HistFest 2026: The Log Books – Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened

[music] Good afternoon everybody and welcome to our second session of Hissfest day two the log books voices of queer Britain and the helpline that listened. Just a couple of housekeeping bits. Um if you're watching at home and you want to use the captions, you can turn those on on your app and you can also send through questions in the online box and we'll have time for 20 minutes of Q&A at the end. Um, we have books on sale out in the foyer and our speakers will all be signing the book after today's talk. We have three amazing uh, writers on this afternoon's panel. Tash Walker is a writer, poet, audio producer, and community organizer who's worked with institutions as the B such as the Barbin, the National Archives, BBC, the Charles Cley Trust, and Queer Britain. They were a member of Switchboard's board for eight years. In 2021 and 2022, they were named one of the top 101 LGBTQ plus trailblazers by Attitude magazine and in 2022 were included in Stonewall and Divas Power Pride List. Adam Smith is a writer and multiiformat producer. His book Deep Sniff, a History of Poppers and Queer Futures, won the Polari first book prize. He writes theater shows, talks, and podcasts, including Press Play, Turn On, which won podcast of the year at the British Podcast Awards 2024. Tash and Adam produced and hosted the log books podcast series, which has now been turned into a critically acclaimed book um and charts the LGBTQ plus life in Britain through a uh and charts. The book charts the LGBTQ plus life in Britain through a rare helpline switchboard archive. And our chair this afternoon is Dan Vo. He founded the award-winning volunteer-led VNA LGBTQ plus tours. He's developed uh LGBTQ plus programs for the VNA, the National Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, National Museum Wales, and the Fitz William Museum in Cambridge to name a few. And he's presented for BBC Arts and is a trustee of Queer Britain Museum. Thank you so much. Welcome to our panel. [applause] >> [applause] >> Thank you very much. What a lovely [clears throat] audience. Good to see all of you. Fantastic. I'm just going to do a quick uh quick pop quiz. Who's heard of Switchboard before? >> Oh, excellent. We're among friends. Uh you don't have to on this one, but who's called Switchboard before? I'm going to personally put my hand up. Okay, so I you don't have to, but I think uh you Thank you. I think um for me I I wanted to start this talk by giving a little bit of a personal uh story if I could and I just want to tell you about uh so I'm a trustee of queer Britain uh the first museum LGBT uh of LGBTQ plus history in the UK. We are just a bit north of here. We're in King's Cross and in our first exhibition we had a telephone. Uh so I want you to imagine a rotary dial telephone. Yeah. Uh those of you who remember what that is, you've got to spin the dial to to get it working. Um and so I I I I uh the curator invited me to pick it up and what they' done is they loaded it with a few interviews with volunteers from Switchboard. And so I picked it up and instantly my body kind of reacted to it. I kind of curled into it. My pinky went into the cord and I I I dialed zero. Oh no, one one. I dialed one. And the story that I heard was um a a volunteer who said that uh they had a caller who called Switchboard because their lesbian lover had passed away and they had no one else to tell because it was a secret affair. And so you can imagine what that was like uh to speak to somebody on switchboard. And about a year later, they called back uh on the anniversary of death. And lo and behold, they got the same volunteer. And that sense of recognition, that sense of understanding that somebody instantly had was remarkable for them. And so as a as a person who works in this museum, I just totled off into the corner and had a little cry because it was it was remarkable because as soon as you kind of like start to feel this, it just felt like I could imagine all the conversations that I'd had on a phone with somebody that intimacy that you have. >> But at the same time, I I start to imagine all the conversations that possibly were not had as well because, you know, it uh it's quite a journey to call switchboard sometimes. you know, you kind of dial the the you dial the rotary and you kind of it takes a little while. Zero first, one uh one was um but uh you know, at any point in time you could just hang up. So I think switchboard is remarkable. Uh and I wanted to to sort of just read a quote from the book to to kick us off and then I was going to ask Tash and Adam to just share with us exactly what Switchboard means to both of you. Um because uh switchboard was a nexus and a counselor, a database and a friend and uh and the log books sort of helps us remember all those conversations that that just is there. So the log books are a racket hundreds of volunteers down the decades writing in different inks, various tones and a right of diverse hands. Although rich the log books were a very basic technology. Those scruffy pages were the only things the volunteers had if they wanted to record something of the call they' just taken. A volunteer would open the log book, pick up a cheap pen, and jot down a few notes before the phone began to ring. Again, we love the log books for their nature of being dashed out in a hurry. Entries were hyperspecific to a person, a place, a time, but they were just a snapshot. So Tash and Adam, it's quite an incredible book. Very special, very beautiful. Lots of amazing stories. What does the log books What do they mean to you? >> That's a massive question. Um, and I've noticed you're wearing corgi socks. >> Yes. >> Um, what do the log books mean to us? Um, well, Switchboard to me, to sort of take a step back, uh, is an organization I joined in 2012. Um I was in my 20ies in my mid20ies and um I grew up within that organization. I it is a f my family to me. It's full of the uh amazing things that a family can offer which is love, support and joy as well as conflict and uh lots of um protests and tiffs and heartbreak and all of those sorts of things. But what the log books represent and what I felt when I found the log books um which was when I was on shift back in 2014. I was rooting around in places that I shouldn't and uh squeezed into a crawl space and found these boxes um of books and pulled out these A4 books which said log book on them. And as I opened up these log books, the pages fell out onto my lap. And out of these pages, I started to read these stories and realize what I was looking at, which is uh what Dan spoke about that these scribbled entries taken by volunteers in the moment they put the phone down. And I realized what I was reading, what I was reading was my stories, my histories that I did not know, that had been censored because of the complexity of the world that we live in that had also been stuffed away in a crawl space. They had been hidden. And it was this amazing moment and experience of recognizing myself in those log book entries. 15 year old kids ringing up who thought they might be gay like I was when I was 15. So what the log books are to me is a connector. It's a connection back to my queer heritage, my queer ancestry, but it was also it was also an opportunity to open up a door into who I was as well and and start to lean in and learn about all of those queer people questioning and living just their everyday lives which I had never seen or or known until that point. >> What they said I I that's amazing answer. Uh, I think I would, you know, co-sign that, but also say, um, even more specifically that, uh, for me, I haven't volunteered for Switchboard. Um, I just worked on this project with Tash. Uh, but I am a queer person born in 1984. And I think for me, like when I Tesh and I started to um do research on what became the podcast and then the book, what the log books came to mean for me was all of the stories that um I would have had with my mom more dad or my grand or great granddad or great great great granddad. Um, but I didn't because um I was not uh out to my family when I was growing up and also as far as I know they were all straight um and cisgender. So it it's that sort of weirdly unique thing about LGBTQ plus people is that um most of us grow up um in well all of us probably grow up in predominantly straight and cisgender families and some people don't have any LGBTQ plus uh or queer like family members. And so you if you are from a c you know you might inherit stories from your grandparents or your parents about your religious heritage or your regional heritage um my granddad was a fisherman in Grimby you know or um your ethnic heritage or your migration your history of migration in your family but I think if you're queer people growing up in a family often there's um you're like the first person um and you might not be but effectively you might be because um people haven't told you about uh or we don't talk about you know great uncle Harold um because he you know because uh you know why so uh it's that it was that lineage that I didn't realize that I had not grown up with until I read the log books from Switchboard and heard the stories of volunteers and heard the fact that people called Switchboard and that these log books were then filled with all of those stories. that were there for me and now you to >> uh hear basically it's our lineage. >> I