The Magnum Club - Personal reflections at a time of change!

20/2/2019

A new group has been established on facebook entitled 'Magnum Club - Southampton!' The group, dedicated to all those who used to attend this iconic nightclub in Southampton, has well over three hundred members now and is growing everyday. It was set up by former Manager David Moss, a person I know well from my years living in the city. Members are taken on a journey back in time, familiar faces, stories, photographs and club memorabilia are the backbone of this page. People who used to go to this nightclub in the St Mary's area of Southampton are able to chat with one another and relive their past, spent dancing the night away in a club that focused predominantly on the gay community that it served.

The Magnum opened its doors in 1969; if my memory serves me right, it was the oldest gay club in the Country until it closed in Easter 2004. My journey, as a fully fledged gay man, if there is such a thing, began in 1992, when I first walked through the ominous black doors of the club, on the corner of the road where I used to live. I was a student and had just 'come out' to University friends. I knew the Magnum was a gay venue, but had never actually been inside, until I plucked up the courage one Friday night in November, during my first year living in Southampton.

As I sharply knocked on the door, a rectangle peep hole opened, a voice echoing beyond, asking me if I knew what kind of establishment I was hoping to enter. Avoiding eye contact, I nodded my head and was duly invited inside. This was the first time I had been in any such place and was mesmerized by my first trip into the unknown. I was drunk and got even drunker as the night progressed enjoying my new found freedom and a long list of phone numbers I had collected by the end of the evening. It wasn't long before I was walking through those doors again and again and again.

The years between 1992 and 2000 were important to me; apart from spells living in Australia, Southampton was my home and The Magnum was a place I frequented regularly, celebrating my sexuality, around like minded individuals. I met my first, second and current long term partner in this place and spent many years getting to know those who called it 'their own!' The sense of belonging in this club was palpable, friends returning night after night, week after week. The Magnum was at the centre of a large, close-knit and at times difficult gay community. This club had hosted many events, celebrated innumerable milestones and witnessed a sea change in attitudes towards the very people it served; it was a monument to the struggle every gay person fought to legitimise their place in the World. When one entered the club, one suddenly became the majority, the discrimination disappeared and all of us could be who we damn well wanted to be. A club so steeped in history had become the benchmark for the future all of us enjoy today.

At forty eight years old, I look back with fondness at this period of my life. I met many wonderful personalities at The Magnum, many of whom I remain in contact with today. The impact they had on my life has become more relevant as I have grown older. Dancing, chatting eagerly with new found friends and escaping the harsh realities of 90s Britain was life enhancing and allowed me to discover who I really was. I liked my first experience of the gay scene and the club at its very heart and clambered for more. Of course the more you immerse yourself in a group or institution like The Magnum, the more familiar your colleagues become. The people I met there were akin to family and bonds were formed, relationships blossomed and inevitable arguments and distrust occurred, all part of the course when you live your life in close proximity with others, who also walked through the door of the club at the end of the road. Back then, unlike today, people returned to The Magnum regularly, in the same way I attend a social club, visit my family or knock on my neighbours door. I can't stress enough, just how close everyone was. For a young man in his early twenties, like me, it was so different to what I was used to.

The Magnum gave most of us a sense of purpose in an unforgiving World. Many of those I knew had little or no contact with parents, rather like me. The society we lived in twenty five years ago was very different to that of today. Being gay was still a big deal. Parents seemed at least to be less accepting than those in 2019. The Magnum and its patrons became surrogates for the family many of us didn't have. Human nature dictates our desire for acceptance and this club nurtured that need.

From the downstairs brightly lit bar, playing popular hits of the time, the middle 'chill out' room, flowered wallpaper adorning the walls and the dark, sweat fueled upper dance floor, hardened clubbers oblivious to the World outside, The Magnum catered for all. There are many nights I can't remember, too 'wasted' to recall; equally there are other weekends, still vivid in my memories, pictures flooding back triggered from a recollection, flashback or name on the tip of my tongue. Male strippers, World Aids Day, DJ Mark Dukes, Brian Conley in the bar. A conversation with Danny Le Rue in the toilet, bumping into Sue Pollard in the foyer, all special moments, a part of me and the words I write, vivid, like watching TV!

The Magnum was a one off, never again to be repeated. The gay scene today is banal and sterile in comparison, without purpose or the guts to campaign on issues we still need to conclude. The history of me is rooted in the walls of a club, no longer there, a part of me lingers at the back of the dance floor, in the dark, under the DJ box in the sky and my future, still uncertain as it was in 1995, becomes my focus in middle age, whilst all the time remembering with passion a life lived hedonistically, decadently, unrestrained in a club that opened my mind!