Rainbow Seas in Maritime Museums: group summary

There's no doubt about it. Most maritime museums  could do with representing aspects of seafaring life that have hitherto been marginalised. That includes the ways LGBT+ seafarers used voyages as a exceptional opportunities to explore new identities and relationships. 

On some ships you could go beyond heteronormatvity. However, it took a while before seafarers could be seen brandishing rainbow flags at Pride (see above). Now there's modern visibility and inclusion, but the history is still under-visible. 

Since 2005 a number of museums in Euope, and two in Canada have put on special temporary exhibitions focused entirely on gay life at sea. See the main images of Victoria, BC, exhibition, right.) 

Other museums arrange events for LGBT+ History Month every February.

Curators and community outreach staff who work in this area are often trailblazers. They seek hard-to-find artefacts, struggle to be diplomatic, and sometimes face homophobic responses by visitors. 

Having experienced and supportive mates helps. Friendly peers share advice, explore, get inspired by others' ideas and endlessly seek to do better. 

The Rainbow Seas in Maritime Museums group has shared expertise remotely zoom for nearly two years. This blog is my attempt, as chair, to summarise it as I see it. And I do so in the hope that others with join in.

Describing a group that is evolving all the time is not easy. But these common FAQ's will help put you in the picture.

1.What does it do? Works informally via 90-minute meetings over Zoom to ensure the diverse history of LGBT+ life on ships and in ports is better represented in museums.

2. Who's in it? A small group of people in Europe, but with speakers from other time zones when possible.  Members are employed by museums, or work with them as expert consultants or interns. Some identify as queer, and some are queer allies. 

3. When do you meet?  About every two months over Zoom, usually on a Friday  morning (agreed at the previous meeting). The meetings are recorded so if you miss one you can still see the video of what happened, and make comments etc by email afterwards.

4. What happens in a typical meeting?  We check in briefly with news about what we are doing. Then the agreed speaker describes their current exhibition work (for example in Bergen 2023, see main image, left.) Or the guest speaker contributes for 30 mins on  a particular area. About 20 mins  chat follows, which usually involves a lot of sharing and recommending. 

5, How are meetings recorded? On the agreed platform, e.g. Teams. We do so because we see ourselves as creating something useful we can offer to the future.  

Sometimes I write a reflective diary,. I hope others do too. I circulate mine by email but am not sure anyone reads it!

6. What has the group done?  In 2022, when we began, three members were putting on displays about queer seafarers. Two others had already done so. 

Veterans offered a hand to the newcomers: this was both formal and informal consultancy. A key question was ‘How do we get hold of evidence?’ The answer: 'By appealing to older seafarers to come forward with artefacts and oral testimony and see themselves educators of newcomers.' 

Community participation is seen as invaluable. (Pictured, former steward Charles Traa and friend in foreign port. Charles was proud to help Amsterdam's National Maritime Museum by sharing his photo albums and being videod.)

7. Who are your guest speakers?  Sometimes we invite in speakers from the maritime industry today. That way, historical displays can be made relevant to present times and the future.  

8. What’s next?  It’s hard to know. It seems likely that some members will fall away because, having put on a exhibition focused on gay life, they now have to move on to mounting their next exhibition. It’s likely that they will be less frequent partiicipants, there in spirit but not in person. 

I certainly hope that people working with other maritime museums keen to represent the subject will join in. A dynamic organisation will be shaped by newcomers and new moves, such as rainbow capitalism. 

9. What future speakers do you have lined up? Professor Seth Stein LeJaq will speak at our next meeting, about using early Royal Navy archives. Our group members are always keen to work with local LGBT+ organisations including archives and universities. Luckily most museums offer talks programmes now, and even podcasts,  which continue to expand the positive effects of an exhibition long after it's over.   

And it seems possible that we may work with people in ports about queer seafarers’ use of ‘cottages’, gay brothels, Turkish baths, Seamen’s Homes. 

Antwerp, Australia and the Far East seem to be emerging as possible partners. We will be drawing in historians of queer life who are not necessarily interested in seafarers. Together we can make connections.

