pinkpasty's Channel

WHO is the Pink Pasty?
Malcolm Lidbury: - Gay Equality & HIV/AIDS Campaigner. Artist. Writer. Sculptor.

Born in Barnet Middlesex, 1959, younger of two sons. He grew up in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, going to Mount Grace Comprehensive School. He moved to the County of Cornwall in 1977, worked as a herdsman, antique restorer and at Mount Wellington Mine, one of the last working tin mines in Cornwall. He served six months in prison in 1988. He has been married once and divorced.

1989 he came ‘out’ as a gay man. He was founder, publisher, & editor of the ‘Independent Cornish Triangle’, a local LGBT newsletter with over 1,000 subscribers in mainly rural Cornwall, UK.

In 1995, Gay Times Magazine named Lidbury in their 200th celebratory edition as one of the top 200 gay people in Britain for his contribution to gay community, equality & HIV/AIDS campaigning and awareness in Cornwall. He was a Former trustee to the HIV/AIDS Cornwall Aids Council, trustee for the HIV/AIDS Sprocket Trust and the gay men’s voluntary support worker for the Cornwall Hospital GU Clinic.

In 1997, readership of the National LGBT newspaper Pink Paper voted Lidbury as No. 119 of the 500 people who had historically had the greatest influence upon gay life in Britain.

In 1994 Lidbury’s partner, Andrew Roger Smith was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. The couple fought a public battle against prejudice and discrimination. They won an Ombudsman enquiry against Kerrier District Council for maladministration. In 1996, Lidbury received a televised apology on behalf of two Spanish gay men from the English Tourist Board for prejudicial breaches of the British tourist board ‘pink’ book of rules.

In 1994, Malcolm and Andrew publicly contributed taking part visibly in an HIV/AIDS documentary made by Westcountry television ‘Days of Judgement’ about HIV/AIDS in the south west of England at a time when it was publicly dangerous to be open with both ones gay sexuality and his partners HIV/AIDS status in Cornwall.

In 1997, Lidbury posthumously won on behalf of his partner a public apology from Cornwall County Council for adverse treatment and failure to deliver statutory care to Andrew as an HIV/AIDS sufferer.

Lidbury was a member of the Cornwall & Isles of Scillies Health Authority Gay Men’s Health steering group and was instrumental in creation of the Cornwall Gay Men’s Health Project. Following the HIV/AIDS related death of his Cornish partner, Andy in 1996 Lidbury became self-employed running his own Amenity Horticulture business.

In 1997, he made and won an Advertising Standards Authority complaint against a local business, ‘Trago Mills’, which had run adverts in local Cornish newspapers advocating the castration of gay men. He has an archive in the LGBT social & political Hall-Carpenter archive. Following further harassment from Cornish authorities, in particular the police, Lidbury attempted suicide.  He withdrew from active contribution to public equality and HIV/AIDS campaigning.

Lidbury is a listed gay artist with the Middlesex University Archive of gay artists, along with Hockney, Mapplethorpe, Gilbert, & George. He jointly exhibited at the Penzance Art Club his male bronze figures with Leigh Heppell a sculptor of erotic female forms. Lidbury has Artwork in the Barcelona Spanish Museum of Erotic Art and Homosexual Art Foundation in New York, USA.

In 2004, the LGBT Intercom Trust asked Lidbury to assist with a forum on Cornwall LGBT community opinion of the Criminal Justice Service as part of research for the Lord Justice Kay award 2005. A protracted three-year period of conflict followed between Lidbury and the Cornwall police who raided his home in 2004, arresting him on spurious allegations. Lidbury had run an internet Art business up until the seizing by police of his computer. No criminal charges resulted and police Criminal Forensics had to admit there were no ‘alleged’ illegal images on the computer.
 
Lidbury has been a victim of continued HOMOPHOBIC Cornwall police intimidation & violations of his private life and business. 

Lidbury’s complaint of Police conduct lead to two separate Independent Police Complaints Commission investigations 2004/2006.  Resulting in twenty-two recommendations being made by the IPCC to Devon & Cornwall Constabulary of needed improvement of public service and appointment of three new diversity police officers to the Cornwall police force.

“As a gay man living in Cornwall I would not trust ANY Cornwall police officer as a result of my multiple experiences of homophobic conduct prevalent and protected within this police force!” Lidbury May 2007

In 2007, a London Drill Hall Theatre stage play, ‘A gay man’s guide’ is to feature contributing aspects of Lidbury’s gay life.

Cornwall. Probably the most HOMOPHOBIC place in Britain?

Lidbury has 'three' published autobiographical book memoirs:-

Mr Hopkins Legacy: - Childhood sexual Experience

NO Carrots in My Pasty: - HIV/AIDS in Cornwall, an Experience

A NO GAY ZONE: - Cornwall Police and other Homophobia? (Publish date: - May 2007)

Lidbury “Gay equality in Cornwall, as hard to find as carrots in a proper Cornish pasty”