Andrew drafting copy for Gay News, 1981.
Photograph by Robert Workman
Robert Workman Archive. Bishopsgate Institute.
Andrew Lumsden
words
Andrew Lumsden’s professional writing career as a journalist began in 1963 at the Daily Telegraph specialising in building societies and mortgage rates, he moved to Management Today in 1967 before taking up a position in The Times business section between 1969 and 1972.
While working at The Times Andrew saw an article about the first demonstration of LGBTQ+ people in Britain by Gay Liberation Front (GLF) on Highbury Fields on 27th November 1970, and soon after became a regular attendee at London GLF meetings.
Andrew came out publicly in a piece published by the Spectator on 2 January 1971:
“As an adult homosexual of fixed abode, work and way of life, I have been attending meetings of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in Britain, and watching its protracted birth into a movement that has hopes of catching public attention.”
So committed and visible was his activism that if you’d tuned into one of the three television channels available on the evening of Monday 19 April 1971, you’d have seen Andrew on Panorama talking as an openly gay man about the emerging gay liberation politics.
Elected to the GLF Steering Committee (which he referred to as the queering committee) Andrew attended and spoke at the National Gay Liberation Think-in at Leeds University and the following day, 20 June 1971, at the Traverse Trials in Edinburgh.
Andrew, Gillian Hanscombe and Gay News. Title Fight promotional photo 1983.
Photograph by Robert Workman
Robert Workman Archive. Bishopsgate Institute.
At a GLF ‘shout-out’ in early 1972 Andrew proposed a solution to the national media’s unwillingness to talk about GLF, or to investigate the daily street violence against LGBTQ+ people across the country and the weekly raids on queer spaces. Andrew said the answer was to create a national newspaper by and for the community. Gay News, Britain’s first national LGBTQ+ newspaper was born. Stepping back from the fledgling paper before its first issue, Andrew would join Gay News in 1981 as News Editor, becoming Editor during the disastrous sale of the paper which entered administration in April 1983.
In the early 1980s Andrew contributed journalism to publications such as The Guardian, Capital Gay, Gay Times, Him Monthly and The New Statesman where he would serve as News Editor and later Associate Editor between 1984 and 1987. The majority of articles Andrew wrote forThe New Statesman were LGBTQ+ focused full of wry wit and a conversational tone that sugar coated his liberation politics, covering subjects such as the raid by Customs & Excise on Gay’s the Word community bookshop, the politics of HIV/AIDS in Britain, sexism, racism and homophobia within UK media, police harassment and cruising culture. After being made redundant from The New Statesman by a new Editor, he turned his back on journalism.
Following a period focusing on his drawing in southern Spain, Andrew returned to London and began working in a way that allowed his personal writing and art to be his focus – as a seasonal tour guide. Thousands of people, from all over the world, would have experienced his researched conversational style of delivery, which was always engaging and often quite challenging, as they toured sites around England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Andrew wrote several books during his life, which he privately published and shared with friends. These include an exploration of the life, death and queerness of King Edward II, a biography of his mother, Irene, who died while receiving treatment for post-natal depression in the early 1940s and various examinations of the life and politics of Henry Labouchère.
The Andrew Lumsden Archive is held at Bishopsgate Institute, London.
books
Title Fight: The battle for Gay News. Gillian Hanscome and Andrew Lumsden
The original Gay News collapsed on April 15 1983 within two months of its 11th birthday. A 52-page tabloid, selling about 18,000 copies a fortnight, it was a business with a turnover of some £45,0000 a year and employing at the height 23 people.
The collapse has been variously attributed to the financial demands of it’s former owner, bad management and ‘lefty lesbians’. One reader wrote after the last issue appeared. ‘As a subscriber and reader since its beginning I would ask you if you would forward me details as to what the hell happened…’
Here at last, the ex-editor Andrew Lumsden and reporter Gillian E Hanscombe give a unique and detailed account of the behind the scenes struggles, the factions and power bids that the gay public have not been allowed to know. This book tells for the first time exactly ‘what the hell has happened…’
Brilliance Books, London. 1983
Sometimes available for sale online
Souvenirs of Sirmione by Andrew Lumsden
According to ancient legend, belongings dear to the Immortals have the gift of speech, if they choose to use it. Here, in Souvenirs of Sirmione by Andrew Lumden, Catullus’s boat, Dante’s pen, James Joyce’s pince-nez and Antony Grey’s straw hat tell us about their owners antics and inner lives while on holiday at Sirmione beside Lake Garda in northern Italy. With drawings by David Shenton
Published One Roof Press, London. 2010
Drawings by Andrew Lumsden
A catalogue of drawings and texts published to mark the 2018 exhibition 50 Years of Drawing by Andrew Lumsden, curated by Dan de la Motte at Platform Southwark, 1 Joan Street, London.
Published Liberty Street Press, London. 2018
Rainbow Planet by Andrew Lumsden
An activist and journalist who attended the first Pride in 1972 shares thoughts on the LGBTQ+ struggle with a new generation. Rainbow Planet marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, and was created with London Pride, in 2019.
An A5 75-page book format, beautifully designed by Chris Pearce and Alexia Vasilarou, with colour/illustration/photos throughout.
Published in London. 2019.
Fruit Machine: Andrew Lumsden, Art and Activism 1972 to 2022
A collection of drawings by writer, activist and artist Andrew Lumsden with short essays by Graham McKerrow, Stuart Feather and Dan de la Motte.
This book was produced to accompany Fruit Machine: Andrew Lumsden, Art and Activism, which took place at the Outsiders Gallery, VFDalston, London, 2025.
Published by Isola, 2025, softcover, 96 pages, 22 x 17 cm
