Remembering Bryan Derbyshire

Bryan Derbyshire
(September 9, 1943 - May 1, 2001) U.K.
Journalist, magazine editor, and entrepreneur.
courtesy of -
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biod2/derbys01.html
Born in Longridge near Preston, West Midlands. His father, Albert, was a firefighter with the Lancashire Fire Brigade. He had an older sister, Bessie, who died in 1979. His mother died a few years later. He had a younger sister, Joyce. He ran a youth club in Woodplumpton for a while.
He did a big work for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the early 1970s, appearing in the film David is a Homosexual. In the early 1970s he was a contributor to Gay News. He then wrote for Him Exclusive which later became Gay Times.
He and cartoonist Bill Ward set up SAM magazine which was later incorporated into Zipper magazine.
In 1980 Brian Derbyshire became involved with the Mr Hardware contests which was a forerunner to Mr Gay UK. In the early 1980s he spoke to several CHE groups, including Hampstead and Marylebone-Paddington.
He founded and edited the first free gay paper in the UK called Out. In 1982 he founded The National Gay newspaper with Mike Dow and John Addy. Within the year it was bought by Millivres Ltd, but Bryan Derbyshire stayed as its editor. In 1983 he was a founder member of the Gay Business Association.
In 1984 Millivres Ltd acquired Him Exclusive which by the

n had been re-titled Him Monthly. Later that year it was relaunched as Gay Times. In 1986 Him magazine was re-launched with Bryan Derbyshire as its editor. In 1990 he resigned as editor of Him and left Millivres Ltd. He then worked with Dafydd Jenkins on projects on the gay scene including The Block.
He
moved to Amsterdam and with Tony Starr set up The Stablemaster Bar and Hotel on Warmoesstraat.
Bryan Derbyshire later ran the Stablemaster apartments.
Derbyshire died in Amsterdam at the age of 58 of a heart attack during his sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John Bellamy Comments: I knew Bryan back in the 80's when I was a sex worker. There were few of us going back then and having placed a new advert in Him Magazine, the first month of the advert supposedly being placed, it had the wrong phone number on and was the magazines fault and not mine. Bryan being the Editor, apologised and put it in free for the next month - and as that also had a mistake so no business was forthcoming - he called me up and made an offer ALL publishers like Gay Times need to learn from - for as this was the magazines mistake and not mine, and as he stated to me

' John - I appreciate how much money you have lost because of our fuck up, so I will place this advert free for you for as long as you want the advert - while anything else you adverise will be charged at the correct rate.'
PERFECT.
( Advert cost - £75 - Lost income from that advert over a month - between £2 - £4,000 - so the life of an advert would take almost 5 years to pay off at the cost of the advert )