Forty years providing a listening ear

London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (LLGS) turns 40 years old in March, with a programme of celebrations and community events to commemorate its achievements at the heart of Britain’s LGBT community over four decades.

Help them celebrate: go to their birthday event on Friday, February 21 at RADA, 16 Chenies Street, London from 7pm, and join an interactive discussion on the progress made in the last four decades and the ongoing and developing need for a helpline for LGBT people of all ages today.

Joe Lee, co-chair of London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, said: “The LGBT community stands at a crossroads.”

“We have achieved so much in terms of legal rights, civil partnerships, employment, services and the ability of LGBT people to simply live their lives as they want to do, and have always wanted to do. We have come a long, and wonderful, way in 40 years that our founders would be very happy to see.”

He added: “But there is still a long way to go as many LGBT people still face difficulties – discrimination at work, within their families or communities, a lack of acceptance and even homophobic violence. The way the LGBT community is developing is also important – for instance, sexual health needs a renewed focus as more sexual activity migrates to online meetings. Even though our calls have changed over 40 years, many people – young and old – want the vital support of a helpful person on the end of the line to talk to at important times of their lives.”

Volunteer and Trustee, Ruth Turner said: “We started as an organisation in 1974 aimed at “relieving the suffering of gay people”, under our initial charity status, which reflects the attitudes of the times. Now, though life has moved on – in no small part owing to the efforts of our volunteers over 40 years – we still need to be there to offer a helping hand at all the important points of LGBT people’s lives. We offer calm words when people need them most.”

Lee added: “As the demand for our service shows, there is still a real need among the LGBT community for a confidential helpline on which people can talk about all the issues that concern us, from coming out to going out, from sexuality to sexual health, from relationships to work life. Some people are isolated by their circumstances, because of where they live or their age or their personal life, and we are a vital lifeline for anyone feeling under pressure or just needing to talk to someone neutral. Sometimes people are having problems with their family, their job, their relationship, or they want information on sexual health. Or sometimes they just phone us for a chat!”

Based in London, LLGS acts as a national helpline, open from 10am to 11pm every day, throughout the year, taking calls from all over the country and an increasing number of callers from abroad. Many of the contacts now come through the internet, as volunteers answer emails and instant messaging.

On March 4 1974, a handful of volunteers answered the very first phone calls in a small room at Housman’s radical bookshop in King’s Cross. The helpline’s phones have not stopped ringing since.

LLGS has played a central role in the struggle for LGBT rights:

• the helpline was the first to bring together lesbians and gay men in a single organisation,

• they provided the very first source of information on HIV-AIDS in the early 1980s

• volunteers from LLGS went on to start up a variety of other household-name charities including The National Aids Trust and The Terrence Higgins Trust

• LLGS was a leader in giving information on sexual health, and still performs that vital function today.

Today, LLGS has more than 180 volunteers, and has helped more than 3.2m callers, through the phone line and in recent years also through email, its internet site and instant messaging too.

The organisation is still led and run entirely by volunteers, with just one paid administrator, and holds true to its cooperative roots. Its voluntary structure – almost unique among charities of its size – means costs are minimal and all of the money raised goes straight to answering the phones.

Switchboard’s volunteers are all highly trained to be able to listen, offer support, give referrals and be a friend at the other end of the phone. They do not give advice, they do not tell people what to do, they do not pass judgement and we are entirely confidential.

On February 21 this year, LLGS will host a landmark event celebrating four decades of gay history. In that time, LLGS has developed into one of the biggest LGBT organisations in the UK, in terms of the number of people they have contact with each year, and in terms of the number of volunteers involved.

For tickets, CLICK HERE:

Volunteers answer 15,000 calls a year on a budget of about £75.000, much of which is raised from the community and all of which goes to the costs of running the phone lines and its online counterparts. Their costs are minimal because all of the work, from staffing the phone lines to providing IT support to fundraising, is done by volunteers – with help from the paid administrator.

LLGS was a “big society” organisation decades before the term was coined, as a long line of volunteers have staffed the helpline in all its roles: some have stayed for several decades, helping to guide the organisation, and others have gone on to vital roles in other charities. Many have continued to have an association with the charity, helping to foster a sense of the LGBT community.

In recognition of its vitally important role in bettering the lives of LGBT people, and anyone who needs to consider LGBT issues, the organisation has received a number of awards including the Whitbread Volunteer Action Award, the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and most recently a shortlisting for the prime minister’s Big Society award.

For more information, CLICK HERE: