Ray Gosling

Ray Gosling, speaking at The Brief Encounter (Croydon), 2 December 2008

Ray Gosling (1939–2013) was a journalist, broadcaster, and gay rights activist, and one of the founders of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. He was brought up in Northampton, but lived mainly in Nottingham for most of his life.

Early life

Gosling was born in Brixworth, near Northampton in 1939. He was educated at Northampton Grammar School and the University of Leicester, and also briefly worked as a railway signalman, before dropping out to become the manager of a band, and then working in a factory in London and as a youth worker in Leicester.

Broadcasting career

He wrote and presented more than 100 television documentaries, and was a long-term presenter on the Inside Out programme for BBC East Midlands.

Gay campaigning

He was an active member of CHE, along with Allan Horsfall, from its beginnings, and remained one of its vice-presidents until his death.

Later life

In latter years Allan Horsfall and Ray Gosling ran Gay Monitor seeking justice for men wrongly accused of sexual abuse.

In 2011 he confessed on television to having used a pillow, many years before, to suffocate a former lover who had been dying in terrible pain from AIDS. He was arrested on suspicion of murder, but released without being charged, and later given a suspended sentence for wasting police time.

Ray Gosling died in November 2013, aged 74.

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