Gateways club

The Gateways club was a noted lesbian nightclub located at 239 Kings Road on the corner of Bramerton Street, Chelsea, London, England. It was the longest-surviving such club in the world, open by 1931 and legally becoming amembers club in 1936. It closed on Saturday 21 September 1985 after a period of only opening for a few hours each weekend.

The final non-public night was the following Monday, as the Kenric lesbian group had booked the venue for a social event, and longstanding members removed the nameplate from the front door as a souvenir, amongst other fixtures and fittings.

Ted Ware (1898–1979) took over the club in 1943 after allegedly winning it in a poker game. Ted was a well travelled man who, unusually for the time, had raised his son from his second marriage on his own. He allowed the club to become a meeting place for the Chelsea Arts Club and was welcoming to the wide variety of people who lived in the area. The club had many gay and lesbian regulars, and was also frequented by black Caribbean people, like Chester Harriott, who played jazz piano there, and by members of other minority groups that were discriminated against elsewhere.

Ted married Gina Cerrato (1922–2001), a glamorous actress, in July 1953 when he was 55 and she was 31 years old. Gina had been born in Italy in 1922, but had grown up in Cardiff. She came to London to pursue her acting career and appeared in several films, before meeting Ted in The Gateways in 1947. She and Ted had one daughter together, before Gina gradually took over running the club during the late 1950s.

Smithy (1933–1993) first arrived at the Gateways in 1959 and eventually went on to co-manage the club with Gina. She was originally from California and as a member of the American Air Force, was posted to a base in Ruislip, London. She decided that she wanted to stay in London with Gina and Ted and had an arranged marriage in 1962, which enabled her to stay in the United Kingdom.

"The Gates" was one of the few places in the UK where lesbians could meet openly during the 40s, 50s and 60s. Lesbians and bisexuals flocked to the Gateways, as did curious heterosexuals, and by 1967 Gina made the club women-only. For many women, a visit to the Gateways was the first introduction to lesbian life.

The club was described as having a green door with a steep staircase leading down to a windowless cellar bar that was only 35 ft x 18 ft. The walls had been painted by local artists and there was a constant smoky atmosphere. The layout included a bar that was located at one end of the room, with the toilets and a cloakroom at the other.

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