James , Michael , b 1941 , gay activist

Michael James (Lynham) was born in Northern Ireland in 1941. Following his move to London, he worked as a window dresser, an antiques dealer and a coffee shop manager. He was an active member of the London Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s, participating in the Media Workshop which produced Come Together, and in several well publicised demonstrations including the disruption of the Festival of Light in 1971. He was also involved with radical drag and lived in the Colville House commune, which he left in 1973. Following a prison sentence, Michael James worked from 1984 onwards for Body Positive, an HIV/Aids counselling organisation, undertaking full-time hospital visiting and becoming co-ordinator of the Hospital Visitors Group. He left the organisation in 1990, but returned later that year as a centre volunteer and worked for the Gay Switchboard until 1994. He now lives in Brighton.