 I'm honoured to be able to conduct this interview with Webby, affectionately known to you all. Webby, you're a new mother. Oh, yes, I am. Tell us about that. Oh, we're good. Okay, we're starting at the more recent end. So the Mrs and I now have a little baby, Ken Aray, two months old yesterday. So a complete change of lifestyle. Thoroughly enjoying it, thoroughly enjoying it at the moment. Never thought if you had to ask me three years ago, would I be a new mum sitting here? No. But I'm absolutely delighted. I bought a special little rainbow baby into the world and I'm very, very happy. How has this changed your overall outlook on things in life? Probably makes me think a little bit more about the future than I probably did before because now I've got someone little to think about. Hopefully I'll be around the next 10 or 20 years to get her to have a good start in life. And hopefully also she would get to meet our community when she's old enough as well. I don't suppose you brought any photos to share with us? Only on my phone, but she screens mostly when I take photos. But she's a sweet little thing. Okay, thank you. But let's start right at the very beginning. I'd like to ask this of all my chat guests. Where are you from? A bit about your family, your background? Okay, so where I'm from. So I grew up in a country town on the Murray River called Swan Hill. It's about four hours from Melbourne. My father took us from Melbourne to the country when I was six years old because he wanted myself and my brother to have a better lifestyle than what was available in the city. And I thank him for that. I think we had a really good balanced upbringing. But once again, you're in the country, so it's pretty harsh there. So you have to learn to amuse yourself. And so most of the things we did, I don't know what city people do. We jumped off ropes into rivers and channels. We rode horses bareback. We were hungry. We'd go up to orchards and pick fruit and eat them. It was a good free lifestyle, I think, growing up and very honest. What do you mean honest? I think country people are very honest. Very black and white. A bit like myself. Whereas I find city people often bite their tongue because they think I shouldn't say that. Where country people will just spit it out a bit more often. What they think. You said it taught you to be tough. I think country life is tough. I think we were all poor in the 60s and 70s. We just didn't know it. So life was tough in the country. There was a lot of poor people. Most of the people on farms weren't very well off at all, including ourselves. My dad did night school so that he could do better and became a teacher. So partway through my childhood, dad became a teacher which then gave us a better lifestyle, I think. So we had our first house at 15. Before that we were in social housing. Okay. What kind of a teacher did he become? He was a metalwork teacher so he worked at the local tech school teaching people welding and how to make things and a lot of farmers too did a lot of courses with him to learn how to make gates and weirs and things like that. Metal worker did it all his life. Okay. Did you have any concept of homosexuality at this time? No. Zero. I didn't know what it was at all. That's incredible. I've been going up to a teenage years. No idea. Incredible. So even though I knew I was different, I didn't know what it was at all. So it was never mentioned. It was never publicly talked about. Most girls in the country are tomboy's, not all of them. I'd say 80% of girls were tomboy's and that's what we just thought we were. The real cool was tomboy's. So we'd be out with the boys riding the horses, riding the push bikes, digging the holes, doing whatever the boys were doing. We were just in amongst it. There was no boys doing this and girls doing that. We all did things together. And just the way we were brought up. So we were never told we couldn't do something, which is a good way of life. Yet you say you knew you were different. How did you know you were different? You have crushes on people of the same sex that you probably at that age think and I shouldn't have. When all your friends are getting engaged and married and you're going, that's not quite the one I'm after. So it took a little time, probably till I was about 17, till I realised that no, that's not for me. But I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know where to look it up. I didn't know who to ring. You want to talk to somebody about it. There's no one to talk to at all. So not until I came to Sydney. So what brought you to Sydney? Myself and two of my friends from home, Wendy and Connie, we thought 17 years of age, time to lay the car, leave home, wave goodbye and trip around Australia. So Sydney, I ended up, I didn't make any further than here. Wendy made it as far as Perth, so I think she did really well. It took her a few years, but she managed to get all the way round to there. Connie didn't last long at all. She missed the family home and the farm life, so she went back to work on the farm. But you know, I stayed here and I actually enjoyed it. Once I got to meet people, I actually enjoyed the lifestyle of the city. Surprising, since I came from the country. What did you find here when you arrived? Bright lights. Bright lights. King's Cross was the first thing I found. Okay. And what were your thoughts of a big city and lights? Frightening to drive the car in. That's all I remember. Everything seemed so close to you. Not used to all the traffic, so that was very frightening. I think the number of people was overwhelming too. If you went somewhere, there was a lot of people. I think the first thing that I noticed was my mum said, oh, Sydney's a big place. You'll meet lots of people. Well, I think I stood at the bus stop for six months until someone actually said hello to me. Even though I said hello to everyone every day. City people don't do that. Whereas country people do. So it took me a while before I could make friends. But once you start making friends, I think it was a lot easier because there's so many people here. But you were very young. You mentioned you were what, 17, maybe 18. So what did you do for an income? What did you do for a life here? Oh, yeah. That was interesting. First job I had in Sydney, I've always wanted to answer one of those ads that said you don't need any experience because I used to see them in the papers. So Wendy and I both thought, oh, we'll go and do that. So we answered this ad that said you don't need any experience. We thought, oh, we'll just see what they get us to do. And it was selling encyclopedias. My gosh. That was their first three weeks in Sydney was walking around suburbs. They used to just drop you in a suburb. And you're young, you don't know where you are and they would drop you and come back eight hours later and pick you up. And then I ended up getting encyclopedias. So I sort of done that, crossed it off the bucket list and went, I'm not doing that anymore. And then I applied for a real job and I ended up working for CSIRO for six months because I did well at maths and science at school. So as a science assistant, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then someone had said to me you apply for a job in the government and I went, I'd never heard of that. And I applied for a job and months went past you never hear a thing and then all of a sudden you get a telegram telling you got an interview the next day or something like that. So then I ended up into working in a government job for a while in the federal government. Left that. I did the army for some time back in the early 80s. And then joined the state government of New South Wales where I worked right up until my retirement a few years ago. Wow. Very good. Very good. Tell us about the general scene you found here in Sydney. At this point were you exploring what was available to you in the gay community? I didn't know where to find the gay community and I just supposed my friends that I were here with in Sydney and friends that I knew here were mainly navy boys that I'd gone to school with. So they were straight people per se. But like we went to a lot of parties and things like that but I didn't chase anything to go what to do. But I was very overwhelmed anyway and just enjoying the city. And it wasn't until one day it was my turn to do the washing and we'd moved to Enmore and I said oh there's a lawn around the corner and we haven't got a washing machine yet I'll go around and do the washing. So I went round there and the woman said oh I can do it for you for so much a bag. And I went well saves me being here all day. So I left the bag with her and walked two doors up and went to the Enmore hotel. And so I walked in at the Sly Fox. So I walked in the front door and there was a public bar and maybe half a dozen men in there and then the man said to me oh you can't be in here you have to be in the ladies lounge. And I went oh sorry where would that be? I'll back out the door and round through the back entrance. And so I walked in through the back entrance and lo and behold if there wasn't like 30 dykes in there all playing pool and the space invaders machines and I've just walked in and gone hello. And they were my friends for the next 20 odd years and some of them are still my friends today. How did they welcome you? Well obviously I got challenged to a game of pool. That's the first thing that happened but my dad was the top Billions player for Victoria and Sneaker player there for some time. He actually represented the state so I was good on the stick as well so I won. So it wasn't long before they had me in some pool competition where we would go play some people at Rosell and I didn't even know where we were going someone just picked you up in the car and off you went sort of thing. So I was in some pool competition eight ball you call it I think and it just started from there and once you're in a group with a team I think it just goes from there just builds. Well you did say you were very sporty and that that greatly benefited you in the community. In the early days, yeah. I think it learns it teaches you a lot about teamwork and I think working with different kinds of people because I think growing up in the country you're very independent. You do things on your own a lot if your friends aren't available you still just do things and what I sort of found is that when you joined a team even though you might have half a dozen people on a team it's really equivalent to ten because everyone digs in and does their bit so I've done team pin bowling with gay people I've done darts, we did darts for many years one of the few games back then that you could drink and smoke at the same time by playing a sport brilliant I lasted six years until the no smoking rule came in and then I went well it's ruined that now so I did a bit of lawn bowls because you could still smoke and drink beer at the same time that was good I've done softball baseball netball and I just enjoyed the team environment and the people you meet because not only are you getting together when you do the actual sports you actually then socially interact after the games and we're all very competitive most of us very competitive so you're with like people so I sort of hung around with the sporty people for quite a while never knew about the leather scene at all at all in the early days well that obviously opened up a number of opportunities for you and one of them was dykes on bikes tell us about that well, dykes on bikes it was interesting now I got into dykes on bikes because I was with the softball team at the time and I was their treasurer and we're all drinking in the same pub which is a light heart hotel all sponsored by the same establishment so we're all drinking together and socialising together and then something happened and dykes on bikes ran out of money as things do so I got called in and asked as an accountant and as another treasurer could I have a look at the books and I had a look at the books and it was quite easy to say they were spending more money than they made and that was evident next minute I know I got signed up to be the treasurer for some meeting they voted and next minute I know I'm signed in as treasurer for dykes on bikes and that was on and off for the next 14 years and that was a different lot of people again and a very accepting lot of people because most people in dykes on bikes have scars and limps and all sorts of things and often they're riding bikes because they're financially unable to own a new car that type of thing and that meant a whole diverse group of people and I thoroughly enjoyed it well tell us about what you events you did, places you went with dykes on bikes yeah sometimes people would see us coming like we'd pull over at a McDonald's halfway down the coast on the day ride or a weekend away and you could hear all the mums and dads going oh it's dykes on bikes it's dykes on bikes and everyone would be quite terrified of us really like that I'm quite happy I walked down the street my letters and people