think in the book you talk about doing history quite a lot. It recurs as an idea and uh in this instance the doing history is uh your witnessing your reckoning and doing it >> powered by the tradition of protest and I think that lineage is something that kind of feeds through in this particular book. And I just want to say that even though you didn't volunteer on Switchboard, you as a media producer, it is about listening as well. >> And I think both of you talk about the power of listening in this particular book as well. >> Tash, can you sort of talk about that a bit? >> Yeah, totally. Um, if you're in a conversation with someone, you're often talking to them and you're thinking about what they're saying, but you're thinking about what you want to say next. If you just listen to someone and not focus about what you're going to say next and just really hear what they're saying, it allows this space for that person to feel really heard and also to sort of stretch into what they're saying, which is um a sort of skill that I learned at Switchboard. But when you like Adam, what Adam was saying then is so true. When you um when you grow up, so we're both children of section 28, which was a law that was brought in under Thatch's government in 1988. It was a local government act and it um prohibited the promotion of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. Um effectively what that did was uh created an air of silence especially with anything that was um like funded by the local authority, libraries, schools, teachers, especially teachers who were LGBTQ plus. Maybe they were feeling like they couldn't come out. They were forced back into the closet. But um what we realized in the in the doing of this work was that we were children of section 28. our education was 1988 to 2003, the exact years that that piece of legislation was in place. And it created this thing where it sort of spearheaded a separation between the older queer generations and our generation. And it it it stopped many of them and ourselves from being able to make that connection. So this is what we grew up under under this sort of framework of silence, of censorship. And it's that complex thing when it comes to silence. Someone says you're not welcome here, you know that. If someone says you are welcome here, you know that. But if someone doesn't say anything, then all you have is all you're left with is just filling in the gaps. And that can have really complicated and often deadly consequences. So to come back as children of section 28 in our 30s to find these log books to go around interviewing over a hundred people who are LGBTQ plus whether they called switchboard whether they volunteered or just have lived memories. What we're doing is actually a really radical act listening. We're listening to our elders um in response to having been raised in a society that told us you can't talk to these people, you can't listen to them. And so it's through this act of listening that I think we're creating a a healing collectivity, a healing connection. Um and and I think that this power of listening and Adam and I like you say talk about it a lot because um if you give space to hear someone and to listen to someone um it it changes who you are and it it changes who you are and also um you impact each other and we talk a lot about living archives about how and you just mentioned that then Adam like these stories are in this book and if you read the book then you'll know those stories but those stories will impact you and they will change you after you've listened to them and then you'll share them with other people and they will impact and change those people and it's this idea of being living archives. Um but without listening none of that will happen and it's uh it's a really powerful space to be able to sort of grow into. Um yeah. Do you want to >> No, I was going to say uh part of we will come back to section 28. I think we inevitably have to and there'll be big sweeping moments in society that I'll probably ask you to explain a little bit more as the log books cover 75 to 2003 as well coincidentally ending on the same year uh but uh there's about 63 volumes so there's there's quite a lot that happens through all that time but uh this was a beautiful quote from the book which is history is not just the wars between states or the great discoveries it is also the personal trials of every one of us and Adam I was going to ask you to it was it uncle Bruno Who do we not talk about? Uh Harold Harold. Harold [laughter] >> in some of >> he's dead. We can talk about him now. >> We don't talk about Bruno. Uh so um in in this book though in preparing both the podcast and the book you've kind of created a family for you as well. I know that some of the interviews, the interviewees rather became very important to you for your own self understanding and in some ways as section 28 survivors a self-healing and a for self forgiveness. >> Yeah. Um I think we both met a lot of uh people who became contributors to the podcast, you know, people that we interviewed. Um, and then a lot of them we reintered again for the book. And um, I think yeah, for each of us, every single one, every single person that we interviewed was like a connection. And I'm not saying that like it was the mo I'm not I don't want you to think that like every single moment of uh, interviewing someone is like this like profound experience. It's kind of like it's mostly just like, oh, let's sit down, put the recorder on, have a cup of tea, and like get talking. Um, but it it kind of afterwards you do realize like wow that was a great conversation that I had and like with Tasha was saying like I was really listening to this person and they were really sharing and they were talking in a way that like maybe they don't get the opportunity to talk about um because how often is it that honestly in our lives when someone sits down and says I just want to listen to you for an hour or an hour and a half just I want I'll ask you questions um but I want to hear you talk like how often does that happen really? Um and so uh it so that framing does make it really um interesting and really potentially connective I think. And so uh that was a lot of for a lot of times for us both with different people the foundation of um really interesting connections that we had. And of all of those there were like a handful that I think we both felt really well connected to. Um, the one that sticks out for me is probably George, who I met only in about 20 20 uh must have been 2020. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. 2020. And he died in 2023, so I only knew him for three years. Um, he was 70 when I met him and 73 when he died. And um, we write about him in the book. And, um, he's basically the same generation as my dad. He was only two years older than my dad. Um, and but it was weird because I I felt like it he was like a granddad to me. Um, even though he was the same generation as my dad, but it was partly because I'd not had a granddad like that before who was talking to me about going to sex clubs in San Francisco in the 70s, you know. Um, and so that was really nice. And then um another great profound thing about him was that he had been um he'd gone through so much in his life being diagnosed with HIV in the mid 80s being very poorly with age- related illnesses um over several decades um having his partner his grandpassion his great love uh also get um sick and die um quite quickly uh from AIDS related illnesses and um and then being very very poor uh because being unable to work through disability because of his illnesses over decades. um and making very private um privately making lots of art um that was really like um uh expressive of his uh sort of loneliness and isolation um and uh an ostracization actually um I think uh and so it was just a really we just had he'd been like hoarding these stories I think and then um I just came along long. I met him through another contact who I said I was saying to I was interviewing um a nurse called Lee and I said uh who I was we were talking about HIV because Lee had worked on HIV wards in the 80s and I said do you know of anyone who like is um you know a survivor of HIV obviously now he'll probably be a bit older and like who I could talk to about that um who's who would be okay and comfortable talking about what um that was like and he just instantly said George you got to speak to George. Um, he's ready, >> you know, and so I he was ready. >> And he was ready as long as I brought along a box of French fancies. He he was that was his rider. He was very ready. [laughter] He had been like hoarding these stories for so long about the 80s and well 70s, ' 80s, 90s, naughties. And um and it just it it uh it was um yeah just like one of the I guess like strongest um I guess like professional creative experiences in my life. Um and uh you know he he passed away a couple of years ago and um yeah it's uh it's that it's that grandfather lineage thing and it's also like well who else would have you know how many other people are like that who don't have someone turn up at their house with a microphone and a box of cakes who don't get to tell their stories you know but we have George's. So >> that was a really long answer but it was it was great >> beautiful answer. I think I think part of this was you mentioned you grappled with professional objectivity in this as well and I wonder if it's that that