Not a Big Thing in Hebden Bridge
The town is not just the lesbian capital of the UK, it's one of the few places in the world where lesbians have moved in numbers over the last 50 years. For a place where people love to brag about having the highest number of university graduates in the country, they know shockingly little about lesbians. But that was not what upset me the most.
Text and photos © Gry Ellebjerg
SKALA ERESSOS, LESBOS, GREECE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER TENTH, TWENTY TWENTY-FOUR
EIGHT TEN P.M.
I was having a drink at Flamingos, a bar run by a lesbian couple from Happy Valley, located in the area of Hebden Bridge.
I was chatting to a group of Brits. They asked what I did. I said, "I am a journalist travelling on The Pink Road trying to figure out where the lesbians are."
If the bar had been a classroom, R would have put her arm in the air, fast as a flash: "They are in Hebden Bridge! You must come! It's amazing."
HEBDEN BRIDGE, YORKSHIRE
MONDAY, OCTOBER THIRTEENTH, TWENTY TWENTY-FIVE
FOUR FIFTEEN P.M.
In the constant drizzle, I arrived by train in Hebden Bridge, 28 miles north of Manchester. Wherever I rested my eyes, it was picturesque, from the vintage Hebden Bridge sign on the station to the tea room and the station clock. I didn't know what this Yorkshire lesbian paradise would look like. I didn't expect a movie set from the 1950s. The only thing missing was Miss Marple greeting me.
The story goes that lesbians arrived in Hebden Bridge in the 1970s. Cotton mills had closed. Workers had left. The town had plenty of empty houses. The place went into a serious identity crisis and a shift in mentality. In the cracks of post-industrial Britain, a new crowd came to town: hippies, environmentalists, artists, writers, and witches.
At first, I thought lesbians chose the place because of the rich feminist history. You get radicalized just by drinking the water. Within an area of 30 miles around Hebden Bridge, you find the homes of some of the world's most famous megastar feminists.
Mary Wollstonecraft spent part of her childhood in Yorkshire. She was Western philosophy's first feminist and wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the most prominent manifestos in women's history. The supertrio Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë wrote some of the first feminist novels ever: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights. We have Elizabeth Gaskell who wrote the first novel about a working-class woman, Mary Barton. A five minutes' walk from Gaskell's home, Emmeline Pankhurst devoted her life to women's rights to vote. In her Manchester home, the suffragettes held their first meeting.
And then we have the lesbian Anne Lister, famous from the Netflix series Gentleman Jack. I’m not sure she was a feminist, but she lived with her female partner and wrote her diaries in code. I was thrown off when I learnt one of my favorite writers was put to rest here. Of all places in the world, the American writer Sylvia Plath's grave is located in St Thomas à Becket Churchyard, just up the hill in Heptonstall. In that very same village, where the suffragettes protested for women's votes, some of them dressed in top hats.
Surely, the lesbians must have been inspired by all these icons. It turns out, their love story with Hebden Bridge had nothing to do with them. They came for two practical reasons. First, the hippies had cultivated an open-minded environment where lesbians could safely fit in and start families. But perhaps more importantly: cheap rent, left behind when the factories closed and the workers moved away.
If Hebden Bridge were a person, I would describe her as a huge success amongst tourists. She is a modern, arty, dog-loving witch (yes, I did talk to one of them) who offers yoga courses and housing on the canal. She is all about nature-friendly clothing, organic food, and she lives in tune with Mother Nature. She would proudly show you maps of all the walking paths in the area. (Yes, the hiking lesbians are in for a treat!) However, if you really want to get to know her, there is one player you have to meet. The moors. Without a word, they will tell you everything you need to know about her.
What if it is the moors that made the people? The Brontë sisters had them just outside their house. Take them away from Wuthering Heights and what is left? Sylvia Plath walked them when she visited her then-husband's family who lived in Heptonstall. What would her poems be without that August sea of purple?
Looking back, workers of the industrial revolution walked the moors. If they got lost in the mist and thick smog, they could end up dead. I am convinced the moors are a main factor in the radical action of Pankhurst, Brontë, Gaskell. Perhaps it's that rebellious queer mind that gives everybody the finger.
Instead of mass-produced shopping malls, you find privately owned shops, selling arts, crafts, and organic vegetables. It's easy to fall in love with her and embrace the happy-go-lucky attitude that greets you at first. However, as you spend time with her, you notice the hardship. Part of her struggles financially. Her energy can be low and melancholic. Lots of shops stand empty. Housing prices are high. A growing number of the population is moving to towns with cheaper housing. I've heard that lesbians are once again starting over in the villages nearby.
Hebden Bridge has always been, and still is, a magnet for artists. I was in for another great surprise when I found out that photographer Martin Parr had lived here for five years in the 70s. Together with friends, he ran the Albert Street Workshop. He documented the isolated working-class and farming communities of the Calderdale Valley, focusing on non-conformist churches and local characters. Parr was a witness to a British way of life that was disappearing as the factories closed down. This is just to say: Hebden Bridge is full of surprises. It's generous with treats.