crossed the road and I go yes but with dykes on bikes we had lots of weekends away not always with bike riders we used to sometimes have 20 people that were just we call them our guests friends, friends are friends family all welcome to come away with us on our weekends away and we just did silly things that people do I mean we just made sure we had games we'd have dress ups I learned to cook breakfast for 60 people I was good at doing breakfast as were some others but you soon learned that you can actually manage 60 steaks on a big but two barbecues and all that sort of thing we did lots of weekends away lots of parades as in the Mardi Gras parade we pink ribbon rides for cancer raising money for breast cancer research there was other rides that we used to do I think the most interesting rides we did were with what we call the regular bikers of Sydney and there used to be an Anzac day run where the Hells Angels used to run it and we would join in just as another group and they would put what was called fake number plates over everybody's number plate so that because we didn't stop it didn't matter if it was a red light they just put their bikes there and all the cars and trucks had to stop and we all just went through so they gave us all these fake number plates on top of your number plates so that when all the cameras went off no one got booked that was the theory behind it they couldn't identify anyone and they were very interesting because you'd have thousands thousands of people on motorbikes and trikes and things like that the boys said that the men had a lot more money and beautiful bikes out there that none of us could ever afford but we were all welcomed so they were also very interesting events that we do with dikes on bikes internally we used to have we still do the bike and tattoo show once a year and people win prizes for the best bike the best tattoo, best scarification we also and people here have been and have been judges I can see in the audience here Black and white bulls the big annual event was held recently and that's a big get together where everyone gets to dress up and listen to music and have a dance and not on bikes so there's alcohol involved of course so no bikes that night generally but yeah there's a lot of social activities involved not just riding but there's also education how to maintain your bike how to fix a puncture but you said you were the treasurer on again and off again for 14 years so how were you able to manage it financially you said it had been having difficulty well the main thing was to make sure you did fundraising which was reinstigating getting the bike and tattoo show back up so that people came it was just like gold coin donation but all those things helped sell raffle tickets so you've got to have money to make money so made sure that we did the fundraising the black and white bull was a great fundraiser for the year because everyone would get dressed up and come along and enjoy that and that then allowed more money to be spent on the parade because we all like the bikes to look good as they're coming up the street and people forget you know it cost us a lot of money every year hundreds of dollars to buy the special gels people just think oh you just put something over your headlight, no it will burn then you know they're as bright as these lights here so you actually have to use all the green gels for all the headlights and that's quite expensive but we worked out after many years that the kitchen tiles are exactly the right size not for the Japanese bikes but for most motor bikes so we would sit on my kitchen floor and measure up a line measure up a line and cut out all these rolls of gel and they're also in all the colours of the rainbow gay pride flag so you have to have all your gels go flags, you've got to buy there's all sorts of things and so we have what we call these rocket packs and you have to buy all this stuff and get it ready for the parade so that having the fundraisers during the year enabled better funding for the Mardi Gras parade meant that people didn't have to pay as much to go in the parade so you could actually have more bikes because people could afford it better and then on weekends away we used to try and get sponsorships and have like a raffle pack so people would buy five dollars worth of tickets everyone who went away would buy five dollars worth of tickets or so and they might win two shirts tickets to a next event that's been run by someone that sort of thing so all that money went into the the pool so when I left there they still had a few thousand dollars in the bank which was quite good why did you choose to leave oh I'd done it for so long I wanted to enjoy myself so when I hit 40 I basically said well I think I've had enough on committees now I'm going to retire from committees and I'm going to live the life and actually attend all these events and participate but that didn't happen what did you do instead I got raped into being the public officer of Sydney Leather Pride Association within one year of leaving dykes on bikes and then from being the public officer I think within a year I was acting president and then became president for two years because I think that's a limit on being president was two years and I'm still public officer today one of the representatives before we go too far though what was House of Butch ah that was just our house we we had a few of us that we had this thing that every time we moved in with our girlfriends and then we'd break up and then we'd have to leave and we'd leave all the furniture behind and a few of my mates got together and we talked about it we were sort of sick of doing this we had a place of our own so we invented what we call the House of Butch so we hired this house and I think there was five bedrooms in it it was a big three story place and it was all dykes on bikes I call myself soft Butch not hard Butch but we're all Butches to some degree and so we all decided we're all in this one house so therefore this will never happen to us again thing of it so we had a House of Butch where we were in Pedersham and once up down in Stanmore we had the girls in what we called the House of Femme so there was all the Femmes living down the road so the two houses spent a lot of time going between the two actually but it was actually quite a fun thing at the time everyone knew it you just say a party's on House of Butch Saturday week and everyone would turn up they knew where it was and that lasted quite a few years we had a good five or seven