close connection that is formed that makes it a little bit hard to >> to maintain that sense of objectivity what what whatever that means. >> Well, whatever that means. >> But also I I think in many ways you've inherited you've literally inherited his stories as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because he'd been making like lots of notes. He was he spoke so um like fluidly and fluently about his memories and his stories. Um and I'm there like with the mic like not even having to like nudge or prompt or say, "Oh, can you say this? Can you say that story again?" It was a bit muddled. You know, they were so fluent and so fluid. Um and then after he died, um me and some other of his friends were clearing out his flat and we found all of these pages and pages where he had handwritten his own stories over and over and over again and edited them over the years himself. So that's why he was so fluid when it came to an interview with someone finally because he'd um been writing and rewriting and editing his own stories. >> He'd been waiting. >> Yeah, he'd been waiting. >> Yeah. >> Can we maybe get a glimpse into uh into the log books themselves? We've got a few entries. I think maybe we'll start with uh uh I think sexy first and then we might go into [laughter] >> section 28. Yeah. 12th of January 1976. [snorts] Amazing. Super marvelous. A girl phoned. She's had her first sexual experience with another woman over the weekend and it was super and she was so happy and so pleased that she wanted to tell someone about it. She was bubbling over. >> Okay. [clears throat] 26th of October 2002. Call via get connected. 15-year-old male school found out was gay and informed parents who are fundamental Christians and now verbally abusing him and making him feel suicidal. Many issues in call, lack of access to support, lack of resources, money, etc. to contact services. School very unsupportive citing section 28 as a barrier to tackling abuse. And that log book entry was the 26th of October 2002 and section 28 was repealed on the 18th of November 2003, just a year later. So in the book you describe Switchboard as a clearing house for information about the gay scene, clubs and pubs, medical VD, what's on tonight. Uh and and of course it changes over time. So I wondered if we could reflect on maybe some key moments. So can we point out maybe a few key moments in history and what was swirling around in society around switchboard that I suppose in one hand leads to switchboard but also shapes the sort of calls that comes into switchboard as well. >> Yeah. Wow. So many um after I spent two years reading the log books at the end of that time um I I was reading them at Bishop's Gate Institute. We'd moved the archive to there. It's amazing Liverpool Street archive doing great work. Um, yeah, I spent two years reading them. At the end of it, I did a presentation for LGBT history month, which was called the really catchy, better connected milestones of the LGBTQ plus society and how they can be traced in the calls to switchboardable today since 1974. I'm >> surprised you remember it. [laughter] >> I know the log books is much catchier, isn't it? Um, yes. And so I guess what that was part of what uh the foundation of that um presentation was um looking at what were these sort of key points in queer history. Um when switchboard started it grew out of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967 in England and Wales and there were like an everinccreasing number of calls to gay news and gay liberation front asking questions like where's good to go out or I think I might be gay and those organizations were not set up they had other things to do. They were protesting and they were writing articles and they were not set up to answer those questions. So Dennis Lemon who was the editor of gay news at the time had just come back from America where they had seen a gay switchboard having started over there and thought okay let's do this here. So when switchboard started on the 4th of March 1974 literally you know less than a mile away from here um above Hman's bookshop um in Kings in King's Cross just down the road. Um the uh the reason for it was to be there to help people answer questions and give them information. It was started by a group of radical librarians who believed in the power of information. So what it was at the beginning was a big information service. The first three calls were at 5:05 p.m. is the first one. I think it was um someone ringing to want to get the telephone number for the campaign for homosexual equality. That's kind of like the suffragists to the GLF suffragettes. So they were more like letterw writing policy writers. Someone an American um tourist wanting to know where would be a good leather gay bar to go to and someone who thought they might be bisexual. They were the first three calls to Switchboard. Um and what you see over you know the years Switchboard's still going today. There will be people on the phones right now is um that it's become much more of a support giving service that when it was when it started because of things like the internet. [snorts] Um, so at the beginning you had people asking where's good to go out um and yeah like what what what club is open and you started to see switchboard becoming like a really early Twitter what Twitter was the community asking questions and switchboard answering but answering from what it was being told from what each other knew but for what people were telling it it was like it's a it's a really evolutionary um organization it's continuing to evolve and change all throughout that time. So it's much more of an information giving service at the beginning and you had um lots to do with the police raids and the police riots uh with the partial decriminalization in ' 67 which was a positive step forward as is often the way when you see progress um through legislation. And it also shone a light onto the predominantly men having sex with men community. And there was so many um targeted raids and arrests and the pretty policemen dressing up to ent trap um men and people being arrested for import tuning which was just sort of like looking someone up and down like chatting someone up. And so at the beginning you saw this as like a really prominent call. Where's good to go out and where's safe to go out? Where can I have sex? And it's illegal. Watch out. the police are coming for you. Then um in the early 80s you saw lots of women um who were falling in love with other women and were mothers ringing to help them with custody battles. In the early 80s to the mid 80s if you were a woman who loved another woman and had children um nine times out of 10 you would lose custody of your children because you can't be a lesbian and a mother. There's not space for those two things. And so what would happen is these women if they were able to access legal aid or had the money to get the legal support, they had to stand up in court and say that they loved if well if they said that they loved another woman, then they would lose custody of their child or they had to lie. And it was also a point in time where coming out as homosexual would often lose you your job. So really complicated parts of history. Um then we move into the HIV and AIDS crisis which um completely flooded the log books and maybe I'll read a log book entry from that and Adam you could pick up >> from that. Um so there's like hundreds of thousands of calls switchboards 24 hours at this period of time and the first noted cases around HIV and AIDS in the UK are in 8384. Height of deaths were 9394. Um, and the log books entries are bursting with entries just like this one. Um, so 7th of March 1987, caller Patrick from York had an antibbody positive test with no counseling at all. Had his lover Martin die of AIDS 3 weeks ago. Wouldn't talk to me, but knows my name. Called at 4:13 a.m. on the 8th of March, hence the incoherent scribble. He could call back at any time. Please be gentle. He's scared. Stupid. >> What year was that? >> 87. >> 87. Okay. Yeah. I was gonna answer with or like build on that with like four dates. It's like a history GCSE history exam. Um it's not even that much that that long ago. Uh 83 was the um like first conference in the UK about HIV AIDS that was held at Conway Hall. And that was put together by um some uh gay and medical activists from the USA, from New York who were seeing it and some um gay uh junior doctors based here >> um in London and people from Switchboard um and it was also around the time that the Terrence Higgins Trust was starting as well and there were people from Switchboard volunteers from Switchboard who were involved in setting that up as well. So that's 83. 8 uh7. Is that the don't die of ignorance campaign? >> Uh or is that 86? >> 1987. 