A teacher from the adult education team at St Andrew’s Healthcare has shared her story as part of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT+) History month.

Zoe Smith, who came up with the idea of turning the charity’s monochrome zebra crossings into rainbow pathways, had her thoughts published as a column in last week’s Chronicle and Echo.

As this year marks the 50^th anniversary of the very first Pride March in the UK, Zoe wanted to write something to show the people of Northampton how supportive St Andrew’s is of the LGBT+ community.

She wrote: “As a society, we’ve come a long way since then and I am proud to write this column during LGBT+ History month. It seemed like rather an apt time to share my story as I – along with many other people from my community – can still recall life before Section 28 was lifted.”

For anyone who is not familiar, Section 28 was the name of a law which existed from 1988 to 2003 that prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities.

Zoe shared how homosexuality was rarely discussed at school or at home.

She wrote: “I felt like this meant I couldn’t talk to my teachers and other role models about my sexuality and therefore was unable to seek support. The upshot of that was that despite coming from a kind, open-minded family, I felt unable to be open about my sexuality until I was 28. That meant a huge part of my life was spent feeling very lonely, very frightened and very uncertain.

“This carried on when I started working at St Andrew’s and for a fair amount of time there I felt I had to skirt around the truth about myself with colleagues, who I know now would have actually have been really kind and supportive if they’d known. I’m thrilled to say that in June 2019, I believe we were one of the first - if not the first - mental health hospitals to hold our very own Pride, and this month we were excited to unveil our permanent ‘Rainbow Crossings’, to symbolise inclusivity and support for LGBT+ service users and staff.

“I’m so pleased that as a society we’re now far more inclusive and tolerant of each other, but more work needs to be done to ensure we can continue to help everyone – whoever they love and whatever their identity – feel safe and welcome.”