years altogether how many people lived there at any one time well it depends if people had partners or not but well with five bedrooms you could have at least ten couldn't you I don't know what the least said I don't think the least said that many but you know it didn't matter did you have any squabbles any problems among people yeah often often we mainly around money I mean those sort of things happen you know people sort of you know decide to go out and they're in you know there might be money issues but once you get those little things sorted so that you have a little system in place so once we got the little the jar under the sink I think ended up being the system but that worked but once we had a little system in place no we didn't really have any arguments because we used to go out together like a family oh my gosh yeah we'd have our once a month family trip out to Hellfire and all that sort of stuff and we thoroughly enjoyed it yeah it was good we hung out with each other and we loved it yeah it was a good time so you said it went around five to seven years but what broke it up then in the end oh well because people do end up getting with people and moving out and breaking up and then eventually the landlord said he wanted to sell the premises so that was sort of the final push and we all went our own way yeah but now it's good over the years but for such an unconventional gathering of people how did the landlord see this when you approached to try to rent this place well I don't think we were dressing our leathers when we went and viewed the house I'm pretty sure of that so we would have been in normal clothes but all I remember is we'd been looking for a couple of weeks and we'd seen some really terrible places and the guy opened the front door and we looked in and it obviously just been freshly renovated, freshly painted beautiful lights and everything was done and we just walked in and said we'll take it we didn't even we just walked in the door we'll take it it was like that it was just so good and there was just enough room for everybody which was lovely we had a lovely yard double garage which was usually for the motorbikes and they called it but yeah no it was a great great location for us we were on a corner so that we weren't interfering with neighbors or anything good party yard was it here in Sydney? it was here in Sydney did you go as a group I can only imagine a group of however many five to ten people house hunting together did you do that? well we'd have sort of three of us go at a time oh okay and then a friend of ours was she wasn't allowed to go house hunting anymore because the place she picked us out was pink and pink she picked out a pink house in double chill for us and Sue and I went and had a look we went ah it's pink no it's salmon no you're in denial it's pink we're not living here so um yeah yeah we just we knew we couldn't live in a pink house that was about all what was the color then of the one you chose oh I think probably grey on the outside if I remember very bland but see the dust well switching the rail a little bit tell us about your exposure to leather and kink how did that evolve for you? oh well yes I have a funny story about that so remembering that I was also in the softball when we first were hanging around with the dykes on bikeskills so someone has a 40th birthday party or something like that and it's a leather night so everyone's got to wear their leathers and so you know I'm sort of having a panic attack going oh my god I'm going to have to wear my gardening gloves and my belt I have nothing else because I didn't own a piece of leather at that point in time um and um so it was a bit of you know and there was a lot of well not just me in the same boat people going to this party you had worn leathers before so people who had leathers put them out for us and said you know try them on get dressed up so we basically were dressed up like little Barbie dolls and um people put the right gear on us and off we went to this party and it was like oh we feel good I think we look good comfortable I'm going to have to get myself some of those and um wasn't soon after I've got my first pair of leathers because they're just the best thing ever for me was there anything um shocking enlightening that you didn't expect maybe I would say um my first big eye opening thing was um a party called no holes bar up at King's Cross there and um one of my friends was doing a show and said oh wait you see this Webby you're not going to believe it no I know okay anyway it was basically a man's genitals were getting nailed to a lump of wood and no I hadn't seen that before and so first of all my eyes were sort of going like oh ouch and then it was like is that how small a man's penis is where is it and I because I yeah being the way I am I really hadn't paid any attention and then I the first thought that coming to my mind is oh my god my dildos are far too big but then afterwards someone did say to me well yours would travel up too if it was also getting nailed to a lump of wood and then I thought yeah I think you're right there but yeah that was a big eye opener for me that was an eye opener for me I saw things I hadn't seen but not into the way that I was offended or anything but it was just like it was an eye opener yeah it was an eye opener and um I think there was probably the first time I'd been able to spend a decent amount of time watching someone do rope work where it wasn't sort of at a big party where you know people look dancing in front of you or in the road and you could actually watch and enjoy what was happening and I still get very fascinated by the rope work that people do yeah I still enjoy watching that do you participate in that no I'd rather watch but I still enjoy watching something that I've always enjoyed so rope work I thoroughly enjoy watching and I was you know I wouldn't have, I hadn't been to some of those events I wouldn't have known that I liked watching it but I do but as you saw some of these things and were exposed to new concepts new ideas was there anything that immediately grabbed you and said I have got to do this tattoos yeah I think I only have one tattoo before I joined so with the leather community a lot of people in the leather community have beautiful tattoos I don't have many I think if I was younger today I'd probably have a sleeve here and a leg there or something like that but that's not how we did it in those days but I think and I still enjoy looking at ink and I still enjoy getting a piece of ink but