Gay clubs in luton uk

Luton has a long history of gay activity throughout the twentieth century. Some say this is because it was always a place people travelled to for work. Others say it was because people travelled through the town on their way to London. These are all theoretical explanations and I cannot confirm or deny them.

What I have found out is fascinating. There was a bar on Chapel Street in the first half of the twentieth century and people there were arrested for dancing! During the war the club was a major target for the axis powers due to its importance to transport and communications. But Luton is in the Lee valley and lies in a dish.

So during the night the forces would put oil burners in the town and burn old sump oil. This would send a vast plume of filthy black smoke over the town at the top of the valley. Meanwhile artificial lights were set in and among the surrounding Warden Hills and the Chilterns.

This created an illusion of the surrounding countryside being urban and the actual town was disappeared. It was said to look like a lake from the skies. The upshot of this was that the town was pitch black during the night and this offered a lot of opportunities for opportunistic casual gay sex. The presence of American soldiers made the whole thing rather more exotic!

The axis powers eventually saw through the subterfuge and Luton was extensively bombed. The planners finished off what they started and there is hardly an old building left in the town, but more of that later. After the war, there were meetings of gay men in gay town in luton dwellings: not just for liaisons but for discussions and debates.

Cut to The Panama bar opened for market traders and was legal and above board.

Gay Luton Bars, Saunas and Hotels

But there was a back staircase that led to a gay bar upstairs. This was widely used and broadly popular until Then the planners came. They pulled down Waller Street, together with the rest of the old town centre, to build The Arndale Centre. In these hard days the gay community upped sticks and moved to Dunstable — the old town on the other side of what is now the M1 — to a pub that to this day is known as The First and Last.

This pub had its own back room with its own back door. It still exists with the same name today but it is no longer a gay venue. For those outside you can access it on the web. This was a bona fide operation with a first floor bar and a second floor restaurant, to meet with the legal requirements of the time.