12th of January 1987. >> Yeah. >> 87. Like the first time the the government really um did like publicly acknowledged that this was like a problem and did a campaign around it and they printed a leaflet that went to every single house in the country uh about HIV AIDS. And Switchboard they they listed some services on that leaflet and one of them was Switchboard. Um, switch only got word the night before this leaflet started to be sent out. Um, and so like Tash said, the phone lines were flooded. A lot of people calling, most people calling in that immediate moment. Were people kind of confused about the information and were they at risk? And for the most part, people weren't. >> Um 94 was the 1994 was the big so moving away from HIV was a big vote on the age of consent. Um, trying to uh equalize the age of consent. um for uh gay for for men having sex with each other. Um it was 21 um it was 16 for um other kinds of sex. Um so that there was a vote in the House of Commons in ' 94. It was a big moment and then there was lots of campaigning in the ' 90s through that but that was like a big moment because there was a a chance to equalize that. Um and parliament didn't equalize it. They brought it down from 21 to 18 but it was still unequal in law until uh for another six or seven years. And then finally, I would say 1999, the ad the bombing at the Admiral Duncan pub in uh Soho, um which was one of three bombs by uh neo-Nazi and um attacking different minority communities including the Bangladeshi community and the black community um and then the gay community in Soho. Um and people died in that bomb attack. And it was um we uh the way that we write about that um is using the memories of people at Switchboard who um heard that there had been a nail bomb in a pub, a gay pub in Soho um and ran to the phone room knowing that people were going to be calling Switchboard and finding out about that. Um so their memories of that and also their memories of just being people out and about at the time and um and then the aftermath of it in the relationship with the police and there's a huge long running story and uh saga about the relationship between the police and the LGBTQ plus community which continues today that saga but um that's a particular moment in 1999 when the relationship um uh started like like shifted quite significantly and the police and switchboard worked together um in the response to that attack. So those are like for I think you were asking for milestones and um maybe yeah we've got the JLF stuff all the way through those other things. Yeah, I think part of the of many of the milestones that you talk about that I find remarkable is I suppose at the time that the podcasts in particular season two which you know has uh does carry through in some of the book as well >> some of the remarkable parallels was as you as I read about HIV AIDS and I suppose the the level of uncertainty over such a prolonged period of time for us to understand that perhaps it's to kind of think what we were going through during co the lack of information the the misinformation. I think you were lamenting the loss of Tumblr at the time as well. You know, the key key information source is suddenly starting to to not be as reliable. So, the fact that switchboard is always there as an anchor. And I suppose >> Tash, you talk about this idea that switchboard volunteers must always be prepared for anything. And at the moments when our community needs it most, switchboard sort of steps up. it. The volunteers all know when they will have to turn up for a bigger shift because there's something that's happening. Yeah. >> That everyone's going to need support for. >> Yeah, totally. There was um so we made the second season of the podcast during lockdown and I was um co-chair of Switchboard at that time. So, Switchboard shut its phone room for the first time in 40 odd years to protect the volunteers. And um I remember uh we went remote. We took our first ever remote phone call the next day. We were only shut for 12 hours, which was great. Um, and I'm I'm so pleased that we were able to do that because shortly after we took a phone call from a young kid, um, I think they were 15 or so, who had just been kicked out of home in lockdown because their parents had found out that they were trans. And I was reminded of a phone call that I had read in the log books from 1978 where a 17-year-old kid had called Switchboard because they had just been kicked out of home because their parents had just found out that they were trans. 2020 1978 and it was such a shock to be able to connect that moment to that moment then. And I think about history a lot, right? and the power of history. And we talk about progression not being linear. And we talk about um history repeating itself. And one of the things that we really want to do with our work and with this book and with these stories is to share them and to put them on the shelf and say that this is history. Because how do we know history is repeating itself unless we know the history in the first instance? I would not be able to say in 2020 this has happened before. we've been here before unless I had read the log books and remembered that log book entry from 1978. And I think that's really amazing with the framing of Switchboard as a place that has listened that has unintentionally recorded down all the all of these stories, not for me and Adam and our gentle nosiness or intrigue um into all of this amazing gossip if you like. Um, but they were doing it for a job to be able to share with each other to keep evolving and to be able to be there for people who needed them. And incidentally, in doing that, they've created this amazing archive that tells us of all of these lives that have lived and happened before, which we can now look at and learn from so that we can stop it happening again and repeating itself. So yeah, I think lots of switchboard volunteers and lots of people don't realize what they are doing in that moment. They think they're helping people here and now, but actually what they're doing is they're connecting us to our past to be able to connect us to a better future. >> I think if you read through the switchboard log books over time, let's say during that HIV AIDS moment, >> you see that people workshopping through the problems together and you know they haven't quite worked out what the solution will be, but it's the we need to do a workshop on this, we need to understand more about that. Who knows? I'm gonna go to that clinic and test it out myself and come back with Zack review. >> And I I think that to draw a parallel with the Admiral Duncan bombing, I think we could look to the Orlando Pride moment when we all gathered and I think it's sort of just after co isn't it? We all gathered uh in Soho and I think uh had gay men's chorus sing >> bridge over troubled water. It was a remarkable moment. There's a parallel there as well. And I suppose uh Adam, I'd love for you to kind of point to parts in the book where maybe it's that resilience of the people at switchboard that sort of trickle down into the community as well. That resilience that we must >> power on, but we also need to find the solutions and we also need to find a way to to pull together as well. >> Yeah. I think that if I think about the log books um and the volunteer the switchboard volunteers um work over the decades that we cover um there are um and it's interesting that you me there are lots of like really um kind of internal processy things which to them at the time when we're reading their notes now it looks like um like you said they're trying to figure out the right way to support um this subgroup of callers or that subgroup of callers. Um and they're doing that because they know that they want to support them. But like we look back at that now and we're like wow. It's kind of like your talk that you gave at Bishop's Gate. Um you're like that was actually like a moment for the LGBTQ plus community and family because it wasn't just this bunch of volunteers were doing. So let me give you some examples. So um HIV is a really good one. you know, they would say like, "Oh, a volunteer would write, I'm going to, you know, this other charity or this um part of the health service is doing a training. I'm gonna go and get some information and bring it back." Or um there's um this this bar has been taken over by some people that are trying to turn it into a gay bar and I'm going to go and source it out and then I'll report back. Um >> the hanky code. >> Uh and yeah, the Yeah, the hanky code. Volunteers writing, you know, um expl like having getting calls about from people saying like what's all these different colored handkerchiefs that men are wearing in their back pocket and what does it mean? And then the volunteers would say right well let's pull our resources like who you know um Richard knows what red means cuz Richard's interfisting um and um so we write that down and then who knows what black is and we write that down. Um so there's all of that. So >> can I just quickly say I felt seen in the hanky code section because I just want to read this out to you. >> Blue. [laughter] >> No, I think peace. >> Peace. Thank you. PCE uh Puse Hanky left unlimited but wants to discuss pre-colian art first right [laughter] only looking for a discussion on pre-colian art sorry um Grinder could never [laughter] honestly um yeah so yeah so like um there are like kind of fun things like that and then there's things that that are kind of like internal processes which now we look back on as being like quite enormously significant you know there's a volunteer called Diana James um who's an incredible woman um and a lesbian. Joined in the um uh in the I'll kind of shorten the story. Joined in the 80s um well applied to join um in her interview um mentioned that she was trans. The interview continued and that she was a lesbian. Interviewed continued and then she gets a call a couple of weeks later thinking, "Oh, this is the result of whether I'm going to be able to volunteer or not." And um a volunteer says on the call says, "Um, let's go out and have a coffee." And that volunteer who is Lisa Power said to Diana, "Look, I want you to join Switchboard as a lesbian. This is who you are. I think you'll be enormously helpful for us. You're exactly what we need. You know your Um um but some people won't accept a trans volunteer and you need to know that and I'm going to back you if you want to do it, but you know, think about it." Um Diana was like, "Yeah, I'll do it. Like, let's do it. You know, I can do this." So, she joined and some uh women volunteers left. um at that time and so that is a moment and and then and then Diana um the the women's group volunteers um collapsed which was like a support group internally for women volunteers that collapsed because of the women leaving um and then Diana just like started that group again and then eventually more you know more women joined etc um and then switchboard became a trans-inclusive charity um this is in the late 80s and so um that being one of those things where you're like that's an enormously significant moment that switchboard board uh as an organization faced that >> as well as Diana facing that personally. It was not her responsibility at all, but she did it. Um Switchwood facing that, figuring out the way to do it. One volunteer saying to Diana, "This might be trouble and you should know, but I'll back you and we'll try and make this work because and then eventually that's what happened and switch became trans-inclusive." So, we look back at that now, you know, 30 years later and um it it it means something. It means something that Switchboard, it's partly the reason why Switchboard's still going today and why actually today it's one of the few places where so many trans and gender non-conforming people go to for support because it is trans-inclusive. >> Um, and uh, so that's just another one of those examples of like switchboard like figuring out something which actually has a huge enormous impact on society. >> And we've spoken a lot about why that is. Why does Switchboard keep going? and we sort of settled on the idea because the phone keeps ringing. >> It's almost like you don't have time to squabble about it for too long because the phone's ringing and you've got work to do. >> It's like that thing that thread that is just pulling you forward that focus. >> I think there's a volunteer who says uh you know it was a difficult call for them as well personally. It touched them but >> they had a job to do. So they carried on with that call and they they helped that person through. We're coming close to Q&A time. So for those of you watching at home uh of course do get your questions in. We'll be asking them very soon. Uh, but I thought I I've now confessed that I'm into puse on the right hand side. [laughter] I I wondered if we could turn to the personal aspect of this book as well because it is quite personal. There's your first kiss, Tash, and Adam. The first time you >> tumble into bed with a with another man. >> Uh, tell me about the personal part of all this as well and uh and and how that feels to be maybe confessional to to to or maybe is it just putting yourself out there? >> Uh, yeah. History. Oh, wow. Yeah. How do you um as queer people who have grown up without having the visibility of querness helping you connect? Like it's like we created a map by walking those roots. And so to find the log books and to recognize myself in these histories, how do I write about that history without talking about the experience of feeling this and also living as a queer person? Those things I don't think you can uh extract away from each other. Um, and yes, my first kiss was by some bins. So, not that sexy. Although, I thought it was sexy, but um, yeah, it it was yeah, it was really fun to sort of lean into the personal stories of ourselves. I don't think we realized quite um, like our editor and our agent were really um, encouraging us to do that um, a lot more than we had intended. Um, but it was also complicated because there's a lot of um, elation and excitement in finding these histories and these stories and interviewing the people like Adam was talking about and you feel like it's like an a million amazing first dates, but then there's there's also a lot of moments of grief that you didn't have those connections before and there's those um, in having those connections now, you feel the absences at the same time. And in writing the book, there's a real journey that you go on. And I guess like the j one of the journeys that I go on is about like um being at school under section 28 and trying to reach out to trying to speak to two of these teachers that I was at school with. So there was like my hockey coach and um my history teacher. So stereotypes are super real. I played hockey. My hockey coach was there. And um one day in a fit of like teenage bravado around like the age of 15, I went up to them and I was like, "You guys are gay, right?" Like me. Um I don't know why I said that and I was so brave. But um the hockey coach, Miss Morgan, turned to me and she said, "No, no, Tash, why would you ask me that? No, I'm not gay. I like men." Which is a strange thing to tell me. Um no, why would you ask me that? And I felt so confused. I felt hurt. I felt shamed. Um, and also I was like, "But you are though." [laughter] Uh, look at you >> hockey. >> Yeah, hockey. Hello. Um, and I just remember feeling really angry and, um, that is something that fed me and drove me for a very, very long time, anger and shame. And I sort of, yeah, raced through my 20ies with that. Um, and part of what we were doing in the book is looking back at those reflections and those years and understanding what was going on for me. And I realized where that shame had come from. Um, where that guilt had come from. And also I got to understand section 28. And there's a person who was a volunteer at switchboard who I interviewed for the book called Ruth who was a teacher during section 28 and she qualified in 1988 and she uh just as the legislation came in and she started to tell me stories about how hard that was for her, how um hard she found it to be a teacher during section 28 when she was gay and um students would come to her to look to her like I did for support, for guidance and she she didn't know what to do. she couldn't do anything and she told this story about um saying to her pastoral line manager um we need to do something around uh sex education and HIV because people are dying and the manager said we can't do that Ruth it's against the law and she literally said what could I do what could I say and as I was sat there interviewing Ruth and listening to her experiences I realized for the first time I was listening to my teacher to what my teachers had gone through what it had felt like to be on the other side of section 28. Up to that point, I just thought about myself. I thought about how I wasn't held, how I was shamed, how I was pushed away. I never once thought about it from the other angle. And Ruth and I are really, really good friends. And after that conversation, I reflected on the understandings I'd had, be able to sort of put my myself in the shoes of my teachers. And um and I reached out to them and I got in touch with them uh all of these years later. And I ended up going to visit them. ended up going to stay with them because surprise surprise they were gay and they were in a relationship and they have two kids and my French teacher was a sperm donor. Um [laughter] I end up spending the night there and um it's a really emotional and complicated not necessarily easy conversation that we had and I had wild dreams in the spare room under the single bed minion duvet. Um, but none of that would have ever happened if I hadn't interviewed Ruth, if I hadn't started the project with Adam, if I hadn't climbed into that cool space that day. So, how can you talk about this history when you are living so much of the uncovering, the unraveling, and the um healing of the damage of so much of what's happened to us within this like modern Yeah. modern queer history. >> Adam, >> my answer. Um, great answer, Tash. Uh, again, I I I during my as as a teenager and then a 20some I was uh not honest with >> anyone else around me or myself that I was gay and I didn't have sex. So I had sex at 29 uh first time. It wasn't late. It was my time >> and uh I was also a journalist. Um and and that's relevant. Um [laughter] it is relevant because because you mentioned the word Dan mentioned the word objectivity earlier. Oh yeah. And when I hear that, I kind of go like, you know, like, and I think that chill that I have about that word um is that these two things are connected like I wasn't open with myself and I um and other people and um I I wasn't listening to myself right all that time until I was 29. Then I started to listen to myself. Um and then started to ga through that through sexual sexual community and new queer friendships started to listen to other people and gather all these um friendships and connections and stories and experiences around me and um realizing also that yes, I was a journalist and that I liked like writing. Um and then in my mid-30s I made the change to go like freelance um and to start work on my own projects. Not just continue the journalism that I was doing but like actually different projects with obviously writing and other kind of journalistic kind of things. Um, and actually as I was doing that, now that I look back on my mid-30s when I made