My friend Kathryn Bell, who has died aged 91, was a founder member of several organisations promoting creativity and human rights.
In 1976, Kathryn and her partner, Elsa Wallace Beckett, a wheelchair-user, set up Gemma, a support and social network in London for lesbians with disabilities, which went on to become a national group, with more than 100 members at its peak.
Kathryn and Elsa were also involved in Action and Rights of Disabled People in Newham, east London, joining activities such as blocking the local high street in East Ham to draw attention to the lack of anti-discrimination legislation. They also ran Docklands Drop In, offering arts and crafts and outings.
Gay Authors Workshop was founded in 1978; Elsa and Kathryn joined other LGBTQ+ writers in shaping and running the group and regularly hosted meetings, which ended with a vegan buffet. Eventually, Kathryn became the GAW secretary, treasurer, newsletter editor and membership liaison.
Kathryn was a fine writer of short stories and poetry. Examples of her work appear in anthologies, but she was more concerned with promoting Elsa’s work and also encouraging and nurturing others with feedback and advice. In 1999, in the face of mainstream publishers’ seeming indifference to LGBTQ+ writing, she was instrumental in setting up and administering an authors’ collective, which became Paradise Press, and has published more than 40 books to date.
Born and raised in Glasgow, the daughter of Christina (nee Hutcheson), a store worker, and Francis Bell, an electrician, Kathryn attended Bellahouston academy, Ibrox (1946-48). In her late teens, in 1951, she accompanied her parents to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where her father was working on engineering projects.
Becoming a police officer there, Kathryn won an award for bravery and was promoted in 1959 to be the first female inspector in the Northern Rhodesia Police Force. In Africa she met Elsa, who had been brought up in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); they became life partners. Together they returned to Britain in 1966 and settled in east London. Kathryn worked as an NHS payroll clerk until her retirement in 1994.
Elsa died in 2019. Kathryn continued to run GAW and Gemma, until forced by ill-health to hand over the work. On her 90th birthday last year, she was presented with the Sappho in Paradise award by the International Lesbian and Gay Cultural Network, for services to LGBTQ+ literature and publishing.
She is survived by two cousins, William and Anne.
