Precious Lesbian Crap: How I gave away stuff I loved

LOUISE CAROLIN works for Opening Doors London, the UK charity for LGBT+ over-50s.

Last May, even in Scotland, it was brightly hot. As I dragged the heavy suitcase to my borrowed flat, I wondered once again if I was doing the right thing. Packed in between my pants and my pyjamas were files full of crumpled, handwritten letters and dog-eared postcards, badges, newsletters, club flyers, hot women torn from magazines decades ago, the minutes of a magazine collective long since dissolved, even a dress handmade for me by a gay friend… My life, perhaps – the material evidence of everything that had made me me.

And not just me, since when I