10. What are the side benefits of joining this peer support group with all its potential to help research? 

• maritime museums are supported in being more inclusive (and thereby attracting new audiences)
• museum workers don’t 'reinvent wheels'. It’s likely that increased international agency and consultancy will evolve
•  there’s a domino effect: other museums will consider what they can do, even of it’s only expand their archives, not put on a whole exhibition.

11. How to join? Contact me by email in the first instance. Then I will put you on mailing list. 

Reading more 

Start here. For an introduction and recommeded reading see the LGBT+ Sea page on my website: http://jostanley.biz/the_sea_and_lgbt_plus.html

To read the latest on gay sea exhibitions see my articles:

• 'Rainbow Seas Swelling:', Lloyd's Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre, 20 June 2022, https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/stories/rainbow-sea-swelling 
• 'Museum musings: a cultural update from the world's maritime museums', Nautilus Telegraph,  26 August 2022, https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/telegraph/museum-musings-a-cultural-update-from-the-worlds-maritime-museums/

Filmed talks by me. 

2023. “Revealing queer maritime history: international museums’ LGBT+ sea exhibitions,” Blaydes Maritime Centre webinar, University of Hull, May 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqJ-8tRXeA&t=74s

2023. “Entertaining 4 Sanity@sea: Hull's glitzy ship’s steward Roy ‘Wendy’ Gibson and the history of shipboard entertainment,“ University of Hull, Blaydes Maritime Centre webinar, Feb 2023.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGg9seH4tgg&t=646s

2023. “A Whirlwind Tour of a Jigsaw 1600-2020. 400 packed years of LGBTQI+ maritime history, “ Maritime UK, Pride in Diversity network webinar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nslyxO679Po

2008.  Homotopia. “Hello Sailor,” filmed interview with me touring an interviewer round the Merseyside Maritime Museum version of the Hello Sailor exhibition, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFhyEGdEAJA

LGBTQI history book affects seafarers' futures

I don't usually write about personal matters on this blog. But an email I've just had prompts this. 

Nearly twenty years ago Paul Baker and I wrote a history of the UK Merchant Navy: Hello Sailor: The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea  (Routledge 2003).

I thought we were recording and sharing an account of an important past culture - an extraordinary, and very enabling lifestyle for those lucky enough to be on gay-friendly ships in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.  

We  interviewed ex-seafarers who were in their 60s, 70s and 80s. They were speaking about a time before Gay Pride, when homosexual acts at sea were illegal. The past!

But now an email from Captain Lee Clarke, AFRIN, a much younger person still working in maritime today, illuminates the way that the book had another use today: it has helped LGBTQI+ people in modern times feel better. Lee (pictured here) has permitted me tell that surprising story: 

 "When I was a cadet in the early 2000’s,and certainly a junior navigating officer in the Merchant Navy, I struggled to come to terms with my sexuality. I started to hear stories from crew members onboard the RMS St Helena, that serviced Union Castle Lines. 

They talked of times when gay seafarers had their own language and culture onboard, as well as meeting in their own places all across the globe. This drew me towards Hello Sailor and I felt I connected more to the men in those pages than I did with other LGBTQ+ movements circulating at the time.

"I had honestly felt at that time that I had no heritage or understanding of the rich history that came with being a gay seafarer.  

"I came across Hello Sailor in 2015 and just could not put the book down. I connected to a history I was so proud of, but also connected to the pain on land of hiding my sexuality, and the importance of being able to escape to sea.

 "My ultimate favourite part of the book was learning about Polari and how people used it to communicate discreetly. I found this amazing. 

"I posted on LinkedIn about in 2016: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gay-being-sailor-lee-clarke-vorstit er/?trackingId=NjgP5%2BkqSVyQsQJCliJfzA%3D%3D

"During my time as a cadet manager from 2015 to 2019,  when LGBTQ+ cadets approached me feeling disconnected about their sexuality and wondering how they would fit into the merchant navy, my first recommendation was to read Hello Sailor. 

They did, and it made them proud to be in the merchant navy and to be LGBTQ+. "

I'd like to thank all the people who told us about gay life at sea, and thus enabled this story to be told, and to continue to have its effects.