it's been a while since I've had it but I think that was something I probably would not have gone and done normally you know what I mean it was so like it was very normal in this community tattoos are normal and I like the look of them so it was a bit like well why can't I have some where I'd sort of been growing up I don't get tattoos because then the police will know who you are and you know all that sort of stuff so you know there's parents doing those days and then you realise no it's not only working girls that have tattoos basically what your parents tell you so I think that was a little bit of a oh no it's a relief I can get one of those now a couple of those but as far as I'm still happy to learn I don't know everything so I think I still learn by various things that are on some of the shows that I've witnessed in my life have been amazing you know and you sort of you go wow What would you like to learn if you could go out and work with someone going to use a flogger better I think I don't think I'm too bad on it but sometimes I'd like a better rhythm I think a nice better rhythm but otherwise I think if I wanted to learn something I've usually found someone to show me how to do it Is there anything you won't do or won't try? Oh look I'm not keen on needles I don't know been like that all my life you know so yeah I mean I'll have the medically but I don't particularly want people sticking needles in me so I'm happy to watch someone else have needle work done on them but no it's not that's not my thing personally anything else is pretty okay but you told me when we prepared for this interview that working in the Leather King community taught you or you learned the value of volunteering tell us about that well I come from a family with volunteers but I will say mainly on the churchy side for most of my family except for my dad who was a bit of a rebel he was the black sheep but even my father was a volunteer you know he would volunteer and do things on ends that day he played the drums going up the street he was in the local band he was a drummer so he was in the band he did the RSL every Saturday night for the old ducks and never got paid you know that sort of thing amongst other things volunteering at elections and that sort of stuff I think I'd done some volunteering myself even with the sports because I was on the games planning committee for softball when that was coming over for 2002 but once you join the Leather community it is run by volunteers every event even if it's a commercial event there will be volunteers on the door there will be volunteers in coach check there will be volunteers running around making sure things run smoothly volunteers for instance in the Leather community everyone's volunteering so you'll learn of I think the size of the events too that can be put on by having so many volunteers you know like a good ducks on bikes event would have been 400, 600 people a good Leather Pride event would be 5000, 6000 people so huge difference in size and it's all run by volunteers all of them and there's still the community is still run by volunteers so very big thing so I support as many volunteers as I can and try and volunteer for as much as I can for example well for example this year I was the guest judge at Innsville BB over in San Jose and that was volunteer I paid for it myself I don't give you anything I've talked on the radio when gay issues from time to time just like I'll do it volunteer I still do with some of the people here at some of the events which I thoroughly enjoy because at my age now I can't be on the dance floor all night my legs don't allow me to but it still allows me by volunteering it still allows me to socialise with my friends and participate I think it's all about inclusion so yeah over the years we've all done our volunteer work I think hopefully there's something I encourage in young people I think it instills good values in you if you become a volunteer I agree let's come back over you mentioned it a little bit earlier when we were speaking tell us about your work with the Sydney Leather Pride organisation and your presidency what all did that entail oh well at the time I didn't really know what the President of Sydney Leather Pride was supposed to do because that President at that time was Aaron and Aaron was overseas and then Aaron contacted me and said can you act as President please I think they've been falling out amongst the boys or something and I didn't really know what I was supposed to do so basically I just said well we'll hold a barbecue on one Sunday afternoon on the deck at the Oxford Hotel the outside deck there and we'll just see who turns up and see what they want and I think that's basically how I started the summer so we had a few barbecues people came more people came what would you like and a lot of people liked the idea of cocktail parties and something where they could wear their good leathers out so then we tried to run two or three cocktail parties a year and also back then a tradition of Sydney Leather Pride was running the annual Inquisition Party so I was lucky to be able to put that on three times the first one was more a proper Inquisition because it was held in the Dome which is a traditional place for it but the police basically ruined it, that's all I can say and so the next couple of we had to do party in a pub which is really not the same for a leather night but we did our best at the time but under this current government I can't until the lockout laws get lifted or something changes I don't think we'll be having any more parties that wasn't funny why can't you start them at six o'clock at night and finish at midnight with some of the comments we were getting they made us have low alcohol beverages we weren't allowed in full alcohol beverages our average age is 35 going to our events, not 18 yet the police still oh no we don't want people getting drunk and it was like hello we're all adults so we were having the nanny state inflicted upon us we're still being inflicted at this point in time do you think it's outright discrimination what they're doing? yes it is they've shut down this strip they've shut down the King's Cross strip and which is where most of the fringe people would gather and so what they've done is scattered the fringe people and I class us as fringe people so there's government doing it when we met and we had drinks a couple of days ago you mentioned that with the world pride coming here in a couple of years that these laws may be re-evaluated to accommodate that do