World Goth Day

By Richard Clarkson

Pete Slater and myself visited the Leeds Festival of Gothica in May 2026, to give out copies of Volume 1 of our People’s History of Leeds, talk to the attendees and record their Goth stories. The official opening of the Festival was by guest of honour (and one of our previous interviewees) Rosie Garland, who did two poetry readings. As the day went on, we met lots of brilliant people and some of them were kind enough to share their stories.

Authentic Self

Steph Ashton

Steph was representing the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, which was set up after Sophie’s murder to combat prejudice and intolerance.

Sophie was 20 years old when she was attacked in Baccup in Lancashire by a group of five boys, two of whom ended up taking Sophie's life. She was attacked because she was a Goth, because of the way that she looked. When Sophie passed away, her mum Sylvia was adamant that she didn't want Sophie's death to be the end of that conversation. She realised that education has a massive part to play in showing young people that just because you look a certain way or you like a certain type of music that doesn't make you any different to anybody else. You have that right to be your authentic self without living in fear. 

We are still working to try and get the government to add alternative subculture as a monitored strand of hate, because at the moment it isn't, which means that our community don't always get the support and recognition that they deserve from the police when they are attacked for who they are.

This was a sobering reminder of the issues faced by Goths and a reminder of the importance of these types of public gatherings where the public can meet and mingle with Goths in a public neutral venue and gain a greater understanding of them and their subculture.

Goth Opera

Sophie and Holly

We spoke to Sabrina and Holly a couple of friends who had come to enjoy the festival and the sunshine, who spoke of their conversion and route to Goth and Leeds.

Sophie: I like Leeds. Leeds is completely multicultural, it's got a really good alternative base here. One of my aunts was very Goth in her youth, which I didn't know about until I was older. So knowing I got that bit of family history was quite fun for me, because I got to talk to her about it all.

Holly: I think people assume if you're into Goth fashion or Gothic style, you must only listen to Goth music, and you're only [wearing] black, and you only have a very strict, very niche taste in these things. Whereas a lot of people I know, there's a massive crossover in different loves of different types of music. I think Goth music is whatever you listen to. You could be listening to opera and class it as Gothic music, because it's something you resonate with. It doesn't have to be slow and dark and moody.

The Home of Goth

Candia McKormack

Candia, lead singer and founder of Inkubus Sukkubus, a Goth and Pagan band from Gloucester, spoke to us before her lunchtime set at the festival.

We're very fond of Leeds. We formed in 1989 and have been part of the underground Goth scene ever since then. We just brought out our 28th studio album. We've been playing Leeds for decades now, we used to play the Duchess of York, Wharf Chambers. Joel Hayes from Goth City Promotions has put on quite a few of our gigs. It feels like coming home.

The Goth Scene has changed. It's ebbed and flowed, in the early days when we started in the late 80s, it was a very vibrant scene. It's gone through its kind of quieter, less lively phases. But Leeds feels like it's been a constant. Goth music, it's an organic thing. It grows, it swells, and then it shrinks back - certain aspects of the Goth scene tend to be more popular at different times. It's the community that really makes the Goth scene. I'm just looking around now and there are people I know and they're just so supportive.

I think Goth's definitely an aesthetic in as much as obviously the look, the music and also literature. I think there's darkness that we embrace. It's very much like the pagan kind of way of thinking. We don't look at death as being something that you shy away from. It's something that is all part of the cycles of life and death and going back to the earth. Death is going to happen to all of us. Let's embrace it.

A Festival of Goth

Joel Hayes

Rather neatly, we next spoke to Joel Hayes, who runs Goth City Promotions, the Goth City Festival and was one of the inaugural members of the Leeds Museum’s “Goth Hall of Fame”

I think what we would call Gothic rock was one of Leeds' unique contributions to UK culture. Apart from rugby league and Leeds United it is one of the few things that Leeds has. We definitely helped to formalise Goth rock as a scene. When you look at the sheer preponderance of acts and people who were linked to it, not just clubs like the Phono, but also, the Sisters of Mercy, March Violets, Salvation, 1919.

To me, it's primarily a music-based subculture that came out of punk. It's basically a counter-cultural thing. In its purest form, it's one of the few remaining links to a kind of 80s anti-fascist, anti-racist narrative. Goth definitely hasn't sustained itself through any great design. It had some key people who came through Leeds at the right time. People like Andrew Eldridge, and Rosie Garland, who weren't from Leeds originally, but found themselves in Leeds through a certain amount of chance. I think Goth was about expressing a romantic, rebellious view of the world and an interest in morbid countercultural things.

Goth City Festival started to celebrate the legacy of the scene in the city. There hadn't been at a festival in Leeds for 10, 15 years prior to that. A lot of people were convinced that there couldn't be a new Goth festival in the UK. Over the first eight years, it was about celebrating up and coming acts and as well as the older established acts from the city that we wanted to recognise and celebrate. By the time we stopped it in 2023 we'd raised £20,000 for a local refugee charity. This year we're back and celebrating the 10th anniversary.

Goth Generations

Maria Martin

Finally we spoke to Maria Martin, another inductee to the Leeds Museum’s “Goth Hall of Fame”

I used to live in a place called Birstall - I really was the only Goth in the village. When I got to about 17, I worked on a Saturday in a Goth shop called Funny Wonder – it was a strange shop, with strange people. They had Goth clothes and they had vintage before it was popular. They made clothes for trans people and it was a very peculiar mix. From there I was asked to come and work at a shop called Bad, which was one of the top three Goth shops in Leeds.

I worked there for a number of years and it was absolutely amazing. I loved it there. We used to have to turn up at work at 10, get all our makeup on, get all our hair crimped and then we could choose something from the rails that we were going to wear that day. It wasn't like working! I used to have a floor length rubber dress - imagine the shock when I was getting on the bus in my rubber dress. I looked amazing but couldn't sit down.

We used to have Goth bands coming in. Wayne Hussey from the Mission bought a ring and a coat. Brian who owned the shop, didn't cash the cheque, he saved it so we had it framed on the wall. We had the Mission in, we had Salvation in all the time, we had all the lead singers come in and buy stuff from Bad. We once got into trouble with the New Model Army because our t-shirts weren't official…

I was in The Mission’s video for “Stay With Me" which was filmed at the Coliseum. It was derelict and it was freezing cold.  I had to prance around in this mask that was made out of gravel from the bottom of a fish tank! My grandma got all her friends to watch Top of the Pops because my video was on it.

I have two daughters and both of them have been forced to listen to Goth music for their whole lives, so now both of them are really into it and we go to Whitby Goth Weekend every year and they all know who the Sisters of Mercy are and I feel quite proud of myself that I've indoctrinated my own children. My eldest daughter's going to have a baby in the next week and I'm hoping that she's going to do the same - we've already bought the baby bat outfit and we already have many bat teddies, ghost teddies all of those things. I'm hoping that baby Pearl is going to be the third generation of Goths!

Thanks to Elizabeth and the rest of the Leeds Festival of Gothica team.

Pictures by Richard Clarkson.