Jackie Forster

Jackie Forster (1926–1998, née Jacqueline Moir Mackenzie) was an actress and television personality, and a lesbian and feminist activist. She had a successful career as a TV presenter and news reporter as Jacqueline Mackenzie.

Despite an early lesbian affair, she married the author Peter Forster in 1958, but later accepted her lesbian identity and was divorced.

In the 1960s she joined the Minorities Research Group and wrote for its journal, Arena Three. She would also regularly promote the magazine in the Gateways club.

She came out publicly in 1969 when she joined the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) and went to serve on its Executive Committee.

In 1970, she was a founder member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in London. She was on the first gay march in the UK in August 1971.

In 1972 she was one of the founders of the Sappho social group and its associated magazine. Sappho (magazine) was published from 1972 to 1981, although the group continued to meet regularly for many more years. Sappho group members used to meet in The Chepstow pub in Notting Hill and had public speakers such as Maureen Duffy and Anna Raeburn.

After Sappho, Jackie became a member of the Greater London Council's Women's Committee.

From 1992 till her death she was an active member of the Lesbian Archive and Information Centre management Committee. In 1997 a BBC film crew came to the archive to film Jackie for a programme about her life which was to be part of the Day That Changed My Life series.