As a gay teacher in late 1980s Britain, Catherine Lee lived in constant fear that she would be outed as a lesbian. That sense of fear and isolation returned, briefly, this year when she visited the set of Blue Jean, a BBC film drama, about a lesbian gym teacher forced to live a double life after the introduction in 1988 of Section 28, which prohibited schools from “promoting homosexuality”.
“The school had been mothballed since the 1980s, and it looked exactly the same as the one where I began teaching – it smelt the same, too,” explained Professor Lee, now deputy dean for education at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), who was invited to advise during filming. “Everything was familiar, but I also had that same feeling of apprehension as I did back then – always checking myself so I didn’t give anything away, that I had to leave part of life at the school gates.