Chatting to people at the Picture Palace, one of the last council-owned cinemas in Britain, I learnt that this area gained fame through the TV show Happy Valley. The title is an ironic police nickname for the Calder Valley, referring to the brutal drug epidemic that peaked here in the 2010s. I was also told that during the 19th and 20th centuries, the town was called 'Trouser Town,' world-famous for making corduroy trousers. How fitting that nickname was. It felt like a prophecy. Later, talking to the staff at Anne Lister’s house, the People's History Museum in Manchester, and the Pankhurst Centre, I learnt that they had no idea Hebden Bridge was famous for its many lesbians. I started to wonder: was it all a dream?
During my first week, I was a whirlwind, talking to everyone I met like a hyperactive Duracell bunny. I sensed the enthusiasm wasn't mutual. I put it down to tourist fatigue; after all, Hebden Bridge is a well-known tourist destination, famous for being a filming location for shows like Gentleman Jack and Happy Valley.
Was it the tougher, more introverted Yorkshire mentality? Did they still carry the tragedies of the past? I am thinking of the children who were used in the name of the industrial revolution, children who worked in the mills with cotton picked by slaves in the USA. The lucky ones got away with minor injuries, fingers chopped off, but too many paid with their lives. I didn't see a single monument to honor the children and the slaves. No silent way of saying, "We remember you and we owe you the welfare we have today."
Whatever the reason, the small talk is under attack. I was in a small shop trying on a jacket. I asked a customer next to me what she thought. Did it fit well? She was looking right at me without any reaction. "What do you think?" I repeated and said hello with a smile. Then she woke up and got that I was indeed talking to her. I have had that too many times now to think it's a coincidence. The small talk gap is not unique to Hebden Bridge; I have felt it in most of my travels. As long as you keep the conversation to your order and the weather, you'll be fine. I thought the Royal Family would be a great icebreaker. I wouldn't recommend it.
The lesbians were surprisingly invisible. When I saw them, I acted the way I do when I see a celebrity: I see them, but I try to make sure they don't notice me looking. Don't ask me why. The best way I can explain it is that I became like a mushroom, using its fine mycelium to communicate underground with everything growing nearby. I think I picked up on an aura from the lesbians that breathed: "Do not disturb us. We are just living our lives."
While I was figuring out a way to break the ice, I walked the moors. I also talked to numerous shopkeepers. One of them was definitely gay. He was more interested in talking about how Hebden Bridge is famous for having the highest proportion of university degrees in the UK. I could tell he was uncomfortable talking about the lesbians with me. I never understood why. He did stress that gay men do exist here too. But really, it’s not a big thing.
After two weeks, I realised my gut method was not working. I leaked energy. I found some local lesbian Facebook groups and posted appeals there. I got a tip about a local historical archive. Bingo! I went there and started searching for any trace of their 50-year history. Two hours later, I had found a lot about the hippies, the green movement, and some about feminism. But they had used very little ink on lesbians. A few contact ads and meetups. Thats about it. The man running the archive was surprised to find out that he lived in a lesbian Mecca. “Do I?”
I was puzzled! I had turned into Miss Marple solving a missing person case! Before arriving, R had suggested that I send her some project details to share, promising it would help me track people down. I explained to her, "I don't work like that." I could hear how stupid I must have sounded, talking about gut feeling and showing up like a lonesome cowboy. I should have listened. She obviously knew something I did not.
By now I was deeply provoked. I found myself thinking: "So lesbians take over an entire historic town, shatter a glass ceiling, and successfully market it as a tourist attraction, but once you get here, nobody wants to talk about it?" I felt like I was watching The Emperor’s New Clothes play out in real time.
Once again, the turning point was R. She was very real and one of the lesbians who, as she so beautifully put it with a smile, moved to Hebden Bridge to die. She had lived in the heterosexual world her whole life and now wanted to live in a place where she was the norm. She took the time to translate the secret code. She had built a Finnish sauna in her garden. Late one afternoon, she, two gay neighbours, and I were enjoying a sauna, and for the first time, I was part of a queer community, chatting away. Before that, I'd had a long conversation with R.
"Yes, this is the lesbian capital, and do you know why?"
"No," I said. "Tell me!"
"Hebden Bridge is the only place where I am a completely ordinary person. On my street, one-third of the households are lesbian. I don't even think about being queer. I just am!" And then she said the words I heard repeatedly during my stay: "It's not a big thing!"
Every time I heard those words, I felt just as provoked. NOT A BIG THING!?
To me, that's like saying, "In the next village over, men give birth, but we don't talk about it because it's no big deal." From my perspective, these women are challenging an ancient power structure we call the patriarchy. These women building families outside the traditional norm ought to be of interest to every researcher in the world. This is historic! IT IS A BIG THING!
I returned to Sweden. It felt like I had cracked the modern Anne Lister code. Perhaps the lesbians in Hebden Bridge live the utopia we all dream of, where we forget that we even are lesbians. When someone comes from the outside, not speaking the code, and asks questions about what it's like, it forces them to remember where they once came from. For some, this is all they know. They were born here. I never got to meet them, perhaps because I don't speak the local lesbian.
In Hebden Bridge queers have found a town where they can just live their lives, and in doing so, they become the norm. I know that feeling. I have experienced it in Skala Eressos, in Berlin, in Paris. It's like putting on a warm blanket after a day in the cold. It relaxes you entirely.
The problem is, most of us are still living on isolated islands, figuring out how to find oxygen. Wondering where the hell everybody is.
