If you’ve not heard of the Safari Bar, and a lot of people haven’t, I’d suggest you read my post about Bognor’s Safari Bar before reading this one.
A quick summary for anyone who can’t recall the details (or can’t be arsed because life’s too short) – a bunch of gay mates ran the cafe and function room attached to Zootopia (aka Bognor Regis zoo), as a gay bar and club after-hours in 1983. Yes, a gay bar in a zoo. It still amazes me whenever I put those words together.
But to get to the point, I was under the impression that the bar opened in early 1983, simply because the earliest mention I was aware of was the flyer for drag double act Rebel Rebel appearing at the bar in February that year. However, some new information has come to light!
Thanks to the wonderful archive at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, three issues of The Lavender Letter newspaper ‘for lesbians and homosexual men’, which was produced in Brighton, have become available. And to my complete surprise, issue three from 3 December 1982 has not one, not two, but three references to the Safari Bar!
Police raid rumours
This article on page three reveals that not only was the Safari Bar already open three nights a week, but there were rumours circulating that the police had raided the venue.
Bar manager and licensee Mike Denning states in the article that the police had indeed visited, but that it “had nothing to do with the fact that it’s a gay bar”. He goes on to explain that after 11pm one Friday night “the police saw that the lights were still on and came in to check that people weren’t still drinking”. “But when they saw that none of our customers had an alcoholic drink, they left. That was the end of that.”
Thank heavens for the rumour mill in small seaside towns, or this confirmation that the Safari Bar was already swinging in 1982 would never have appeared.
Peter Burton
The bar gets another brief mention on page seven as part of ‘Peter Burton’s HOTSPOTS: Nightlife News & Views’. For anyone unaware, Peter was a Brighton resident, an author and a journalist for Gay News, who would go on to be lauded as “the Godfather of gay journalism” for his lifetime of championing gay literature.
Towards the end of a full page of reviews and recommendations, this little paragraph appears:
“I find the idea of a bar in a zoo fascinating – and am determined to tootle off to Bognor Regis to see if the stories about The Safari Bar are true. After a few drinks I think I might find the idea of all those animals a wee bit alarming. My fuddled brain might well decide I was seeing things because of one too many… and that would never do.”
Peter Burton
So if news of the Safari Bar was already tempting journalists to “tootle off to Bognor Regis” to investigate, it indicates that the bar had been open for a couple of weeks at the very least. In conclusion My Dear Watson (you might have to be old to get that reference), evidence strongly suggests that the Safari Bar opened in November 1982 (or perhaps even earlier).
Tuesday Disco
Towards the end of the 16 pages of The Lavender Letter was one final little gem just waiting to be discovered – an actual advert for the bar, using their own hand-drawn logo, announcing a new Tuesday Disco. Not only was it an absolute bargain at £1 for dancing until midnight, but your first drink was half price!
Sometimes the utter uniqueness of the bar makes me wonder if it actually did happen. As the article on the police ‘raid’ says:
“The Safari Bar must be a unique first – a gay watering hole set within forty acres of parkland and a zoo made up from ex-circus animals (some of whom co-starred with rock ‘n’ roller Gary Glitter).”
It’s only when I come face to face with undeniable proof, such as this advert, that I know it was really real. So thank you to everyone involved with the bar, for having such a wonderfully wacky dream and making it an equally wacky reality.
The full story of The Safari Bar is available in my book: The Magic Farm and other queer tales.
