The Drag Balls were a great night out and a lot of women used to attend.



Zia Martinez was always invited as a special guest because she gave a lot of help to TVs and TSs at the Group.



The Group used to hold it's annual Christmas Dinner at The Tudor Lodge and also any special events the Group organised such as Spring Balls. This shows Russell Reid (second left) sat next to Yvonne

The Tudor Lodge

Although Drag Balls were held at The Tudor Lodge from 1982 onwards, they never had quite the same glamour as the ones held at The Porchester Hall. This was mainly because where the Porchester was in west London, the Tudor Lodge was in east London, Bromley-by-Bow. The Tudor Lodge was, essentially, an east-end working man's social club but they ran special Saturday night dances and they always made TVs welcome at the hall. The Tudor Lodge was not as big as The Porchester Hall so less people attended the Lodge

The Tudor Lodge, as a Drag Ball venue, was first opened up by a Beaumont Society member, Janet of Ealing, who organised the first Ball. This was a great success. The Tudor Lodge was run by John Savage but John sadly died and his daughter, Trish, took over the running of the Tudor Lodge until it closed around 1995. Ron Storme took over running Drag Balls there after the first one and they were in competition with Steve Francis's Balls and Dennis Gilling's.

A great many of the extroverted and high-spirited characters at the Porchester Hall refused to visit The Tudor Lodge so that it was mostly TVs who attended the Lodge. This gave the Tudor Lodge Drag Balls a different feel to them. Some Drag Artistes and gays visited the Tudor Lodge but nothing like the numbers at The Porchester Hall.

Photographs supplied by Luisa

In the mid-90s the Tudor Lodge played host to Ron Storme's Transvesti Extrodinaire club, essentially becoming a TV club and a fore-runner of the Way-Out Wine Bar. By now, the TV/TS Group had closed and this was one of the few venues open to TVs




The Tudor Lodge