you think that it's strictly economical or do you think that it's something that they are going to permanently enable the government at the moment is actually talking about lifting the lockout law for this strip by Christmas I can't wait to see it when it does happen yes we will be booking a venue for the next event because that's what we need because at the moment last people in at 130 just doesn't work viably economically because then the bar shuts and then the venue is not earning any revenue so therefore I have us there I can understand that commercially so the lockout laws need to be lifted they have lifted them in the past for Mardi Gras on the night of Mardi Gras only but they have lifted it on that night so there is precedent already but we would like it lifted permanently obviously but I think with the pressure and there's a lot of support from Alex Greenwich and Clovermore at the City of Sydney I think that they will also push to ensure that when we have overseas visitors here that we don't have lockout laws we're hoping because that would be a disaster but do you feel that the community is empowered enough to force the political leaders to reevaluate this situation why has it been permitted to continue in your opinion we don't know, we live in a bubble and I think that's what we've realised after the last couple of elections that we think that we've got numbers and we think that we're everyone we talked is in the same direction as us and then we're the only people that wake up the next day going what the hell happened I'll say in other groups but we've been in a bubble for a couple of years which is sad I think the rise of what I call the happy clappers the Christian front is pretty big, they've got lots of money they've got lots of people, we don't have lots of money and I think we are being discriminated against as a community but do you feel that there could be empowerment to be able to change this we need to actually infiltrate the political cycle and actually have people in there, I believe because unless you know somebody in there nothing happens and we don't know anyone in there so I don't know how that would work really it's not my, I don't want to be a politician but someone would be nice if we did have someone going through our communities to become politicians so that they can manage from the inside because I think that's where you have to make the change and unfortunately we're not there yet we're still a minority but how have you seen the leather fetish scene evolve here in Sydney okay well I suppose I joined it probably in the 90s and in the 90s it was full on, it was fabulous every event I went to was an eye opener it was well attended and there were no fights or anything I mean I don't know there was no problems at any of these events well attended, everyone dressed nice entertainment was amazing I mean I saw a guy at one of the Inquisition parties he like a blacksmith actually they had a big cross and someone got nailed to a cross and it was full on wow so the 90s great the cops left everyone alone and everyone partied hard and then something went wrong and I don't know what went wrong and all of a sudden events couldn't be run and you get a lot of pressure we're getting funneled back into the underground now and we're trying not to go back underground we're trying to say no we're here we want to be out so the only way they can do that now is to go to all these venues we'll close all the venues down and to me it's just about money developer money, sorry I'm good that's what it's about I think collateral damage is us losing our lifestyle but I think most of these pubs here including here will end up being high rise apartments one day and that's what the government wants when you say that a lot of this is going underground what do you mean by that well if if you're unable to hold events normally then you now have to hold events that where you don't have a lockout law or you may have to think about what depends what happens with this law that may mean you might have to say well now we're just going to have a warehouse party which they're all illegal as well but you might have to make that decision that we still want to have a party since we've been able to have a decent party there's a lot of people whose employment has been affected terribly by the situation you know, DJs entertainers, space singers and drag don't have the work they used to have a lot of the venues have shut down and so it's quite a sad situation so I find that the people coming through now in what it would be in 2020 have probably got less freedom and less of a lifestyle than we had in the mid 90's I think that's when it was all happening that's a very strong statement I think it is yeah it's um and you know a lot of it even today, like things like when you're in a hotel you can't have condoms available for people it seems to be the case so every time an event is held in what we call a straight pub you've got to take your own condoms if you're running an event because people might need them for something or other when they're leaving, you know it doesn't mean they're going to use them there but you know for when they're leaving for safety purposes and there's none available in those venues none available and things like that so you know to talk about we don't want AIDS to spread we don't want this, we don't want that but where's your basic things like people will meet up outside of it so we are blessed we have ACON which is they look after our health needs and so you know once a year I'll go up there and get a giant box full of condoms and party packs and that'll last us the year but I've got to take them to every event we go to because it just seems to be something that's been forgotten as well that sort of thing so it's illegal apparently to have them in the toilets and things now so we just slip them out of coat check when people are leaving we haven't been told off yet but you know just little things like that I think just make people's lifestyle choices a little different what I'm hearing maybe I'm hearing between the lines here a little bit is there seems to be a bit of systematic oppression and discrimination really boiling up here maybe it's or am I misunderstanding you? I don't think so I think a lot of us are very sentimental and missing the days that we when we could go and do whatever we like and no one was harming anyone there was never a problem and you know I feel that people who are trying to run the events today are struggling to try and make them as meaningful