equality, and at a time when homosexuality was still partially criminalised, lesbian couples found a supportive community in Hebden Bridge, with many raising families in the town.
The result in today’s Hebden Bridge is a large LGBT+ population, a supportive community around them, and a thriving music, arts and creative scene. “There’s lots of straight allies”, says Sean, something he believes has been “crucial” to the fight against homophobia and transphobia in the local area.
While 68 per cent of respondents in a 2019 UK-wide LGBT+ survey said they had avoided holding hands with a partner in public, Sean says that things are different in Hebden Bridge. “You can hold hands here, nobody bats an eyelid. And the kids and young people are just the same, they have friends with same sex parents...it’s just this really lovely atmosphere where you can be yourself – I lived in Rochdale before, which was far from it.”
Of course, that’s not to say that Hebden Bridge hasn’t had its problems.
Helen Baron, a local DJ who lives in the town with her wife, says that while it’s “a really nice place to be if you’re gay”, she believes that most nonheterosexual couples “pick where they hold hands”.
Both Sean and Helen speak of a “weekend effect” whereby homophobic abuse often comes from weekend daytrippers visiting from neighbouring cities or towns.
“We’ve had people coming in clearly looking for trouble because they know the reputation,” says Sean, adding that members of the community have experienced verbal harassment as a result.
Transphobia, says Sean, is also a pressing issue which the LGBT+ community is grappling with today in all areas of the country. “I think the amount of transphobia is very similar to the amount of homophobia around in the 80s when the AIDS crisis within full swing.”
He believes, however, that education is the key to tackling these lingering issues. While a trustee for Happy
Valley Pride, he went into schools to educate students about LGBT+ issues – something he never could have imagined happening when he was young. “I grew up during Section 28, we weren’t allowed to talk about it, I was horribly bullied... that was a horrible time and we really didn’t want that to carry on (for kids)”.
Happy Valley Pride itself, believes Helen, is part of this education, which makes the postponement of the festival this year particularly difficult to take. “We bring the community together, all ages, and all genders – everyone is welcome.
“And it’s nice to have online content, but it’s really important for the LGBTQ+community to feel supported to feel brought together; that continuous representation is the only way we’re going to get the message across that really, we’re just people”.
Sean believes the community has only become more inclusive over the years, with Sean himself running a local social group Out in the Valley: “Before (the LGBT+ community) was more a kind of individual network... you’d have to get invited to places – whereas now we’re a lot better... we just say we’ll be here at this time, just come and join us or say hi”.
For everyone in the community, but especially those under the LGBT+ umbrella, Hebden Bridge is a rare haven in a nation that is still unfortunately battling the scourge of homophobia.
“To be yourself and not be on guard all the time, hypervigilant, it’s brilliant,” says Sean. “The whole community, whether they’re straight or allied is really proud of Hebden Bridge for that reason.”