"I sat on the paint can in the corner of the room and wondered to myself, what have I taken on?"

These were the thoughts of Yvonne Sinclair when on Monday, 2 June 1986 the full force of owning their own building hit Yvonne. The entire building was a shambles. To turn the building into a habitable place where trannies could meet was a daunting task. Not only did the main upstairs room have to be re-docorated but changing rooms had to be built, a decent floor downstairs was needed, an office, a telephone room, a bar, tables and chairs, furnishings, etc. All had to bought or created and it had to be done quickly because if it took too long between 274 closing down and 2 French Place opening, people would lose interest and begin to find somewhere else to go.

On that Monday afternoon, Christina, a long-time supporter of the Group, popped in and offered to give a day's work for free, just to help out. Christina was still working there, flat out, 4 weeks later when the Group opened. Although a lot of the building work was done by Christina, not only Christina but a number of people volunteered to help in anyway they can. Billy telephoned one afternoon to say he had "miles of copper pipe and radiators" for the central heating. Kay the plumber and Paula Risborough fitted the central heating. Sue Bates did the electric cabling; Phil, Jenny and a few others did the building work. Dave Cottle turned up everyday to help for nothing more than his lunch. Someone rang up and offered us around 20 lockers going free from Waterloo railway station, "turn up and you can have them"; and many others did little bits here and there, wherever they could.

Such was the commitment of those who attended the Group; they could see they now had a place of their own.

When 2 French Place opened in 1986 one of the Group members, a professional photographer, took pictures of the venue to help promote Britain's first self-contained TV/TS Group.

Here are the photographs that were taken with the information that Yvonne provided. This shows perfectly what was thrown away by greed and jealousy, only a few years later.

All of this, all of it, was built by transvestites, transsexuals, their partners and friends who volunteered their labour and from voluntary contributions and donations to enable Yvonne Sinclair to build the first centre for TVs and TSs. Not ONE penny was donated from Islington council or the Greater London Council both of whom would have demanded a say in how the Centre was run. All profits from evenings at 274 were obtained with the idea of building the Centre.

And this is the finished result. This is how the 2 French Place looked just after it was opened in 1986 after all the hard work by volunteers.