In 2021 the Royal Navy & Royal Marines charity (RNRMC) proudly began an important partnership with Fighting With Pride, providing grant funding to support their work with Royal Navy and Royal Marines veterans impacted by the ban on LGBT+ personnel serving in the Armed Forces prior to January 2000.
RNRMC has worked with Fighting With Pride since it was established in 2021. The RNRMC grant contributed towards funding a LGBT+ Veterans Outreach Support Worker' for England and Wales. The Support Worker will help LGBT+ veterans begin the challenging process re-joining the military family. This will help re-connect Royal Navy and Royal Marines veterans with their military identities, allowing them to feel recognised for their service and take their rightful place at events, such as remembrance services. By re-engaging LGBT+ Royal Navy and Royal Marines veterans with their service, the Outreach Support Worker will also open a world of support services to veterans who may have issues around health, housing, wellbeing, financial circumstances or employment.
“We are immensely proud that RNRMC was one of the first organisations to get involved with Fighting With Pride and we are very pleased to see that we paved the way for others subsequently. We know that by working together, we can support those who suffered so unfairly to feel proud of their service to the nation. So many incredible things have happened in a very short period of time and we are only at the very beginning of what will be a difficult journey for many.”
Mandy Lindley, Director of Relationships and Funding at RNRMC
Finding his way home – A LGBT+ Veteran’s journey
Vinnie joined the Royal Navy in 1986 and in 1989 he was a Naval Airman serving onboard HMS Intrepid where he was forced out of the Royal Navy because of his sexuality. It was music that got him into trouble.
On passage to the West Indies, for a three-month deployment, Vinnie decided to organise a sponsored 48 hours ‘disc jockey’ show playing non-stop music over the Ship’s Radio Equipment (SRE) broadcast system. It was a great success and he raised £590, which was shared equally between the Wishing Well Appeal for Great Ormond Street Hospital and Heathfield School, a special needs school in Fareham. Photographs were taken for Navy News. Unbeknown to him, a copy of the photograph was also sent to his local newspaper, which lead to him being ‘blackmailed’ because of his sexuality.
Anxious, fearful, and angry Vinnie did not know what to do and went AWOL. He was persuaded to return to the ship by the Padre, who Vinnie confided in. The Ship’s Chaplain reported Vinnie’s circumstances to the Commanding Officer, and that started the process of his dismissal.
Vinnie loved the Royal Navy and the 18 months he served onboard HMS Intrepid: From raising money for charity and doing good, all went so tragically wrong. Vinnie kept his dismissal a secret, but as well as all this, his Divisional Officer wrote to his mother, outing Vinnie. His family disowned him, and he was forced to change his name and to move out of his hometown.
Vinnie was left without an income, a career, and a home, and denied a pension, Vinnie struggled to come to terms with his sexuality and unfortunately turned to drink to ease his pain. Vinnie remembers the dark days, which included being sectioned under the Mental Health Act and attempting to take his own life.
For almost 30 years, Vinnie lived an isolated and turbulent life, moving from place to place and from job to job.
In 2021, he finally settled in Southampton and in the summer of 2022, heard about ‘Fighting With Pride’ and the support being provided to LGBT+ veterans who were impacted by the historic military ‘gay ban’.
Vinnie contacted FWP and his Veteran Community Worker made him aware of the LGBT Veterans’ Independent Review, which was chaired by Lord Etherton. Supported by his Veteran Community Worker, Vinnie raised a Subject Access Request (SAR) for copies of his Service Documents, which formed the basis of his testimonial submission during the ‘Call for Evidence’ of his dismissal from the Royal Navy.
Before his contact with FWP, Vinnie had had no social contact for 18 months as he was still living his life in isolation apart from the company from his dog ‘Dexter’, an elderly Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
To help Vinnie re-join society, a programme of social inclusion was put together, which would slowly. This was a gradual process; taking very gradual and small steps providing Vinnie with the warm welcome and the confidence to meet and talk with others.
There were setbacks; very sadly Dexter had to be put-down because of crippling arthritis and a close friend took his life. These weighed heavily on Vinnie’s mental resilience, which was severely tested by the onset of debilitating ‘cluster headaches’.
But a door had been opened to a more inclusive life and the opportunity to share experiences with other LGBT+ veterans.
Vinnie’s biggest step forward socially was to join FWP veterans who participated in the Cenotaph Parade on Remembrance Sunday. He didn’t want to march with the Parade but he did find his old Naval Airman beret badge, which he polished up and mounted on a beret obtained from eBay and wore it proudly throughout the day.
After the Parade, Vinnie attended the FWP Social Reception at the Phoenix Arts Club, which is owned and run by a FWP LGBT+ veteran. This allowed him to meet many other LGBT+ veterans from around the country. More surprisingly, it provided him with an opportunity to meet and talk with Lord Etherton who recalled Vinnie’s testimony.
Worried by the lack of Government response to the Etherton Report, and having just meet Lord Etherton, Vinnie contracted his local Member of Parliament, Caroline Nokes MP, who invited him to visit her constituency office and share his concerns. Vinnie did this on Friday 8 December and five days later, Caroline Nokes, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, shared Vinnie’s plight, and the details of his breakdown in her office while recalling the hardship and troubled times he had endured, with other Members of the House. The details are now recorded in the Hansard transcript of the discussion in Parliament.
Before Fighting With Pride, Vinnie would never have dreamed of meeting Lord Etherton and talking with his local MP and his story now becoming a part of parliamentary history.
Parliamentary Transcript: Wednesday 13 December 2023. Caroline Nokes (Romsey & Southampton North) (Con)
‘‘I welcome the Minister’s statement. Last week, I met Fighting With Pride and one of my constituents, who I will not name because he has not given me permission to do so. Three points came across in that meeting. The first was the importance of testimonies. He was a grown man who had been discharged in the 1980s and whose mother had received a letter from his commanding officer outing him as gay. He was still traumatised and crying in my office last week. This is about making sure that those testimonies are heard. The second point was about having the debate on the Floor of the House and not farming it out to Westminster Hall. Will the Minister make sure that the debate happens on the Floor of the House? The third point was about financial redress. I welcome the opportunity that my constituent will now have to feed in how he has been impacted—how he has lived a life alone, because he has carried that shame for all these years. On behalf of my constituent and all the other LGBT servicemen and women who suffered in that way, I put it on the record that they want the opportunity to feed in their own stories so that the financial redress addresses the harm they suffered.’’
The Parliamentary statement and discussion can be viewed here: BBC iPlayer - House of Commons - LGBT Veterans Statement (TV license required).
Follow this link for more information about Fighting With Pride.
