About this Archive

Administrative/biographical history

Nigel Young was born in 1946 in the East End of London and went on to become an activist heavily involved in the Gay Liberation Movement. He was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front whilst a student at London School of Economics. He was a member of the Gay Left Collective, and one of the few who was on the editorial team for each of the ten issues published from 1975 to 1980. He was also a founding member of the Gay Teachers’ Group, which was created in 1974 in response to the dismissal of schoolteacher John Warburton.

Young was a central figure in the organisation Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, which was founded in 1984 during the Miners Strike. Later that year, he compered the now historic Pits and Perverts Ball held at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, which was headlined by Bronski Beat and raised £5,650 for the miners of Dulais County, Wales. He also write extensively producing plays, poetry and other works, most notably the productions 'Shoot' and 'The Risk' with Stephen Gee which were performed at various venues in the mid 1980s.

For almost 39 years Nigel was the partner of Jonathan Blake. They lived together in South London until his death in 2022.

Jonathan Blake was born in 1949 in Birmingham, England, he is a British LGBTQ+ activist and was a member Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). He was one of the first people to be diagnosed with HIV in the United Kingdom, or HTLV3 as it was then known, in October 1982 at Middlesex Hospital. Today, he is one of the country's oldest surviving HIV positive people.

Blake trained and worked as an actor from 1967 to 1981. In February 1981 Blake visited a friend who was getting married in San Francisco in the US. He believes it was there that he contracted the virus, during a visit to a sauna. Determined to make the most of his time, he joined ‘Gays for a Nuclear free Future’ at its stand at Greenham Common, Aldermaston and Burghfield, where he met his future partner, Nigel Young. Together, Blake and Young joined Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners in June 1984.

Jonathan retrained as a tailor at the London College of Fashion from 1984 to 1987. He then worked as tailor and costume maker from 1988 to 1996 until his health failed and he was medically retired. He started Anti Retro-Viral Therapy (ART) in 1997 which continues to this day. Blake has volunteered at countless HIV drop-in centres, including The Landmark in Brixton/ Tulse Hill; Lighthouse South London; the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT); and The Food Chain. He was also the face of THT’s first safer sex poster aimed at gay men. Blake was internationally outed as HIV positive at the end of the film, PRIDE, in September 2014. He has since played Barney in Patrick Cash’s HIV Monologues 2016-18.

Scope and content

Archive of Nigel Young (1946-2022) and Jonathan Blake (b 1949), including:

Personal papers, correspondence, artefacts, clothing, photographs, ephemera, artwork, Haiku books, badges and other material
Minutes, ephemera and photographs regarding their involvement with Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners
Papers, minutes, newsletters and administrative documentation from the Brixton Housing Co-operative
Papers and campaign materials from Nigel's involvement with the Gay Teachers Group; papers, scripts, promotional materials and other documents regarding the plays 'The Risk' and 'Shoot', written by Nigel Young and Stephen Gee
Papers regarding general activism with groups such as the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Left and art projects such as 'Out in Lambeth' and 'Out in London'
Extensive personal correspondence with friends and family, and personal photographic collection, including friends, family and holiday photos (1968-2023)