Derek Child He/him

Derek identifies as a gay man and was born in Marlow in 1948.  He lost his sight in his late twenties. He moved to Milton Keynes in 1982 to work at the Open University. He retired in 2010 and moved to Suffolk in 2018. He came out in his 40s, circa 1991 to ‘92. His mother never forgave him and a couple of colleagues snubbed him. He remembered the OU Lesbian and Gay Group, The Cricketers, Blue Banana and The Royal Engineer. His first involvement with the LGBT community in Milton Keynes was with the Gay Switchboard. He was soon asked to join it (earlier in life he had been a Samaritan). It was based in Netherfield. He worked once every four weeks, providing empathy, referrals to charities and sometimes sending out literature. He felt nervous going there because, post-AIDs crisis, there was public feeling that it was not healthy to be gay. The Gay Switchboard became the Lesbian and Gay Link, which offered a more developed service. Derek was a committee member.  The NHS was a principal funding channel for safer sex initiatives. The Council funded running costs. In 2003 the Lesbian and Gay Link merged with Youth Line to form Q:alliance. Derek was its first Chair. It had nice premises above a restaurant in the Business District and two full-time workers. It raised the positive profile of LGBT people in Milton Keynes. His two memorable events were meeting his partner at The Cricketers in the mid-1990s and attending the London Gay Prides in the same decade. He had happy memories of the OU and Milton Keynes. He regretted that more hadn’t been done back then for the disabled in the community.