For some reason whenever I visit Gibraltar the first walkabout I take is down Main Street. I think it’s just about touching base, a bit like having a starter before a seven course meal – or in my case a recce before a seven day visit. Stretching down from Trafalgar Cemetery to Casemates Square, Main Street, back in the day was vehicular, although today it is pedestrianised from the Convent to Casemates. 

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For me the street has always been the social hub of the Rock thriving with locals, tourists and very often sailors and having been all three at one time or another I see it very much multidimensional. As a sailor in the early 1970’s I would often be dragged reluctantly by shipmates between Charlie’s Hole-in-the-Wall and the Donkey’s Flip Flop (aka The Horseshoe) after first being pre-loaded in the ‘Mad Monk’ Angry Friar.  Later, in the mid-1970’s as a family we would be doing the weekly shop at Lipton’s (now Marks and Spencer), the Emporium and Princess Silks which sadly is no longer there. Today, however, after strolling down from the Eliott, passing the Art Gallery en route and arriving on the infamous street, I guess we could be described as tourists out to check out the local facilities.

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For a Saturday morning the street seemed unusually quiet other than a distant noise of what sounded like drums. As the drums became louder it became clear some sort of carnival was in progress with a crowd appearing to come up the street. Within a few minutes a fabulous parade led by a bearded drag queen in a pink frock completely engulfed the street, dancing, clapping and waving the rainbow flags which symbolise the LGBTQ+ community. Behind the leader must have been two or three hundred people of all ages, genders and colours saturating the whole place with an amazingly positive vibe. As the parade finally tailed off to a few stragglers we found ourselves tagging along at the back with beaming smiles and a wonderful feeling of joy. 

As the crowd carried on up the street towards the Convent we drifted off up a side street feeling really happy to have witnessed, and been tentatively involved, in what was clearly a Pride parade. Spotting a small eatery we sat down on a table in the street, ordered chicken wraps with drinks and spent the next hour chatting and reliving it all again. Although I didn’t catch the name of the eatery, it is on the same backstreet as an Art shop and I can highly recommend it.

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