Martine's Blogs (25)
The Asylum Steampunk Festival in Lincoln has become the largest Steampunk event in the world. It was started 10 years ago by my friends Major Tinker and Lady Elsie (along with others) at an impressive building now called ‘The Lawns’, which was formerly the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum, hence the name of the event. If you have to ask; “What is Steampunk”, it is hard to describe but just have a look at the photos to get a good idea!
At the end of June, the banner here appeared on the Whitby Goth Weekends Facebook page and website. It is most unusual for TopMum (the WGW organisers) to announce dates so far in advance and the April 2019 dates (which are the ones we are most interested in) are two weeks earlier than those that most people had expected.
On the face of it, no problem, we change our dates, but delving deeper it seems there has been quite a murky story behind all of this...
The Sparkle event in Manchester’s ‘village’ is claimed to be the world’s largest celebration of gender identity. It was the 14th annual Sparkle event and I’ve been to every one. This year I went with my friends, Maxine and Rachel: for Maxine it was her first time and for Rachel it was her third year.
On Sunday 24th June Maxine and I visited Dumbleton Hall Hotel to sort out some details for our first Dumbleton Days event in October. Actually we were just glad to have any excuse to have another stay at this marvellous venue (it was the day after my birthday), and we arranged to meet up with Yasmine and Karen who were also keen to see the new venue for our annual ‘Harmony’ event. It turned out to be the most perfect visit, the weather could not have been better, and we all had the most wonderful time at Dumbleton Hall.
I launched Repartee magazine in 1989 and it continued in print until 2016 and as an online magazine (www.repartee.tv) for a further two years. But on June 5th 2018 that website closed, bringing to an end 29 years of the magazine. Many of the website’s Forum users expressed sadness about it’s closure and told of how Repartee had helped them in the past.
I really am a Lady. I am legally entitled to us the title "Lady Martine Rose" as I have been made a "Lady of Glencoe" ... and I have a certificate to prove it.
Although I have always wished I'd been born a female, for most of my life I accepted (albeit reluctantly) the fact that I was male and indulged in cross-dressing to assuage my yearnings. It wasn't until my late 60s that I eventually began a 10 year journey to actually transition and realise my dream of living as a woman.