A GAY activist who inspired a BAFTA award-winning film is to come back to his hometown of Accrington for a special screening to celebrate the forthcoming Food Festival.

Mike Jackson, now 60, will return to Accrington for a special screening of Pride, followed by a question and answer session.

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In summer 1984, Mike was at the centre of a group of gay rights activists who came to the unlikely aid of a Welsh mining village in the midst of bitter strike action.

Then 30, Mike’s story was the subject of the 2014 feature film Pride starring Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Dominic West, which picked up the outstanding debut award at this year’s British Academy Film Awards.

Mike, who left Willows Lane aged 16 in 1970 for London, became a founding member of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group. Seeing the miners as another group being ostracised by society, Mike and friends raised £11,000 to donate a minibus to a miners’ support group in Neath.

Miners welcomed the group with open arms, which paved the way for a friendship that resulted in the National Union of Miners supporting gay rights and paving the way for future equality legislation.

Mike said: “You could glimpse a wonderful revolution, that spark of the dream of people being together.

“The film gets that so right. LGSM changed my life, it is the proudest thing I’ve done. But I feel the same now, if anything more angry.

“Until I was 13, homosexuality was a crime. I came out when I was 19 and it was hard.

“It was pretty tough growing up, it was just me, my older sister and my mum.

“My family had grown up in a time of homophobia and it took some years for them to get round it and accept me.”

Pride will be screened at Accrington Town Hall on Thursday, June 4 as part of the Accrington Food and Drink Festival.