that shift and up to now, um, the the way that I do that is a sort of and it will probably forever be so, an antidote to the teens and the 20s when I um thought I was being objective >> because I can't do this work. I can't write about this stuff if I don't write about myself and my feelings and my connections because it's not true and if I I have to find my own way into that >> to somehow undo that violence that I did to myself and that society also did to me. >> I was going to say >> it's not I'm not you know I'm not saying that I'm responsible for that um fully at all um partly but also it's society that um bred that in me. So, um, that's my dank answer, [laughter] but I was going to add to that and just say, but that surely that's a question that gets asked here quite a lot. Who has the right to or who writes history? Who who has the chance to write history? And it's full of biases. So, that objectivity is difficult. But I I, you know, you do address that in the very top of your book as well. Yeah, I sort of just have like I I think I I have a or I've come to have a natural um distrust of anyone who says, "Well, I've written the the history book about this thing, about this event or about this person. I've written a biography of such and such, the prime minister or whatever, and it's an objective account of blah blah blah." I'm like, "Well, it's not true, is it?" Like you might not have put your thoughts and feelings into it, but you are a human being who's done that work and there are thoughts and feelings that have touched those pages and flavored those words. >> So don't pretend to me that it's not that. >> I think also when you write an autobiography as well, unless you're coming back to the source material, like unless you have notes from the time, it it's you sometimes become not the most reliable narrator of your own story as well. So it's remarkable that you've got >> you've got >> Well, we've got Tash's teenage diaries. [laughter] Wild. >> Lots of bins. >> Talk about feelings. [laughter] >> Actually on there. I'm gonna grab the >> Oh my god. >> Oh, do you do you ask the questions or >> two questions? >> Oh, brilliant. Okay. Well, yeah, we might turn to Q&A, but before we do, I'm going to ask you the the trickiest question. No, Dan. >> I believe this was asked in your uh your interview for Switchboard. Um >> Oh. [laughter] >> Oh god. >> Tash. >> Oh no. >> Can you name a sex act between two women? What did you answer? I said holding hands. [laughter] I was really nervous. >> And arguably that is right. You know, intimacy comes in all forms. [laughter] >> Incredible. >> I hope that's as hard as the questions going to get. We're going to take a few from the audience. [laughter] >> So, we've got two questions. >> Thank you so much. I'm sorry. I think first kissed by some bins is less embarrassing than mine, which was a opening screening of Lord of the Rings. Um, yeah. Um, two questions from home. So the first is how do um how do volunteers I mean I think more yourself and your contemporary colleagues how do you look after yourselves with all the kind of very difficult subject matters that you and sort of people do you ever feel like maybe you're um kind of like failing at all or ever had those difficult kind of conversations that you've not been able to quite help with. Um and the second question is um about switchboard. How is it funded and how is it supported and how has it been affected by I don't know um different government um different governments coming in or um what I will call the gender critical movement for example now >> okay uh first question so um you get lots of training at switchboard when you join you go uh undergo training that's either um like it's like about six weeks whether you do it on a Wednesday evening or on a Saturday day and then um as part of that training you're learning about how to hold those stories and um also the the sort of barriers and boundaries that you put in place. One of the things that you don't do at Switchboard is share your story. And in not sharing your story, there is a distance. You are a voice of Switchboard. Um and then you're also once you qualify from the training, you then um start taking calls with a personal trainer. You have to do 30 hours of calls before you're allowed on your own. Um and you're never on shift with another person. So whether that's physically in the phone room or um online there is a slack channel where everyone is in helpline live and you're all talking to each other and then after the shift you um check in with someone about the shift and then uh you also have someone and I used to be this person who is a sister sa I cannot remember what the acronym is uh who is the on call person for a day that day and you are encouraged to check in with me um or to have a phone call if you've taken in a call that was particularly difficult. Having said all of that, you know, everyone at Switchboard volunteers as LGBTQ plus and that means that they may be helping someone get through something they are experiencing in that very moment. And that happened a lot within the HIV and AIDS crisis. Someone that we found in the log books was called Steve who left anonymous notes um saying uh that he had been diagnosed HIV positive. Was anyone else out there? and you tracked these notes and eventually he comes out as being Steve. Um, and he just says, "I can't do this anymore. It's too hard." Um, and he leaves Switchboard. And we found him. He's alive still. He lives in Neath in Wales. I got to go and give him a hug. Um, but he couldn't deal with that. Um, he couldn't deal with going through his own diagnosis and supporting the community at the same time. And you you don't have to there, you know, you have to prioritize yourself. and doing that is really really important as a volunteer. So there are lots and lots of support structures in place but sometimes they aren't enough you know and everyone has their own limits but a continual checking in and conversation around emotional well-being is the core when it comes to that and that's something that you know we've experienced as well in volunteer in volunteering in listening to people to interviewing people that's a really complex and emotional uh process in and of itself hearing all of those stories and then how do you hold those stories as well even on this um book tour we've had a layer of complex complexity in doing that. Um and then in terms of the funding, so uh switchboard has been volunteer and led until uh a couple of years ago when I and the other co-chair and board restructured the organization and brought staff in to create a a staff structure because um burnout is so alive and real within the charity sector and it was just happening left, right, and center. Um and also it's really really hard to get people to volunteer for an organization um because it's you know there's a lot of privilege in volunteering and um you have to give up a lot of time and need that time could be spent elsewhere and earning money if you need to and all of those sorts of things. The funding came from lots of different places um individual funding grants um there was a lot of funding that came from the government. When I joined Switchboard in 2012 we had just lost a massive piece of funding from the government. um we were getting 50 to60,000 pounds a year for our work in HIV awareness and they cut the funding because HIV wasn't a problem then 2012 I can tell you it was and um uh yeah and then we were going to I think we had two years left to run on the money that we had um but we managed to pull it back and and get the funding again. How is it today when it comes to gender critical uh complexities, transphobia? It's a really complicated place and Switchboard is very visible and it always has been as you'll read in the log books um because it's a very visible queer um entity and so it gets a lot of targets it gets a lot of attacks um but it keeps going and I you know I think that if we talk about gender critical people or transphobic people or the turfs whatever language you want to use they're actually a really small percentage of society and there's a lot more people in this world who believe in querness and trans inclusivity and the power of collectivity and movement together. And I think actually like what switchboard is really good at and what has always been really good at is recognizing that collectivity is the key but it cannot be done in isolation. Our work can't exist in isolation. We will only move forward together if we move forward as a collective as a chorus. Um and so I think switchboard has always been really good at seeing that. >> Thank you. I'm going to turn to questions from the audience. I should have asked earlier. So, we've got uh sort of a one two there if that's all right. So, I'll start back there and then we'll move to the frontier. Thank you. >> Uh thank you. Such a good talk. Thank you. Um I'm just interested in your point about healing. Can I make an assumption that when you've been out on tour, you've had a lot of people coming and talking to you about it because it is a powerful topic for people. and my generation, your generation, there is a lot of stuff that we've all been through. Um, so I'm just interested in your thoughts about healing as a process and looking back and uh what we can take forward. >> Yeah. >> Should I take that? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Collective grief is >> Yeah, you're so right. Um, that's been a really big part of the tour. Like we the book came out in January and over and then over a course of about six weeks we did about 20 events. None as big as this. This is our biggest audience. Yeah. It's like amazing and >> and best and the best. >> We've laughed at everything >> honestly the like um also most attractive audience. [laughter] Um and so uh yeah so and like you know there was um yeah there's like an impact on us as well but also what we noticed and we just now we're still doing events but they're a bit more spread out a bit more sporadic and um and we're still noticing that at every event that we do there's um usually at least one person that actually shares a moment when they called switchboard and what that meant to them. Um and or there's moments when people want to take they take the opportunity to like share um yeah like a a a an event in their life or a general kind of theme in their life that's um somewhere in the realm of what we've all been talking about already today, you know. Um and what we so therefore what we've noticed is that the um the fact of the book um is creating a space and then bookshops often or the libraries are hosting that space and um we are the first two to step into it but then other people keep stepping into that space and sharing that. Um, and that's um sort of that's the work extending out of the book, you know what I mean? It's like whether you buy the book or don't buy the book, that's happening and and I think we're pleased and proud about that. Um, but you're asking about healing and I think that um in a way that that that's our approach to it is that um we're not we're not therapists. We're if we're doing a book event in a bookshop, it's you know a Thursday evening 7 o'clock till half past 8 in a bookshop in Yuki and then we all go to the pub or we go home we go to the hotel whatever it's not therapy it you know you got to be careful about that and how you hold that space and anyone who's like sharing it's got to be careful as well but the for so therefore what is what how do we see this how we see it is it's literally this is the space and it's the start of a conversation and if that person is sharing something in that event or if they're not sharing at that moment, but they're thinking it and then we go away, they all go away and then we've started something and it might I would hope that it's the start of a healing if that's what they need. And it's sometimes it's a kind of trigger for that person hopefully to be like, you know, I'm going to get some support about this >> or I'm going to actually tell my friend about this part of my life that they don't know about, you know, from years ago. Um, so there's a limit to what we can offer in terms of healing because we're not therapists and it's just a two-hour event or something. But, um, so therefore, I think how we've thought about what we're offering is is just that we can create a space um, stimulate some thoughts, maybe stimulate some conversation, and then hopefully people know where there's other support in that if that helps. >> Can I pick up on the idea of the circuit? We talked about LGBT plus history month and come February there'll be >> hundreds of events all around the country and I Adam you just put the thought in my mind the exciting thought that >> in libraries now they get to put this book right front and center you know across the country and >> how important that might be for somebody looking for healing part of healing is finding a connection finding >> the next step and I suppose >> your connection came from the talk as well it was it was your talk that led to this connection so this wouldn't exist had you not also true >> stepped up and shared >> the story of Switchboard at the Bishop's Gate and now that you're sharing it via a new circuit on a larger scale with more stories, more people um sharing that platform now you're you're you're creating a platform for others to be able to share their story as well via this book and via the podcast. I think >> I imagine the connections that come out of that as well. I don't know if you want to comment on that or whether you want to speak that as read. >> Yeah, I love it. I love it. Um, I've been saying this quite a lot on the tour, but um, Joerel Taylor, who is a queer poet, lesbian poet, said, "Collectivity is the antidote to cultural fascism." And I really believe in that. And I believe in this complicated thing of collective grief that's happening. Um, there's I've tapped into that, Adam's tapped into that, we hear that from everyone. It's this collectivity, this movement, but I think it's more than that. Like there's a moment where you understand that you've got a grief or you've got some healing to do, and then there's the process of going through that. and the connections that that can then build and make. But then it's what we do with it next. Where does that go next? Because it doesn't have to end. And I think as queer people, we have been born into a world where we don't see ourselves. This world doesn't look very queer. So what we do is we break it apart and we build it back together so that we make sense of ourselves within it. And that is so creative. That is a very queer and creative and radical act. And you do that as a child even if you don't realize that you are LGBTQ plus that's happening in your head. So that maybe there is this moment now of grief and healing and all of this unraveling to be able to then build something that is amazing and I'm so excited about what that could be. And if the book can help people to start piecing that together then I feel really proud that we're part of that wider movement. >> Thank you. Can I have a show of hands if there's any more questions? There's one at the back and one here, but I'm going to come here first. One at the back, >> please. >> Um, is it on? >> Yeah, I think so. >> Yeah. My question is regarding the writing process. Um obviously there are a lot of um notes that have built up over the years and you've mentioned um seinal moments and themes but how did you come to decide what was going to go in the book >> and I wondered if you could um elaborate a little bit on that please. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Lot lots of conversations. There is so much that's not in the book. um we sort of almost had to like argue with ourselves about what deserved to be in the book or not. So I read the log books for two years, did that talk, Adam was at the talk and then we chose to work together on the podcast. Um so we had this step before making the book, before writing the book where we looked at um the log book entries. Adam had to go into the archive and read them to catch up with where I was and started tagging them and cataloging them with like the most common themes. So HIV or nightlife. Um and then uh we looked at that and looked at what the most common themes were and the podcast was in three seasons chronologically. So the first one 1974 to 83 84 to 90 something and then until 2003 and each episode was a a theme except for the HIV and AIDS one which we did over three episodes because there was just so much to uncover. So, we'd done that work already in terms of framing it. And then when we um took a step back after we'd finished that and decided that we wanted to write a book, we looked at um all of that work that had been done, but we wanted to sort of zoom out and um encapsulate something bigger. Not only the impact of doing this history because we hadn't really thought about that, I don't think when we were making the podcast. We were just so so keen to just be like making it, getting it out there, so thirsty for this queer content. Um, and then with the book, we had some more time. We went into other archives and and maybe Adam, you can pick up on the rest of this answer, but what we wanted to do with each chapter was to do something a bit different. So, not just to have a chapter on sex, but to have a chapter, which is chapter one, um, which it should be, which is about having sex with who you want to have sex with, but in the body or the gender expression that feels right to you. So, we coined this term gender sex. So it's bringing a slightly different angle to the idea of sex. And then instead of writing a chapter about HIV and AIDS, we zoomed out and we thought, how can we frame this differently? And so we did a chapter on care that interweaved HIV and AIDS um uh teachers during section 28 and how they struggled to care for uh children at schools, but also how they weren't being cared for by the state. And then um trans healthcare as well. And so, how could these points in time that we're looking back at actually draw bigger themes and try and bring in a a newer angle to them? >> I think we also um knew from reading all the log book entries that um there are some that are like so distinctive in one way or another or so important or significant in one way or another um because of the story that they're sharing or something like that um that that earn their place in a way just because of that. But then also there are so many log book entries that are very very similar. And so we're not going to include 20 log book entries which are all about a a 15year-old kid that's been kicked out of home for being gay for example. Um there's one in Bradford, there's one in uh Red Roof, there's one in Glasgow, whatever. But um you know, but we knew that we could pick one of those that would stand