One of the changes that is that I spend a lot less time on the streets. Activism used to be fairly street based, and actually the bit that wasn’t street based was trade union stuff. And this is the thing, when you’re older you find yourself saying "when I was younger "and that covers such a broad range of stuff. So traditionally in my very early activism I was involved in classic left-wing politics ,Trotskyite politics, which was selling the paper, going on picket lines, being on demos, going to meetings to hear the word ,backed with involvement in trade union. I was a shop steward from a very early age and the first time I ever spoke in public was to 300 people when I was in the town hall when I was 17 as this little kid in the finance department of the council.

And I did a lot of training. I was a senior steward in what is now unison but was then NUPE so I did classic shop stewarding so representing the people I was working with but also more broadly fighting for good terms and conditions and salaries.

I was on strike for three months as a residential worker in 1983 and 84 that was an incredible peak for that sort of stuff. But some of the great things about trade unions especially the more active aware ones was their campaigning on broader issues. through those unions I was involved in everything from supporting women’s right to choose .to some of the early GLF stuff as it was in those days, and antiracist stuff .

in my mid to late 30s I shifted a bit and I moved out of that more classic narrower trade union stuff and got quite interested in direct action and supporting that the most initially with disability and direct action network.

I was engaged in both my work and my personal life. Small demos on the streets, people being chained to buses, the stuff that’s back very much on the news nowadays isn’t it because of what’s going on around climate change.

And I was doing that around disability and act up. So Act up was the AIDS coalition to unleash power, and they were using direct action to fight discrimination and prejudice around HIV and AIDS, and to fight for good services. It’s crossed over with my role with AIDS advice that wasn’t activism that was offering direct support to people. So it crosses over and I’ve always argued that you need to do both. some people feel they only have energy for one but I think generally you need to do a bit of direct support to people. You also need some energy to try and change the world.

so my activism nowadays is being on the board of Marching out together LGBTQ plus, which is the Leeds United LGTBQ+ fan group.

And that does several things :one is campaigning for LGBTQ plus inclusion in football , and the second thing we do is using football as a way of promoting LGBTQ plus generic equality, and it also supports of LGBTQ fans. I’m a Leeds United fan myself

. Interesting because on the one hand it challenging because it’s one of the last bastions of all sorts is football. I mean my God finally one footballer has come out in the whole of the country that’s the level it is that.

If you do do something, well Leeds United has 1 million Instagram followers, so when they put out something from us or if the captain is saying something around LGBTQ that has a massive impact.

Personal thread running through all of this is the role of being an ally. I think ally ship is a really interesting one. I do think in that role you have to be slightly careful and be aware that I am not black I am not disabled and I’m not LGBTQ+

Because as a white straight able-bodied man you should be doing the work you, but you should be doing the work but you always have to do that under the leadership of those groups, and be clear about what your function, but bringing in your skills, your knowledge, your passion to help bring about that change.