The Social Refuge: Manchester’s safe space and queer bookshop

National World - LocalTV

We went down to the Social Refuge and Queer Lit to talk to owner Matthew about the business and the importance of spaces like this for Manchester’s communities.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World. My name's Theo Hewson-Betz and today I'm very excited to say

00:04that we're going to be going to one of the best, most friendly places here in Manchester

00:07and that is the Social Refuge, just above the Northern Quarter. You can see it behind me here.

00:12We're going to go in and we're going to learn a little bit about the story of the place,

00:15which not only is a brilliant cafe filled with awesome coffee and cakes, but also an amazing

00:21queer bookshop. I loved reading. I really enjoyed queer literature, although I struggled to find it.

00:26I went to a big bookshop in Manchester, the biggest in the north in fact, and I asked if they could

00:34point me into the direction of the LGBTQ plus section and they told me they didn't have a

00:38section. But I know there's places like Gaze the Word down in London that's a bookshop that's been

00:42there for nearly 40 years. They've been there and kind of really holding up the queer community as

00:48far as literacy is concerned. So I thought maybe this needs to happen in the north. So we started

00:53online and then soon progressed to a little shop down on Tibb Street and that we started with about

00:581400 books and we just so, you know, quickly outgrew that space. We're there for about two and a half

01:04years and we needed to get even bigger. The name says it all. So what people don't necessarily know

01:09is the venue that we're in now used to be a woman's refuge. It used to be a safe space for women

01:14many, many years ago and it hasn't been for a while. When I was envisioning what it was I wanted to

01:19create. I wanted to create a safe space for LGBTQ plus people, somewhere that we could come, just

01:25relax, have coffees, chill out, be ourselves, not have to put this facade up. And while I love the

01:31village, it has a very alcohol focus, big and loud focus. I wanted something that was the absolute

01:37opposite, something, somewhere relaxed, something where you could go with friends, somewhere you

01:41could find community, whether that be within the books, whether that be whilst having a coffee.

01:45And we found Heart and Graft, which is a Manchester-based roaster. They've been incredible

01:50because they've handheld us at the beginning of that journey all the way through. So no,

01:54having someone that was local, that had the same passion that we did was, it was just incredible

01:57finding that. I think we listened to what people were asking for and then we tried to deliver that.

02:02So we hope that the community would come and support us back as long as we kind of did what

02:06they needed. We wanted to do something that the village wasn't tapping into. So the village is

02:11incredible at doing things like drag performances and, you know, very loud things. We wanted to do

02:16the opposite. So we have a drag band here. We don't have drag queens here. Why? Because if you

02:21want that, go to the village. We do poetry nights, we do book launches, we do open mic nights. And so

02:27far, the turnouts have been exceptional, which means people want these events. They're just finding it

02:31hard to find them. I would say, regardless of whether you're queer or whether you're just finding,

02:36wanting to find somewhere that's part of a community, we've got everything going on here,

02:41come down, meet the folks and just kind of enjoy the space. So there you have it, a safe space for

02:45all and the perfect place to spend an afternoon relaxing, drinking brilliant coffee and having

02:50pretty indulgent chocolate cakes. Please come down and give it a try. Thank you very much to

02:55Matthew for talking to me and we'll see you again soon on Manchester World.

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