1991 was a difficult time for LGBTQ people in Britain, both in the country at large and in Manchester. Margaret Thatcher had just left office, but there were still years of stifling social conservatism ahead under the Tory party. The Aids crisis was well underway, with no effective treatment in sight and, in fact, had yet to reach its peak of mortality. Although he would resign that year, the chief police constable of Manchester was still a man named James Anderton, a right-wing Christian whose remarks on HIV have gone down as some of the most vicious homophobic invective ever uttered in British public life: people with Aids, he said in 1986, were “swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making”.

In this grim, oppressive context, Peter Schol and the late Lucy Scher founded Flesh: a weekly club night at The Haçienda in Manchester. It would become one of the most mythologised and influential gay parties in British history and is now the subject of a new photo book, Flesh, by Peter J Walsh and published by IDEA Books, which collects hundreds images of the night, some of which have never before seen the light, along with an introduction by Schol.

Walsh, who describes himself as a socialist, says his work documenting the 90s rave scene was informed by previous experiences covering left-wing protests in Manchester during the Thatcher era. One of the notable events he photographed was a demonstration against Section 28 – a homophobic law which banned schools and public bodies from “promoting” homosexuality – which was at the time the largest LGBTQ protest which had happened in Manchester. What connected this experience to his later forays into the world of acid house was a shared sense of democracy, the sense that anyone and everyone could get involved. “When I started photographing the acid house scene, I would photograph everyone: the clubbers, the ravers, the bar staff, the security, because to me that was as interesting as the DJs and the bands who were playing,” he says. 

Shooting mostly with Canon F-1 Cameras, along with a point-and-click, he made use of available light in the club where possible. “That means you’re not always shining the flash directly in people’s faces,” he says. “You get a more atmospheric vibe to the pictures.” Above all, Walsh wanted to capture the energy of Flesh, which he describes as “the wildest, most amazing night”, and to convey through photography what it was like to be there. The images capture a sense of giddy, ecstatic hedonism and, particularly from a modern perspective, when we are all a moment away from going viral on TikTok for being bad at dancing, what appears like a remarkable lack of self-consciousness in many of the subjects. Walsh would use a wide-angle lens to capture what was happening on the dance floor, as well as looking out for interesting individuals to shoot. He was also just as interested in what was happening backstage, and capturing the intimate process of people preparing to perform, as in what was happening out in the club. “The transformation you’d see as people were getting ready to take part in these fashion shows – coming in dressed in caps and a T-shirt, then changing into these amazing costumes – was really interesting to me,” he says.

Flesh built on the energy sparked by the anti-Section 28 protests three years earlier, the scale of which, Walsh says, was undeniable: “There were loads of young people there, as well as lots of allies, lots of trade union members and straight people.” Manchester had always had a large gay population, but from that point it “snowballed”, says Walsh, and began its transformation into the gay mecca it’s still renowned as today. Quickly becoming a huge success, with LGBTQ people travelling from all over Britain to experience it, Flesh played a key role in crystallising this nascent identity. “There were quite a lot of gay clubs in Manchester [before] but they were quite small venues – maybe 200 or 250 people. But Hacienda was tailor-made as a club and could hold around 1,5000 people. That shift must have given people in the LGBTQ community a lot of confidence to go ‘wow, look, we are here’ – and it was wild. It was a safe haven from the homophobia and oppression that was being experienced outside, and quite rebellious in a way”.

Looking back on his time photographing Flesh, a few memories stand out for Walsh. “I think the wildest thing I ever saw was Leigh Bowery giving birth on stage – that was amazing. But the whole thing was wild from start to finish,” he says. “People could be who they wanted to be within that safe space for several hours, so they were really letting go and [embracing that freedom]”, he says. Another of his favourite photos shows a group of people about to partake in the Miss Flesh fashion show, talking to each other right before they go on stage.

As Walsh sees it, the utopian dreams of the 90s acid house movement failed to translate into enduring social change: “We thought we were moving to a more happy, peaceful and tolerant society, and now we’re starting to see the return of the far-right, the rise of homophobic attacks.” But with huge events like Homobloc and the city’s more DIY queer clubbing scene, he says, the legacy of Flesh is still very much alive in Manchester. 

Flesh by Peter J Walsh is published by IDEA and available here now.