as they were back 20 years ago because there are rules now there's no sex on premises and if there's a sex on premises or a male well that's what seems to be or male so then girls can't come to the event so there's all those problematic things of who do we discriminate against so do we let the boys put on their own event and the men only space so that they can at least have an event but that means that all the women miss out and we fought so hard for the women to be equal or do we then say okay boys shouldn't come to the pub and it's just going to be like we are here having a event at a pub we can do whatever you want afterwards and so it causes those dilemmas as well I find and I think it needs discrimination yeah how we fought it I don't know yeah don't know we haven't figured that one out yet you've also said that you feel the traditional Toma Finden look is unrealistic what do you mean by that okay so what do I mean so okay the Toma Finden look suits you I think the Toma Finden look sort of suits me to some degree but for what I would say for the average person out there now in the leather community the Toma Finden look is not the look that they all aspire to they're not all lean tall skinny pieces of machine there's all body sizes and I think in like with women now the beautiful corsets and latex options that are open to the women is absolutely you know to behold so to me that is just as fetish as having a man in a newer cap in his Toma Finland but there are a lot of the old what I call the old guard who I see that is that's the only leather that you're not really a leather person and that is not true today and especially I would say with the under 40s that they wear leather their way and often make a lot of their own outfits and I think that that should be embraced and I'm very bad I'm one of these people I do not like body shaming you know people are you're too fat for this or you're too skinny for that or whatever and you know sometimes having men have a big belly they don't want to have any poking out in a leather shirt they want to wear their own thing they may want to wear a kilt they may want to wear something else and I think that's absolutely fine absolutely fine but I think the traditional you know if you're wearing your traditional dress-up leathers it would be looking like that and that doesn't suit everyone sure in 2014 you won the AIDS Council of New South Wales award tell us about that oh that was a complete honour and I still treat it as an honour that means I was someone nominated me obviously some people I know I never knew I never found out who and I'm ever grateful for for just for the years of work I've done volunteering for various organisations I don't just do the leather work I also every year run an Anzac Day fundraiser and I've been doing that for about 14 or 15 years now as well and I did have done rather than the bucket for BGF and quite a few other people over the years and Mardi Gras and yeah I won the state award for volunteer basically for all your volunteering the volunteering services I've done over the years so it was lovely to be acknowledged it is a big honour and I still treat it as a big honour I just feel sad that I'm sort of at that time of my life now that I don't have the energy I was to input as much as I used to but I still do as much as I can that's wonderful it's quite an honour but it is a very big honour very big honour what are your thoughts on mentoring in the community important were you mentored not officially mentored but I would say I learnt a lot I asked a lot of questions so as far as leather pride when I joined leather pride I didn't know a lot about leather pride so people like elders I would call them people like Gary Kennedy and Katrina Harrison provided me a lot of insight and background and advice so there were elders that I was able to past presidents of leather pride that I was able to talk to to understand where to lead the organisation and there's a lot of history you need to know too sometimes when you take the top job and other people don't know like how many pubs you barred from and things like that all those sort of things come out as well I've been mentored in many of the roles I've done but maybe not officially but I've definitely received some really good advice and mentorship from many people but even as far as this year goes before I went across to Winsill BB I had Chris Ross who was an IML contestant from years ago who sat me down and also gave me some advice on being a judge at one of those events and because I was a bit overwhelmed going oh wow a little old me over there and he gave me some background as well and so even currently I'm still happy to accept advice and a bit of mentoring on things I don't know because I don't know everything I know that but I also like to pass on what we do know to the younger generation where we can because we're all getting a bit older now so we like to pass on a bit of the history and you know but I'm actually enjoying the difference now I've never seen so many puppies in my entire life you know what I mean so I think the current leather scene as far as visuals is probably much better than it was 30 years ago because of the variety now everyone's got their own little thing my girlfriend loves dressing up as a pussycat I'm fabulous so everyone's got their own little piece of fetish and it doesn't you know going back to that time of fiddling it doesn't have to be that and the young ones you know they can take on our advice but they nowadays it's just they just do their thing and I just think it's delightful that they can just get out there and do their thing well you touched on judging at ImzlBB and that you received a bit of advice for that what differences do you see between your local community your local title holding circuit here versus what you encountered at ImzlBB mmm yeah size here a very small community even if we go broader than leather and just say the total fetish community in all the states is still quite small everybody knows everybody to some degree they know people in each state when you go to America I mean there was 52 states once I don't know how many there are now but they're about the same many as there are weeks in a year yet you're going to have every pub has a leather competition every city has a leather competition every region has a competition every state has a competition and then the country has a competition so the people in America have got a competition to go to every weekend there's a rubber one on there's a leather one on