Over the last few years Brighton Museum have borrowed items from my velvet vault to display in exhibitions: Queer The Pier in 2020 and Passion, Power & Protest in 2025. So, when they started talking to me about an exhibition to accompany Gender Stories in 2026, I assumed they wanted to know if I had any items that might be of interest.
After an initial chat, they offered me a gallery to stage an exhibition about Brighton’s gay bikers from last century… to say I was surprised is an understatement! The gallery in question is the Prints and Drawings gallery on the first floor, comprising of twenty cases, with six text panels in which to tell the story.
My research into the Sussex Lancers has been ongoing for many years, and I wrote a potted history for (G)Scene magazine at the start of covid when local LGBTQ+ news was in short supply. My investigations continued during covid and beyond, tracking down Lancers to interview and asking for photos, ephemera etc. What changed over that period was the increase in material about the Lancers held by the wonderful Bishopsgate Institute in London.
Here’s a quick link for anyone wanting me to cut the waffle and tell me when the exhibition is on.
Lost forever
One of the driving forces behind my search for physical records of their history, was learning that the Sussex Lancers archive had been destroyed around 2016. As Brighton Ourstory (LGB hstory group) recorded in their newsletter:
“We now have the honour of looking after two boxes of treasures marked ‘Trophies’ and ‘Odds and Ends’. The Trophies box contains pendants and awards presented in friendship and brotherhood, between other clubs over the period 1988-1993. The other box of Lancer memorabilia contains minutes of meetings, conferences, the RIP IT OFF poster pictured, and four albums of photographs.”
Brighton Ourstory newsletter issue 10, summer 2001
Ourstory announced they were unable to continue in 2013 and returned donations to their original donors. Three years later, under the presumption that no-one was interested, the entire archive was burnt. Having discovered this I quietly made it my mission to gather together what images and items I could, from Lancers or others involved with the Federation of UK Clubs (FUKC), over the period they were active: 1980-2001.
Tailor-made leather lovers
I’m pleased to say that between the items that people have given me directly, and those held in store at the Bishopsgate Institute, there is enough material to tell the tale of the Sussex Lancers: Tailor-made Leather Lovers.
For anyone unfamiliar with their origin story, the Lancers were formed by a group of gay bikers who used to meet at the home of Ken Burton in Lancing, a small village near Worthing. Ken was a tailor who had once co-owned a menswear shop in Bond Street in Brighton, with his partner and fellow tailor Phil Green. Phil and Ken called their shop Filk’n Casuals – try saying it out loud. Carefully!
As well as men in leather and motorbikes, Ken had a fondness for wordplay as we’ve just seen, so the fact that his bungalow in Lancing was the biker group’s focal point was the reason behind them being called the Sussex Lancers. That was my original theory, but Ken was even smarter than that. The classic style of leather jacket with the zip going off to one side is based on armed cavalry jackets where the buttons go off to the side. This is known as ‘lancer-fronted’ after the lance-carrying soldiers, aka Lancers, who wore them. Clever huh?
Searching
Social media sites can be a great place to make unlikely connections. Back in 2020 I searched Facebook for references to Filk’n Casuals, expecting nothing to be honest, but discovered Ian Beck. Ian had been into the Mod aesthetic while studying at Brighton Art School in the 1960s, and had been to have clothes made at Filk’n Casuals. We chatted via email and he shared some fabulous memories.
“I first went into the shop around the autumn of 1965. Ken was the taller and friendlier of the two. Phil had a tape measure around his neck and was slight and noticeably less ebullient. Ken was particularly camp and very amusing, he was clearly ‘a turn’. He kept up a constant stream of chatter and quips. They had fabric samples, and Ken was obviously a connoisseur of various cloths. I remember him describing various items such as, ‘We once had some sand-coloured denim in, it had a faint gold stripe running through it. I made some buccaneer trousers, for the beach, you know cut off at the calf with a ragged unfinished edge. Ooh they were gorgeous’.”
Ian Beck
Back to the present and I had some more luck when I interviewed Barry Toone. Barry had told my friend Daren Kay that he’d very briefly hung out with the Lancers in the early 1980s, so I arranged a meeting with him. Given that was over 40 years ago my expectations from our meeting were modest, but to my amazement he produced three photos of the recently formed Sussex Lancers on their bikes outside Phil and Ken’s bungalow.
And context is of course everything. It’s quite an unremarkable photo if you don’t know what you’re looking at, but so precious if you do. Well done Barry!
Sexual rebels
In the 1950s, leather jacket wearing motorcycle gangs were seen as tough anti-social rebels, whereas men who had sex with other men were seen as effeminate. When these two seemingly disparate states were combined, they achieved something truly rebellious – masculine-presenting men who desired each other. Visual representations of these sexual rebels, frequently in biker’s leathers, reached their epitome in the drawings of Tom of Finland.
This longevity of this look is something I wanted to touch on in the exhibition. As luck would have it I’m familiar with the incredible work of Antony Edwards, a Brighton-based photographer who has been documenting the inhabitants of the city’s contemporary fetish scene. So, the six cases in the centre of the gallery feature Antony’s photographs of Leathermen South who were formed in 2014 and regularly meet at The Bulldog on St James Street.
Show me more!
The exhibition has opened now, so I’ve taken a video of the show, for anyone unable to attend.
And if you want a little souvenir then Antony and I have got you covered.
Antony’s postcards and my mega-zine are available in the museum shop, but if you’re not local then you can order them online:
- Buy postcards and more from Antony Edwards (Big Cartel)
- Buy Sussex Lancers mega-zine and more from Alf Le Flohic (Colossive Press)
By the way, the mega-zine includes most of the exhibition along with additional material that was a little risqué for a public gallery. You know what I’m saying…
Slapping Leather
To enhance your viewing pleasure of the exhibition, the superstar this is Josh Sharp has created a themed Spotify playlist just for you. I’ve embedded it below or you can search on Spotify for Slapping Leather!
Exhibition details
The exhibition The Sussex Lancers: Tailor-made Leather Lovers is on at Brighton Museum from 31 January–12 April 2026.
Update: Exhibition extended until 26 April.
Free with Brighton Museum admission, members free.
Enjoy!
