This is the Guardian.

Today it's 50 years since the UK's first pride march.

We speak to one of the pioneers who made that happen

and to the LGBTQ campaigners who are fighting for our rights today.

This weekend tens of thousands of people will be marching through Central London

in rainbow flags, in leather, in sequins and feathers.

Since 1972 pride has been a space for LGBTQ people to protest and to celebrate.

So I come from quite a religious background.

I go to a Catholic school and so I don't see many visible displays of solidarity

or sort of queer recognition.

And I think for me pride is about sort of denouncing shame

because for a very, very long time I struggled a lot in my personal life

with feeling very, very ashamed of who I was.

I loved being at a bank where you had people just like me teenagers

but also people who were in their 50s, 60s, 70s, LGBT families

and just seeing people who had been part of the community for so much longer.

Pride to me, it's kind of like the Queen's Jubilee

but we're all the Queen and it's all our Jubilies.

And it's basically like a massive party to basically celebrate being ourselves.

Pride for me is all about love

and it doesn't matter who you are, everyone deserves love.

And I'd say it is quite political and it should be political.

...