THE  NATIONAL  LESBIAN  AND  GAY  SURVEY - A History

 

 

Early in the 1930s a group of academics attempted to record the feelings and opinions of the person in the street on major issues of the day.  Since then Mass-Observation has had a chequered history until a major national project was set up and run from the University of Sussex.

 

Although the project has done very valuable work in amassing a social history of our times, it was clear that a very minimal input of lesbian and gay opinion gave an unsatisfactory heterosexual bias.  Kenneth Barrow, for some time a Mass-Observer, set up the National Lesbian and Gay Survey in 1985, under the auspices of the Hall-Carpenter Archives, in an attempt to redress the balance.

 

Initially the NL&GS was financed with Ken's own money and then by the Hall-Carpenter Archives in return for archival access to the collection.  When Hall-Carpenter lost its major source of funding in 1988 it seemed that the only way in which the NL&GS could continue was through funds being donated by the observers themselves.

A voluntary subscription was suggested and although most sent nothing, those that did contribute kept the survey going at financially a very lean time. 

 

In 1989 Ken met Kerry Sutton-Spence, an observer with the Survey since 1986.  Keen that the Survey should have input from a lesbian, he invited her to become the Women's Director.  Since then she has contributed to directives.

 

Although publication has never been the main aim of the Survey it was felt that the richness of the collection deserved a wider audience.  A book entitled "What A Lesbian Looks Like"; (ISBN 0-415-08100-9) was published by Routledge in 1992.

A further book of men's writing, entitled "Proust, Cole Porter, Michelangelo, Marc Almond And Me", (ISBN 0-415-08914-X) was published in May 1993.  These two publications put the Survey on a firmer financial footing and kept it solvent.  Both books are now out of print.

 

In 1984 Ken was diagnosed as being HIV positive and in 1992 he developed AIDS.  His health gradually declined until his death in July 1993.  As founder and Men's Director of the Survey he is sadly missed but the Survey remains as a testament to his work and life. In August 1993 the Survey acquired a new Men's Director, Jerome Farrell, himself an observer since 1985.

 

At present the NL&GS is no longer recruiting volunteers, having sent out 30 different directives over its lifetime.  A collection of the writings generated by the Survey is available to researchers at the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex.