PRIDE

It’s 1984 and the National Union of Mineworkers is striking.

Margaret Thatcher won’t budge.

On June 30th, Joe gets a camera from his parents for his birthday. He
goes out and inadvertently becomes part of a Gay Pride March.
Mike asks Joe for help in carrying a banner, but Joe would prefer to not be
too visible.
Mark passes out buckets to the people marching so everyone can start
collecting donations for the out of work striking miners. Joe ducks out of
the parade and watches from the side lines. A woman comes up and tells
him that she finds the gays to be disgusting. Joe changes his mind and
joins the group again.

After the march, at a party at a London gay book store, Mark forms
L.G.S.M. (Lesbians and Gays Supporting Miners).
It’ll be a grass root effort because right now the police aren’t bullying the
gays because they’re busy bullying the strikers.
Mark knows it’s only a matter of time until they’re the target again.
There isn’t much of a difference between the miners and the gays.
Bookstore owner, Geth asks if he and his partner Jonathan can join the
group too. Jonathan is very jaded and not overly interested in joining the
cause. Only one lesbian named Steph joins.

L.G.S.M. raises a respectable amount of money, but they can’t get

the Labour Union to agree to take it, so they decide to call the mining
towns directly. The small Welsh town of Onllwyn answers and accepts.
They send a rep, Dai to collect. While in London, Dai agrees to go to a gay
nightclub to thank everyone. Dai opens with a joke and wins over the
crowd. He also tells them that they gave his people in Wales something
more than money, they gave friendship.
This wins over Jonathan. Other lesbians join the group too, but
immediately start trying to convince Steph to leave and form a Lesbian
only support group.
Traditionally when people would donate money to the mining towns, the
mining towns would welcome the group to thank them. There’s a debate
whether or not the town wants to welcome the LGSM because they’re not
ready to open their doors to gays. Sian, a volunteer asks what the problem
is. The LGSM raised more money than any other group.

Back in London, the LGSM boards what Jonathan calls the “Deviant
Bus” and heads to South Wales. Joe lies to his parents and tells them his
college is sending him to study different pastry kitchens. Geth stays behind
to run the bookstore, but is glad that Jonathan is on board and
participating. In Onllwyn, people keep taking down signs welcoming the
LGSM.

The town matriarch Hefina welcomes the group. Most of the town
committee reluctantly welcomes the LGSM too, but Maureen remains a
hold out. Mark is invited to speak to the lodge where the town people
gather and tries to open with a joke just like Dai did. It doesn’t go over
well.

The next day Cliff gives the LGSM a tour of the area. Miners are
getting arrested for picketing and Jonathan educates the town on how
that’s illegal.
He breaks down the law for everyone and it’s Sian who goes to the police
station and gets all the protesting miners out of jail.

That night it’s another party at the lodge. Everyone mingles. The
town people ask cutely innocent questions like when two guys live
together as husband and wife, who does the housework?
Maureen still doesn’t want to participate because she says she’s afraid of
AIDS. Jonathan gets everyone to unite and have a great time through a big
disco dance number. Seeing that the ladies love a man who can dance and
have fun, a couple of the miners ask him for dance lessons.

The LGSM heads back to London. When they drop off Joe, they give
him a pastry so he can keep the lie going with his family. He tells his mom
that the trip was the best experience of his life. She questions, “Making
pastries?”
They watch television and there’s a PSA about AIDS, which his dad calls
“Anally Injected Death Sentence”.
It’s winter. The strike has been going on for 42 weeks. The van that takes
the miners to protest has broken down. Hefina calls Jonathan to thank him
for his Christmas Card (which is raunchy and silly).
 Spirits are down because Margaret Thatcher has decided to starve out
the miners and shut off their gas so the winter will be unbearable. The
LGSM goes back to Wales to deliver more donations.
Mark makes a speech and tells everyone that the LGSM let them down and
he’s going to do something huge. Cliff talks about how he lost his brother
in the mines. Everyone sings a rally song and vows “victory to the
miners”! Maureen’s sons crash the gathering and are thrown out.

Geth is grateful to be in Wales (where he’s originally from) and not

have to hide who he is. It’s been 16 years since he was last there because
he mother couldn’t accept him. Hefina urges him to go see her.
Cliff invites Maureen to join the group, but as it looks like she might just
come around, townfolk yell at her.
They hate her as much as she hates the gays.
Geth visits his mum. Maureen calls the newspaper and gives them the
story about the miners accepting help from “perverts”.
Joe arrives him and finds out he’s been suspending from college. The
newspaper runs a story “Perverts Support the Pits”. The Union votes to
stop accepting help from the LGSM. Someone throws a brick and
fireworks through Geth’s bookshop window.

