Vivienne de Swartes story
Vivienne de Swarte,
Wellington, UK
Born 1943
Occupation: Former Social Services, journalist and singer
”I had an unconventional background. My rebellion was to be conventional. My mother was divorced and a political campaigner, and my sister was a lesbian feminist. Instead of politics, I turned to Hollywood movies, where everything was glamorous. I wanted money, lovely clothes and a walk in closet, so I got married when I was 20, and he was 22. I got the house, the car and the child. But I was torn. I never thought of women as anything more than friends until I was 50 years old. By that point, my marriage was probably already on its wane. A woman pursued me, and that was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. We were together for ten years before we split up.
Now I am 81 years old and I have been together with my wife Nicky for 17 years. When Nicky and I moved from Spain to Somerset in November 2017, we didn’t know anybody. I did some research and found Somerset Lesbian Network. Once a month, on Sundays, they used to have a collective lunch meeting in a nice space, and . everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. It was nice!
We also found a lesbian disco in Weston-super-Mare. We would travel about two hours to get there. It was held in a tiny little wine bar run by a gay man. We used to go there to support it, but after a few months, the bar owner decided he didn’t want a women’s group anymore. I said to Nicky: “Look, we’ve been to enough discos. We know how to organise things. We can do it!”
We didn’t know the area terribly well, but we knew that Taunton was central to the community.
We have been doing it since 2018, even though we don’t make any money out of it.We do it every three months because if you did them more frequently, fewer people would come since it’s a long way for them to travel. They come from Wales, Bristol, London and all the towns and villages around Somerset. They will even come and stay overnight. I think the most we’ve probably had
is 45 women, which isn’t a huge number but it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. We’ve made friends through this experience, and knowing that we have produced something that people enjoy makes me happy.”
