Now that’s what I call music

One of the members of the government’s HS2 Growth Taskforce is remembering the first time he went to a gay club. ‘There was a club in Coventry that was only open on a Sunday night, at the Quadrant, and a mate of mine said, “There’s a DJ there who plays some fantastic music that I know you’ve never heard, so why don’t we go down?” It was a gay club, or a queer’s club as it was known then. I loved it. Oh, I loved it. I couldn’t believe that blokes were dancing with each other. The music was awesome.’

A few years later, in the early 1980s, he ‘lived for six months with a gay mate, and we were out at gay clubs every night of the week, but it was great for me because I was watching the marketplace from a punter’s point of view. New Order’s “Blue Monday” was just happening, and I was [thinking]: “Look at this, there’s something going on here.”