A number of pubs in South London were well-known by the 1960s as gay venues including the Union Tavern on Camberwell New Road and the Father Red Cap on Camberwell Green, both of which put on regular drag nights. It is perhaps less well-known that Camberwell gave one of the founders of the gay disco movement his first big break. On 1st July 1971 Richard Scanes, otherwise known to his punters as DJ Tricky Dicky, took to the decks at the Father Red Cap and began to play the new disco sound to the local crowd. His aim was to bring disco to a local audience making things more intimate and friendly (compared to what were known as the ‘gay ghettoes’ in town). Scanes said: “At my discos the gay boys and gay girls can dance together and no-one is going to say a word. This time last year you wouldn’t have seen gay people dancing together.”
The landlord was Charles Holmes who was proud of his pub’s status and put up a Take Courage sign outside saying ‘The Father Red Cap, the Gayest Pub in Town’. Both men were pulled up before the courts in 1973 for keeping a ‘disorderly house’ but they weren’t discouraged for long and other venues began to follow their lead. In 1975 Tricky Dicky went on to found a purpose-made gay disco, Fangs, which led the way for the first gay superclubs like Bang which opened the following year. Tricky Dicky was famous for finishing his sets at the end of the night by playing what he called a ‘Camp Revamp,’ winding down the crowd with a camp classic - like Marilyn Munroe’s ‘I wanna be loved by you’ for example - something which became a tradition in gay discos everywhere.
DJ Tricky Dicky in 1972 (Peter Holmes / Gay News, with thanks to Keith Howes)