to them some of them it's a lifestyle actually I met the people all they do is do this circuit in America of going around all these competitions what a life I'd love it so that was completely different to what I found to hear completely different and I'm still friends with all those people on Facebook so I see them every weekend going last week was Iowa this week somewhere else you know so there's so much more over there to be able to do we're lucky if we put an event on every two years you know because of effort volunteers and time and cost and organising things so we don't have the I suppose the numbers what is it 300 million people over there or something so there's a lot of people so I think so there's so much more for them to attend to it's very more normal so you can actually live your whole life there being a leather person never not having to be a leather person going to events and stuff whereas here I think when there is a fetish night or leather or fetish night it's a special occasion and we all treat it as a special occasion because they don't come up all the time once a year once a year we have Mardi Gras once a year we'll have a leather competition once a month you'll get good events on like Hellfire and other ones extra dirties about once every four months so we're talking about we don't have parties every Saturday leather events every Saturday night to go to so I found that was a big difference over there that you know we just don't have the numbers but I also think that over there to everyone wants to be a title holder I don't know what it is you know like they've got this fascination with titles titles and pronouns yeah two things I really don't care about you know like what's your pronoun just call me webby will you what's your pronoun shut up just call me webby you know I don't like putting anyone in a box I think as soon as you start labelling yourself you put yourself in a box I just like to be me and I think we all like to think we're a little unique so just call me by my name please that's a difference I found I found there's lots of little pockets too so there's a lot of insecure people who sort of go to those things to find a little bit of you know more fringe people but you know trying to find a connection with something other people and I found the men extremely supportive that's one of the things that I did get over there with the women's competition was the audience I would have thought was 30% men and a lot of them were title holders and so they were very supportive and you know I got to talk to a lot of them and they were very supportive of me which I was amazed at the men really support the women over there which I thought was a lovely lovely thing but yeah the numbers they can live the lifestyle you know I think I mentioned to you Thursday we've got three leather shops in Australia or something you know to buy your shirts so we all end up wearing the same shirts we all end up wearing the same pants it's very hard to have something unique unless someone's made it themselves when I was over in San Francisco just walking up and down the Castro I was like I need 10 suitcases but we don't have opportunity to buy if that made sense so I think there's just so much more opportunity over in a place like that but I don't know that I'd like to keep attending large events I quite like small events so I'd rather do 100 people or 400 people than do 4,000 people very hard to work the room when you've got a big crowd you know I think that's the difference over there the lifestyle if you wanted to full time what advice have you for women really anyone looking to enter the Leather King community don't be afraid I think because I think the first few times even myself the first few times you go out you don't know what to expect and some people can be maybe a little overbearing maybe give you a bit of a fried or something like that people dressed to look important doesn't mean they are seriously I think what happens is once you get beneath what people look like once you get to know people people generally have a good heart and some people when some people are playing the ser for instance when they're playing the character of Ser on the scene they have a certain character same as a mistress might do the same they have a certain character and you respect that character if I see them at the coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon or something like that it's going to be handmade how you're going they've all got a good heart underneath and I think yes join see if it's your tribe but don't be afraid don't be afraid to approach people I think is the big thing you know no means no pineapple have your safe word and talk to people talk to people think about what you're interested in what you like, what you don't like what you want to have a look into because people don't know unless you say something you don't know and be willing to try things you've never tried be willing I never thought I'd end up on an A-frame that was the best time of my life couldn't feel me back for about a week and a half but I had a good time so wish you have a go, you don't know so you don't be afraid I think this is a big thing people get a bit nervous don't be afraid and just be yourself what's the biggest misconception about you that I'm unapproachable I think I think a lot of people are frightened by me I like it like that if I don't know them I like it like that I'm happy with it like that a lot of the gay boys think I still run the lesbian mafia but I don't anymore someone else has taken over so that's okay I think what happens is you probably come across myself and many people like me come across probably a bit harder than we are at home so if I'm out I don't take shit and I'm fair dinkin so don't bring it on because you'll lose is gonna be my attitude so for one thing I will not tolerate violence at any event I run or event I'm at but if I'm just visiting I don't have control but if I have control if I see any violence any domestic violence any verbal abuse anyone not being treated with respect anyone being bullied or anything like that out the door I don't care who you are and I've taught them a few toes doing that but to me my values are more important so I can come across as being quite harsh or a hard task master some people say too I think once people get to know me I'm a different person underneath as we all are Well Webby I would like to thank you for an amazing interview here in the Fireside Chat series and thank everyone for attending today Thank you Thank you