His first experience with a gay club was a night called called Pinkies, hosted on a Friday and Saturday at Sandridge Hotel, Newquay, years ago. Shaun said he always found himself gravitating back towards Cornwall, which is his home - and had some adventures at clubs in Newquay in the 90s and early 2000s. “There’s not that face-to-face community.” Shaun Hill, a care worker from St Columb Road who briefly fled Cornwall in his early 20s to explore the slightly more exciting-sounding Manchester, said growing up gay in Cornwall now must be tricky without an LGBT night scene. To be honest, Cornwall is not exactly ‘party central’ for anyone, lacking any sort of large-scale party culture.
In celebration of LGBT history month, CornwallLive caught up with some of the county’s prolific party animals, as well as those who just enjoyed a night out at the venues, to find out what they were like - and explore the void which is left in their absence. With the closure of Truro’s Deja Vu, and before that the Eclipse, among many others, ten years ago - lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and other members of the LGBTQ+ community are without a nighttime space to call home. Booze, “wacky” adventures, and a safe space in which to express your true self: these are some of the things which Cornwall’s LGBT community are missing out on now that the era of the county’s gay clubs has passed.
