Mark Christian Ashton (May 19, 1960 – February 11, 1987) was a British gay rights activist and co-founder of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) support group. He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and general secretary of the Young Communist League.

Biography

Ashton was born in Oldham, and moved to Portrush, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where he grew up. He studied at the former Northern Ireland Hotel and Catering College in Portrush, before moving to London in 1978. Richard Coles wrote about this period: "Mark also worked for a while as a barman at the Conservative Club in King’s Cross, or, rather, as a barmaid, in drag, with a blonde beehive wig. I was never sure if the patrons worked out that he was really a man". In 1982, Ashton spent three months in Bangladesh visiting his parents, where his father was working for the textile machinery industry. The experience of his sojourn had a profound effect on him. Upon his return, he volunteered with the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and joined the Young Communist League (YCL). In 1983 he featured in the Lesbian and Gay Youth Video Project film Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts, an early documentary that won the Grierson Award 1984 for Best Documentary. He formed, with his friend Mike Jackson, the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) support group after the two men collected donations for the miners on strike at the 1984 Lesbian and Gay Pride march in London. The group was formed in Ashton's flat in Claydon House on the Heygate Estate, Elephant and Castle. After LGSM, he became involved in the Red Wedge collective and became the General Secretary of the Young Communist League from 1985 to 1986. Diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, Ashton was admitted to Guy's Hospital on 30 January 1987 and died 12 days later of Pneumocystis pneumonia. His death prompted a significant response from the gay community, particularly in publicising and attending his funeral at Lambeth Cemetery.

Personal life

A friend of Ashton's, Chris Birch, described him in 2014 as "a lapsed Catholic who still went to mass very occasionally".

Legacy

In his memory, the Mark Ashton Trust was created to raise money for individuals living with HIV, and it had raised £20,000. Since 2008, the Terrence Higgins Trust has included the Mark Ashton Red Ribbon Fund, which had collected more than £38,000. The Trust also memorialised Ashton in May 2014 on a plaque at the entrance its London headquarters. Ashton is remembered on a panel on the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. In 2017, on what would have been Ashton's 57th birthday, a blue plaque was unveiled in his honour above the Gay's The Word bookshop in Marchmont Street, London, the site where LGSM met and held meetings during the miners' strike. The ballad "For a Friend" in the album Red from synth-pop duo The Communards was written in his memory. Mark Hooper of The Rough Guide to Rock wrote that the cut may have been Jimmy Somerville's "most impassioned moment". Ashton was a friend of both Somerville and Richard Coles. "For a Friend" reached number 28 on the British charts. The Constantine Giannaris film Jean Genet Is Dead (1989) was dedicated to his memory. The LGSM's activities were dramatised in Pride, a film released in September 2014 featuring Ben Schnetzer as Ashton. Ashton's role in the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners group was recalled in a series of interviews with some of its other members prior to the film's release. However, Ashton's membership in the Young Communist League was not explicitly mentioned in the film, possibly to avoid alienating American audiences. Fellow communist activist and a close friend of Mark Ashton, Lorraine Douglas, accused the film of having "glossed over Mark's politics and said nothing about the fact he subsequently became General Secretary of the YCL." Schnetzer was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards for his performance. Following the film's release until 21 September, the Mark Ashton Trust received £10,000 in donations. On 25 September 2018, the Council of Paris awarded the garden adjoining the Hôtel d'Angoulême Lamoignon the new name of Jardin de l'Hôtel-Lamoignon - Mark-Ashton (Hôtel-Lamoignon - Mark Ashton Garden), in his memory. On 2 June 2021, the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council approved the erection of a memorial blue plaque in his hometown of Portrush. On 28 August 2022, a tree was planted in Ashton's memory at St. Columb's Park, Derry, as part of the 2022 Foyle Pride events. The planting ceremony was attended by his former LGSM colleague Mike Jackson and by civil rights activist Bernadette McAliskey. On 5 August 2023, Mark Ashton's hometown, Portrush, held its inaugural Pride rally in honour of him.