View Larger Map	Saturday 25th July 2009. Geoff was quite relaxed about doing the walk, but Andy was quite nervous, apprehensive about the reactions of people. This is the start of the Great London Same-Sex Hand Holding Relay, and an amazing experiment which took us from the international eyes of Oxford Street to the relative safety of Soho, and out into the heart of South East London.

Geoff said, "We were initially ignoring people whilst being photographed and videoed at Marble Arch, but after setting off down Oxford Street, were surprised at the almost total lack of reactions from people as we walked past. Some people noticed, but most seemed to walk past without realising. One or two looked again, but no-one said anything directly to us, appeared hostile or even amused. The pavement was quite crowded at times so a lot of people would not have seen us in advance, but when it thinned out we generally walked in a position where people could see us approaching."


Perhaps the way society’s attitude to us has changed over the last forty years has really made a difference, and most people now do not really care about whether we show affection in public or not. The main thing stopping us is our own fear, although obviously there are still times and places we would not contemplate holding hands in public as we would not feel safe and it would not be safe to do so."

Bond Street 12:45pm
"We began to wonder whether the problem was mainly in our minds...."

Public Comments: 1
Whilst we were waiting at Oxford Circus a girl of about 8 years old stared at us as she walked past, told her parents there were two men holding hands, but her parents didn’t reply.