PRIDE OF PLACE
Dumfries & Galloway’s Queer Heritage Portal.
Fusing our work on the development of D&G LGBTQ+ Archive with our special blend of interactive, community heritage engagement events and activities, our Pride of Place project will bring our local queer heritage to the fore. Redressing the current under representation of LGBTQ+ heritage, our Pride of Place project will enable these histories to take their rightful place, pride of place, in our local history, hearts, and minds.
By increasing visibility and representation of local queer histories, we aim to inspire, support and promote greater inclusion, revealing and showcasing the lives of our queer ancestors in the public places and spaces they have inhabited across D&G.
We will quite literally be mapping out queer heritage and culture so you too can follow in their footsteps across the region, highlighting the fact we have always been here!
Developed and delivered in 2021 by our Creative Director DJ McDowall to encourage heritage engagement during annual Dumfries Pride events, Queer Dumfries: A Walking Tour has been successfully delivered to rave reviews ever since . . .
TOUR DESCRIPTION
Join us as we explore the intriguing, complex and largely untold history of Queer & LGBTQ+ life in Dumfries, with stories of the people and places who have shaped our town, and our community.
Weaving through the streets of Dumfries, we will learn about the legend of the Pink Panther; Dumfries’ own gender non-conforming Gentleman Jack; our queer Rebel Suffragette Queen; the creation of our infamous local Drag Queens; secret gay hangouts, aswell as exploring the clandestine development of our local LGBTQ+ services under the spotlight of Section 28 & the explosion of queer culture into public life across Dumfries over the last 2 decades.
Today the LGBTQ+ community’s presence can be openly seen / felt across the town, but this has not always been the case. Though many inequalities still exist, we take pride in a community which has been through so much, from repression and persecution, to violence and discrimination, all of which we have experienced on the streets of Dumfries. Yet we rise and continue to strive towards bringing equality and inclusivity for all, enabling our LGBTQ+ community to become part of the fabric of everyday Dumfries life.
This walk has been designed to celebrate Dumfries’ own unique queer heritage and culture, remember and honour those who have gone before us, and to enable us to proudly and openly take our rightful place in the history of our town.
Tour Length: 1.5hrs
Accessibility: We have tried to make the tour as accessible as possible.
The tour guide is there to ensure you feel safe during the tour.
The route is wheelchair friendly. Please get in touch if you have any concerns or questions
Your Guide:
DJ McDowall (she/they) is a born and bred queer Doonhamer, who established the first LGBTQ+ youth services, and Pride event in Dumfries & Galloway.
They have been a life long activist for LGBTQ+ issues, and local professional youth and community development practitioner for nearly 30 years, working with and championing our most disadvantaged and under-represented communities.
They have a special passion for community heritage engagement, establishing the successful Hidden Histories of DG, and specialise in interactive educational immersive experiences.
They are currently working with StoryTrails immersive storytelling projet; aswell as working with Dumfries Library & Dumfries Museum to help gather and reveal some of the Queer / Gender Non Conforming / LGBTQ+ and Women’s herstories of their beloved local hame toon.
Ensuring these stories take their rightful place within our local archives, and are effectively represented within local collections, and shared appropriately.
They got some real queerdentials!
Queer Dumfries: A Walking Tour.
D&G LGBTQ+ Archive.
Rest assured this will not be a dusty passive archive collection, it will be active and as vibrant, diverse and engaging as the community it aims to reflect!
We launched this exciting new venture in collaboration with the wonderful souls at Dumfries & Galloway Heritage Service (D& G Council) based at Ewart Library, Dumfries, as part of LGBT History Month February 2024.
We are now actively collecting items for a Dumfries & Galloway LGBTQ+ Archive!!
The archive can include photos, film footage, posters, flyers, notebooks and other materials that relate to LGBTQ+ life experience in our region.
If you would like to share / donate your material with the new archive, please drop DJ@blether.scot an email.
We can scan things and keep a digital copy in the archive, we don’t need to physically keep your treasures if you’re not ready to part with them.
OR, if you would like to volunteer to help us collect, catalogue or share the stories that are to be held in the archive, we would love to chat with you too!
We have been discussing this for nearly 2 years, and after a few false starts, and some very busy diaries, WE ARE READY.
If you have stories, photos, film footage, posters, flyers, notebooks, or any other kind of artefacts* that relate to LGBTQ+ life experience in oor beloved region that you would like to share with the archive, please drop us a message.
OR, if you would like to get your geek on and volunteer to help us Queer The Archive, collect, catalogue and/or share the stories that are to be held in the archive, we would love to chat with you too!
OR… for more info call, text message or email Alison Burgess or myself = contact details are below or in the flyer opposite.
BTW: This will not be a static dusty old archive, our aim is to make the archive project as vibrant and engaging as possible to ensure we appropriately reflect and pay homage to the eclectic nature, impact and diverse lived experiences of our local LGBTQ+ community.
Introducing daughter of Dalton nr Dumfries, trailblazing medical pioneer, suffragette, activist and (now) queer icon Dr Flora Murray.
To find out more about our amazing journey as we recover her memory, reveal the stories and raise the profile of the incredible Dr Flora Murray, please visit our dedicated project page Dr Flora Murray Appreciation Society... it has been truly epic and endlessly inspiring, and influential, so it deserves a page all to itself.
Check out our Blog to follow our endeavours to Bring Flora Home as they unfold, and we bring her memory to life, allowing her to take her rightful place, Pride of Place, in our local history, hearts and minds.
Dr Flora Murray Appreciation Society.
Queer Kirkcudbright.
Introducing the incredibly inspiring lives of Vera ‘Jack’ Holme, Dorothy Johnstone, Anne Finlay, Cecile Walton & a menagerie of other colourful characters including Jessie M King.
Their open, bohemian lifestyles and creative pursuits were part of the reason Kirkcudbright was to be crowned ‘The Artists Town’.
Join us as we reveal the remarkable Story of a Fairy Family!
Working alongside Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Museum Service, Kirkcudbright Galleries, the families of Dorothy Johnstone + Vera ‘Jack’ Holme, we will be celebrating and reanimating their stories and lives in Kirkcudbright, in the places and spaces they inhabited,. so they can take their Pride of Place in the town’s history / herstory.
Coming to Kirkcudbright in 2025 . . .
Delivered on behalf of Historic Environment Scotland, as part of our Creative Caerlaverock project in partnership with The Stove Network.
Working with the local LGBTQ+ community + allies to create new imagined queer artefacts for The Missing Museum.
To be revealed for LGBT History Month, February 2025.