From ship’s steward to LGBT+ media activist: Mick Belsten

 

Mick Belsten (pictured far right) was a rare seafarer. Leaving the camp-ified liners, for two decades he helped shape the emerging out and proud LGBT+ culture on land.

If you watched episode 2 of It’s A Sin, Russell T Davies’ new TV series about gay culture and HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, then you’ll have noticed the way gay magazines were crucial sources of alternative information. (See pic).Mick shaped that world. Indeed he could have been part of the production team that brought out the very magazines you saw on screen in this week’s programme.

In the 1950s, 60s, 70s and early 80s many seafarers, particularly stewards, enjoyed the exceptional ‘camp heavens’ on ships. Their history is recorded in Paul Baker and Jo Stanley, Hello Sailor! https://tinyurl.com/Hello-Sailor-book. I know a closeted officer who lost his maritime job after a friend sent him Gay Times, which effectively outed him.

Mick probably gained his first experiences of unofficial queer solidarity, 24:7 fun, and relative freedom by being part of that maritime counter-culture. 

Such were merchant seamen's privileges that, when discussing the Gay Liberation Front and its informal successors, one seaman crowed to me ‘At sea we didn’t need liberation movements. We already were liberated.’

But Bristol-born activist Mick Belsten (1934-1990) wanted liberation to reach far wider, and permanently, everywhere.  

After being a steward on a gay-friendly P&O liner he came back from Honolulu, a 'graduate' of these queer universities afloat. And he metamorphosed into an LGBT+ activist, for example demonstrating against the notoriously hypocritical 1971 Festival of Light. (See pic at Trafalgar Square: Mick, right, seated, with arm upraised.)

From the 1970s Mick helped produce the Gay Liberation Front's influential journal Come Together. He managed Hammersmith’s path-breaking Incognito gay bookstore, at a time when police raids and censorious clampdowns were fruitlessly attempting to impede the free flow of LGBT+ cultural products.

Among the LGBT+ culture ‘architects’ Mick worked with were Alan Purnell and Alex McKenna. His multi-tasking helped create the emerging gay magazines such as Zipper, HIM Exclusive, Gay Times, Him Monthly, Mister, Vulcan, and Out.  

Expert on the gay pornography of the period, Paul R Deslandes (pictured) has summarised the significance of these innovative types of publication. With their pictures and experimental layouts they emphasised 

‘erotic pleasure, the articulation of a specifically gay identity and a public kind of “coming out”, entirely in keeping with the prevailing political ethos of the day... that [included] the provision of no-nonsense sexual education with a new kind of sex-positive and informed gay identity.’

Gay Times, 1983. Mick is far left, back row

Mick’s many ad hoc roles in these magazines - with their varying degrees of pornographic content - included compiling news from overseas and handling the small ads. 

Lonely-hearts-style classified ads may have been individuals' tiny expressions of privately-held desire. But, when published, these ads were also crucial building blocks that helped create a world where people could be honest about needs that had previously been stifled. 

For many isolated gays in remote places such adverts were evidences of the new openness, and of all that available to questors. The lines were, virtually, as liberating as shipboard life had been.

Mick typed up copy that countered the old homophobic  articles in mainstream papers.

Working – often precariously– in such media Mick was a key gatekeeper in what Dr Harry Cocks sees described as the radical focusing role of such as small ads. See https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classified-Secret-History-Personal-Column-ebook/dp/B0034FJGF8 

As a small-ad supremo - handling postal orders and trays of filing cards in meticulous sequence - Mick was in the position of ethnographer, as well as enabler in those analogue times. 

He didn’t leave records of his own subjective experiences shaping this brave new world. But from the bits I’ve pieced together I can see that Mick Belsten is an unsung hero of queer mobilities and of maritime history's impactful diversity. 

He’s the bridge between the hundreds of seafarers enjoying personal pleasure in exceptional places, as pioneers, and the millions on land who went on to shape an affirming new counter-culture for all.  

I found out about Mick too late to put him in our book and exhibition, Hello Sailor. But now, thanks to the collaboration of his friends and colleagues, I’m writing about him and giving talks about him. 

See Outing the Past’s list of available talks, Feb to Sept, 2021. (https://www.outingthepast.com/otp-2021-festival-gazette.) From March 2021 films of all talks will be available on YouTube. So keep looking at https://lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk/

Footnote

Much gratitude to Mick's old friends and colleagues. This quest would not have been possible without them. 

Paul R Deslandes, ‘The cultural politics of gay pornography in the 1970s Britain, in Brian Lewis, ed, British queer history: New approaches and perspectives, Manchester University Press, 2013. https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1959166

Hello sailor in Nova Scotia

I've just come back -delighted - from the opening of the Canadian version of Hello Sailor, the exhibition I co-curated for Merseyside Maritime Museum. It's the exciting product of my 40-year old dream to tell the story of this extraordinary subculture.

The expanded exhibition, curated by Dan Conlin at Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic:
• added five panels
• made all the 15 British panels bilingual
• collected stories and objects from five gay seafarers there, including the adapted naval uniform of Elle Noire, who sewed gold lace and sequins on it and cut a low neck.
But we still had the cabin set (see pic of me playing with a feather boa)

It had a great launch on Wed 18 May. The staff trained pink lights on their show cases, arranged the flags outside to include the rainbow coalition flag and to spell out ‘Hello Sailor”, got dressed up in sailor hats, wore pink frocks and fascinators.

We had a drag act with Farrah Moan and Eureka Love singing Abba’s SOS. Then Elle Noire (far right in pic) sang Tina Turner’s Turn Back the Tide. And I had a great time whooping it up there with the drag queens.(That's me, second from right).

If you can't get to the exhibition then you can almost take a virtual tour. Find links to the video and audio footage about the exhibition at http://gov.ns.ca/news/smr/2011-05-18-Hello-Sailor/

The Museum is hoping that now the exhibition is all set for a new life in Canada, it will go on to other museums. The Museum will also be having its first ever float in the Gay Pride parade this summer.

The Minister of Culture, David Wilson, made a statement (very enthusiastic) about us in Parliament (Nova Scotia Provincial Legislature on May 18:

'Nova Scotia can take pride in their unique and diverse history and culture. In communities across the province, museums are working hard to preserve that history and tell our stories. This is a very exciting day for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

'Today the museum is making history as it holds the North American premiere of the exhibit, Hello Sailor! Gay Life on the Ocean Wave. It has been a long journey for this exhibit to come to Halifax. The journey began with the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and intersex people over half a century ago.

'Their stories lay hidden for much of the past 60 years until Dr. Jo Stanley and her colleague, Paul Baker, brought them to life in 2003 in the book, Hello Sailor! The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea. Their book chronicles the experiences of gay crew members on cruise ships and naval vessels that sailed out of England, often stopping in Halifax.

'The book led to the creation of the Hello Sailor! exhibit by the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, England in 2006. It ensures the stories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and intersex mariners were brought together for the public to appreciate. Now, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic has brought Hello Sailor! to Nova Scotia and added local content to make it even more relevant to Nova Scotians.

'I had the pleasure this morning of attending a preview of the exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and it truly is an impressive experience. The Hello Sailor! exhibit is enhanced by the contribution of Dr. Stanley who is guest curator for the North American debut. Nova Scotia is fortunate to have her experience and knowledge increase our understanding of our maritime heritage.

'This is what our museums do best. They bring forward unique parts of our history that have never been talked about or shown before. They help us to understand how our diverse culture and history make Nova Scotia such an incredible place to live, work, and raise a family....

'The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is one of the top attractions for visitors to our province. Thanks to the imagination, skill and knowledge of the staff at the museum, there is now another reason for people to come to the Halifax waterfront - to see the Hello Sailor! exhibit.

'I urge all members of the House and all Nova Scotians to take advantage of this unique opportunity that Hello Sailor! provides to learn more about our maritime heritage.'


http://nslegislature.ca/index.php/proceedings/hansard/C81/house_11may18/#HPage2666