for all the others. And also because of confidentiality, you know, we were changing names and details and and things like that anyway. Uh and so a lot of the log book entries um there are the text of them is still very very close to the original. Um but they also a lot of them are sort of they're not generic, but they kind of can stand in you know for many others that are similar. So in a way that was a sort of easy selection thing would be like well look we've got these 15 and they're the same. So which one of them is the best one that >> represents that grouping, you know, or that theme? >> Yeah. >> And when we didn't have a log book entry to tell a story because not everyone's stories are represented in the log books and you only know what a caller is telling a volunteer and then what a volunteer writes down, we tried to then speak to someone who could speak to that experience and help us to tell a wider tapestry of of stories. >> Last two questions. So one up the back first. Thank you very much for your talk. Um, you've uh both spoken so beautifully about the situation and I'm personally very moved. Um, my question was though a little bit sort of drier but operational I guess you might say. Um, as you've as you have touched on um, history isn't linear and there's progression and there steps back and there's different kinds of progression. So my question is in a postGDPR world, what what [snorts] stands in for the log books, what how do we make sure that those stories are are seen and heard and understood and shared like you've been talking about when we can't share that information in the the same way. So that's my question. >> PostGPR world. [snorts] Um yeah, well um we can tell our stories, can't we? And I think that's something that probably wasn't as easily available in the 70s when Switchboard started, the 80s, maybe even the 90s. Um, how the volunteers are recording things today is on Slack, you know, it's online, it's on a computer. Um, Switchboard has an archive team. I've suggested doing things like leaving voice notes. Um, because I was trying to think about what is as representative as handwriting now. You know, everyone's typing looks the same. Um, and the voice being unique. Um, but I think that that's what's different. We are, you know, sometimes it feels like we really haven't made much progress and that the world can feel really hard to live in and difficult at times. But I think we do have more of a platform to share our stories. Queer stories are on TV. You know, people who are [snorts] famous are coming out as LGBTQIA plus. Um, and maybe what the log books did was uh create a safe space to capture that that those stories and those information. Um, but maybe now we live in a space where I don't know it's complicated within certain frameworks and if you feel able to that you can share yours. Um, but it's really comp complicated. I think I don't know maybe diaries like there's something about like the everyday nature of the log book. Stories are really important, right? It's not someone who's necessarily done something particularly notable to them. They haven't won an award or they haven't chained themselves to railings or they're not this person or that person. They just got up, made a cup of tea, kissed their partner, you know, went to work, came home. But that is so powerful. It's so amazing. It's so meaningful. Um yeah, I don't know. It's a really good question. But um maybe just living Maybe just living is the answer. >> The last question up the back. I think it was on this side. Then of course I think you'll be signing if you don't mind raising your hand again if you asked to Oh, was up the front. I'm sorry. Okay. Last question up here. Run, [laughter] >> but don't trip. >> Of course, you'll be signing books afterwards as well, so there'll be more time to to speak after this as well. And I'm ready to stand by you and speak about pre-colian art. Great. >> Okay. Great. Well, just throwing it back to history again. Um, who do you think from history would have really benefited from something like Switchboard? And is there anybody that you personally would have liked to offer help or support to? [laughter] >> Sorry, that's >> I would love to offer help and support to anyone who has a gender critical way of thinking. Um because I think that yeah that they just need to speak to more trans people and be open. Um Adam, what about you? Who do you think should have called switchboard? >> Oh my gosh, >> that's such a good question. [laughter] >> I'm being thrown by it. >> Um >> I don't know. I I I read a lot of um sad gay novels. [laughter] >> Uh and some non-fiction that's also sad and gay. And you know, there's just so many of these stories of these lonely men in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and I've read so many books like that. It's like a whole genre. Um, and whether it's non-fiction or fiction, uh, you just can't help but think like they were so lonely and so isolated and often very secretive. And if only they could have called Switchboard to have an anonymous, confidential conversation where they don't even have to give their name, but just to be able to talk to someone else like them. Yeah, >> I think I'd probably say myself and maybe someone like Emily Dickinson. >> Get her out the house. >> I think the yourself is an interesting one because I think sometimes you're invited to think about your 16-year-old self. What would you have said to your 16-year-old self? I'm going to come back to last thoughts. >> Also sad and gay. Sorry. [laughter] >> Sad. Also sad and gay. Uh I'm going to I'm going to I think do a last quote from the book and then I'll I'll give space for you both to do your last thoughts. Maybe I'm first and then Tash. But uh >> uh this I thought was a very striking part of the book. Uh and you know I think part of the thought when we do talks at Queer Britain for example is always to help the audience go what do you do next? What's the next thing that you can do that can help? And I I I loved this. [clears throat] How can you be with someone through their pain when you can't hold their hand? You listen. You really listen. You let them breathe. You answer their questions. You speak gently. And you listen more. You tell them their feelings are valid. You give them space to breathe. And you tell them that they can call again. You love. You care. But you also need to keep caring for yourself. >> Lost thoughts. I think that the one of the um lessons that I've learned from this work um goes back to what Tasha was saying way earlier on about active listening um because and and I just think we should place that in the context of the moment that we're all living in right now because it's such a noisy time >> and that is good and bad. You know, like the part of the noisiness of our time is that anyone can someone someone might be here right now live streaming this on Instagram and like great, you know, we can do that. We can go and make a podcast this afternoon and put it out. We can, you know, we have this all this amazing technology. We can immediately call our loved one in Australia right now. You know, we can do this. It's amazing that we have this technology but it creates a very noisy environment and um everyone's kind of fighting over the airwaves and internet and I I mean actually fighting and I also just mean speaking in parallel to each other. So the noise is it's a lot of speaking in parallel and um it's just worthwhile always remembering the lesson of switchboard which is you know it's just one person speaking to another person on the phone and I think about it a lot in in friendships is you know the sort of most momentous maybe parts of my emotional life have been just like private conversations with friends you know on the sofa and I just I think that it's such a noisy time that we're always running the risk of forgetting that um and forgetting the power of the direct conversation with another person whether it's on the phone or in real life. Um and that's that's it. That's that's something that I've learned. And that's not even anything to do with like queerness necessarily. It's just more it's that's just a thing that we've got to we've got to kind of keep it analog in a way, >> you know? >> Yeah, that's so nice. talk and listen. >> Yeah. Um well, I don't think I can add anything more to what Adam said around that. So maybe I'll just talk a bit about weeds. Um I've been thinking a lot about weeds. I think about weeds a lot. Um and how weeds that's not a botanical category. That is a judgment that's been put on a plant. Just how we have been judged the weeds or anyone who is deemed other by the state and is trying to is tried to be uh controlled by the state. There's a weaves act like there was section 28 like there's an aliens act and there's all of these different ways in which we um are being tried to be controlled and what is more powerful than claiming yourself a weed and saying we the weeds resist we the weeds fight back and we the weeds resist so I would say claim yourself a weed and uh let's all be a collective garden of weeds together and stand up and fight back um cuz you're not alone and you have to do it together and this kind of work will only really thrive um if it's done in unison with other people. >> Beautiful. If I could ask for a sort of an Alice in Wonderlandesque sort of pitch, can all the weeds please collectively appast [applause] Thank you. [applause] >> [music]