What happens when an enbee from the capital city moves to a small coastal English town? Where’s the queer scene in Cleethorpes? Loverboy’s Fallon Gold threw on a ton of biodegradable glitter and found out.

I’d had enough of the Big Smoke. Sure, there’s some things I’d miss but I was moving to the seaside! A lifelong dream. But there are obvious drawbacks. Diversity of any human kind tends to be very thin on the ground. And to be out in a small population can be isolating and, in some instances, extremely dangerous. So, what’s a pan, nonbinary kween like me to do in Cleethorpes when she needs her LGBTQIAplus fix? Well, I thought it would be a desert but then… A short time after I’d moved I heard about Rainbow Night.

Organized by nineteen year old Eden Rae Lake (nineteen!), this was actually the second queer event of the year. Last January there was a fundraiser for The LGBT Foundation. ‘We raised nearly half a grand’, Eden told me. Not too shabby.

So what kind of scene is/was here before Rainbow Night? Nothing is the answer. When my ex-wife grew up in Grimsby and Cleethorpes in the 80s and 90s, there was an attempt at a gay night at one of the clubs but the first time they tried it someone was stabbed. I grew up in a small town and know – that’s life. Horrific, violent, life. And we know it was life way back when and it is still life today. So, it’s no small feat to put on such an event, let alone go to it.

I have to admit I was more cautious about travelling to and from Rainbow Night than I would have been in London – and that’s despite all the beatings, stabbings and acid attacks of recent times at queer spots in the capital. We, as queers, get savvy very quickly in any environment as to safety precautions. So, despite the venue, The Moon On The Water, being about a ten minute walk from my house, me and my companion took a cab there and back.

My companion, btw, was Loverboy’s own Matt Harris, whose drag personae is Glamorous Matt: drag socialite. I’ve known GM for years, he’s one of my best friends, and he’d travelled up from London just to go to Rainbow Night with me. The night ended with him scaling fences in full length drag because I’d lost my keys and he is my superhero forever for that. But that’s another story…

I kind of thought I knew what to expect from Rainbow night. There was promises of drag and a glitter bar and other acts. And that’s exactly what it was. What I’d also expected was for it to be populated by people of different generations for whom this was a unicorn – such a rare sighting for their queer lives. And I was right there, too. As soon as we entered, Glamorous Matt in full kween finery, and me looking pretty fucking fabulous myself, there were gasps and compliments. We’d been sitting sipping prosecco just a few minutes when an older kween came over and asked if Matt was from Grimsby. When told he was from London, the kween said, ‘I knew it. No one looking this good would be from here’. She proceeded to tell us that nothing like this had ever happened in all their long life in the area. This was the point: Rainbow Night was a chance for people of all ages to get a taste of something we so take for granted in the cities of the world.

We all know that queer role models are vital for those ‘queer kids in the small towns who think that they’re alone in the world’. Well, these are the queer kids from their teens to their seventies. In living, fabulous colour.

As the night proceeded we were treated to a young singer-songwriter, Amy Naylor, serving Ani DiFranco realness with her tunes on the guitar. Later – my fave part of the night – drag queen Strawberry Whip served us old school drag (she sang I Never Met A Wolf Who Didn’t Love To Howl from Smash! I was plotzing, darlings). I’ve seen a fuckton of drag in my time, but I’ve never seen old school. As a lover of the torch song and show tunes and our queer history, I was so excited by Strawberry’s stylings I was quite verklempt and almost made my glitter mascara run with tears of joy. Ms Whip invited us to dance for her final numbers and dance we did, darlings! Dance we did.

Eden, herself a singer, closed the acts and a team of local DJs (The Beatroot Collective) served us banging queer classics old and new all night long. It was delightful! But the main point of the night was that it had happened at all. We spoke to more older kweens who told us how rare this was, gave us stories of their queer lives that were at once inspirational and heartbreaking. This was a vital thing. And did I mention that the woman who organized this is nineteen???!!!

I asked Eden why she’d put on these events. ‘I wanted to organise an event for something we don’t see enough. I love the fact people host charity events all the time but there’s never anything for the LGBT community here. The majority of my friends and a fraction of my family are gay and I’ve a lot of respect and love for them all. So, it made sense really!’ Eden told me she had been really pleased with the events. ‘Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and a lot of people turned up. It was ace meeting some new people with inspirational stories.’ Having organized events myself in London and knowing how hard it can feel to drum up business, even with the resources and connections we have there, I wondered how one goes about spreading the word in a closeted environment with no gay bars or nights to leave flyers. The answer was simple, of course: facebook events and word of mouth. Well I say simple, but it could easily have been the case that the people who needed it most hadn’t heard about it. And who knows how many didn’t or who were too afraid to go at all?

I did worry that some homophobes might find out about Rainbow Night and cause trouble, but it didn’t happen. Of course, two or three events in a year does not a solid queer scene make, but it’s a start and it’s most certainly better than nothing. We also made connections that will carry on outside of Rainbow Night, forging our own social community over drinks and sharing more stories in the future. Eden is planning this as semi-regular with the next one due for Halloween, aka Queer Xmas. ‘We love fancy dress’, she said. Yes, yes we really do.

Photography by Sam Sharp