How Michael Cashman changed the world: from EastEnders' first gay kiss to Stonewall

In many people’s minds, Michael Cashman – actor, activist, MEP, co-founder of Stonewall and member of the House of Lords – will always be associated with a kiss. In 1985, he had been approached by the creators of EastEnders, Julia Smith and Tony Holland, to play Colin Russell – the British soap’s first gay character. Cashman was nervous at the thought of the press scrutiny that could follow, but agreed. Even before his character was announced, the Sun ran a story about the role under the headline “Eastbenders”.

“What made it worse,” says Cashman, now 69 and sitting in his fourth-floor Limehouse apartment overlooking the Thames, “was the information was leaked from inside.” The Sunday Mirror, meanwhile, claimed that he had had an HIV test in the US and was dying. The News of the World ran a double-page spread, headlined “Secret Gay Love of Aids Scare EastEnder”, which outed his partner and printed the couple’s photos and address.

There was even an attempt to orchestrate “sinister” stories about him. One afternoon, two teenagers knocked on his front door asking for money; when he declined, they told him they had been given a tenner to do it by two men sitting in a car opposite Cashman’s house.

“They wanted a photograph