Mark decided to spin this bad publicity into something good. He

throws the Perverts and Pits Benefit Ball and it’s a huge success. During
the show, Joe’s mom and sister discover his newspaper clipping and
photographs archiving his life with the LGSM.
The townfolk come to London for the P & P Benefit Concert. The miners
that Jonathan taught how to dance pick up on some girls. Joe gets his first
kiss from a boy. Tim bumps into Mark and tells him he’s on his farewell
tour and to take care of himself because life is short.

The ladies from Onllwyn end up going to a gay leather bar and later,
while staying with Jonathan and Geth find a dildo and some porno
magazines. They’re delighted. Also that night, Steph ends up kissing one
of the ladies after a quick discussion about feminism.

Joe goes home and finds out his family knows what he’s been doing. His
mom tells him he’s too young to know what he wants and a gay lifestyle is
a lonely lifestyle because if he lives it, he won’t have his family.
There’s supposed to be a Union Meeting at 3pm to discuss further
involvement with the LGSM, but Maureen gets the meeting moved up to
noon, and everyone misses it while driving back from London.
Cliff tries to speak on behalf the LGSM, but has a hard time speaking in
public. Sian’s husband tries to speak as well, but also has a difficult time.

Afterwards, Maureen and Cliff argue and we find out that she was
married to his brother who died in the mines. He tells her this isn’t what
his brother would have wanted. Sian gives the Union leaders the money
the LGSM raised from their benefit show. It’s thousands and thousands of
dollars. It’s a selfless act of generosity, but it doesn’t change a thing.

Mike asks what now since the Union voted to not have any more
support from the LGSM. Mark tells him to piss off because it’s over. Geth
keeps trying to raise money for the miners anyway, but now even the other
gay people are mad because right now they need support with the onset of
AIDS. Geth gets jumped.
Steph goes to Joe’s home to tell him about Geth, but his mom answers the
door and doesn’t give Joe the message.
Cliff confides in Hefina that he’s gay. She says she knows. He asks how
long she’s known, since the LGSM arrived? She said she’s known since
about 1968. Hefina offers to drive the miners to picket in the van they
bought with the money from the benefit concert.

March 4th, 1985. The strike has been going on for almost a year, but
now it’s over. The miners lost. Joe goes to watch a Miner March. He runs
into Mark who tells him to have some pride in who he is because life is
short. Sian tells him about Geth being in the hospital.

Joe and Sian visit Geth in the hospital. Geth asks Sian to look after
Jonathan because he’s HIV positive and doesn’t take care of himself.
Geth’s mom visits him as well. Outside, Jonathan tells Sian now that the
strike is over she should keep doing stuff because she’s smart.
He was one of the first people in London to be diagnosed HIV positive.
Sian drops Joe off at home during his sister’s kid’s Christening.
She’s driving the LGSM van. Joe’s mom freaks and Sian tells her that she
hopes one day she learns to appreciate her son because there’s an entire
town in Wales that thinks he’s a hero.
Joe leaves home and finds Steph to have a drink.
She tells him that she’s thinking about reinventing herself as demure and
accommodating, sort of a lesbian Lady Di. Joe tells her he likes who she
is.

June 29th, it’s Gay Pride London. Everyone is at the bookstore

making banners for the parade. Mark shows up and apologizes, especially
to Mike, for acting like a dick. The LGSM shows up to march and are told
by the people in charge that political banners are not allowed. The lesbian
group shows up as well. They all decided it doesn’t matter if they march
with or without the banners, what matters is that they all march together.
The town folk show up as well to march in support of their gay friends.

In fact bus after bus of people from different mining communities

show up. The support is so overwhelming that the miners and end leading
the march…with the banners. Mike asks Joe if this time he’s going to be
worried about being visible.

In title cards we learn that Sian goes to college and ends up being one of
the first women elected into Parliament.
Jonathan was one of the first people to be diagnosed HIV positive in
London and recently celebrated his 65th birthday.
Mark continued to fight for causes until he died of AIDS in 1987 shortly
after being diagnosed. He was only 26 years old.
The Labour Party passed an amendment to recognize gay rights within the
Union.