Francisco Gomez de Villaboa is a well-known photographer on the London LGBTQ scene. His work is frequently on the cover of the London weekly scene magazine QX.

Yet for Francisco to make ends meet in ever-more expensive London, he works at a popular LGBTQ venue in Shoreditch as a barman and lives in a short-life housing project in a Haggerston tower block set for demolition. 

Francisco is from Spain, a country ravaged by austerity, and he sees the consequences of Tory austerity policies around him in the London Borough of Hackney on a daily basis. 

His sense of fairness and justice for all led him to join Unite and become active in the union’s LGBT work. 

Earlier this year Francisco visited Cuba for International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia in Havana. The visit was organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and Francisco was sponsored by Unite London and Eastern Region. 

There Francisco saw an alternative to the system that has caused misery for many in Britain and Spain and also how an alternative had given genuine freedom for LGBT people in Cuba. Following his visit to Cuba, Francisco was a delegate to the Unite policy conference in Liverpool and there he heard the Morning Star’s campaigns manager David Peel speak. 

Following that meeting Francisco thought about what he could do to help the Morning Star allowing for the fact he had very little money. 

Francisco is modest and at first was reluctant to talk about making the donation but he believes the paper has a unique role. “It’s the only one that is not in the hands of business or the right-wing.” 

For that reason he donated one of the pictures (above) from his exhibition X-press Yourself Against Austerity, which was commissioned in 2013 by Unite London & Eastern Region for LGBT History Month to raise awareness of austerity and build solidarity within the LGBTQ communities here for those countries that were further along the road such as Greece and Spain. 

Francisco made portraits of LGBTQ people from Greece, Spain, Italy and Cyprus, who in their own way had made a contribution to London queer life. 

Francisco said: “The picture donated is about the fascist Golden Dawn in Greece and signifies a country in turmoil from the austerity policies that led to the rise of the right and the fight against it.” The model in the portrait is Manos, a Greek gay man who lives in London and in fact wrote about the exhibition for the Morning Star before its first showing at Unite House in February 2013. 

Pictures from the exhibition have been shown at TUC Congress House and in Norwich and Ipswich and articles about Francisco have been featured in Spanish publications. 

One picture was displayed at the 10th exhibition for Kaos club during the summer. In January the exhibition was shown in Stoke Newington, north London, and ran till early March. 

Francisco is pleased to donate the picture to the paper, stating: “It’s important the Morning Star continues,” adding “it’s important that we all help each other.” And by making this donation Francisco is certainly helping the Morning Star. 

Photographs Francisco took of LGBT life in Cuba are to be printed and made into an exhibition for 2015.

If you are interested in bidding for Francisco Gomez de Villaboa’s donated photograph to support the Morning Star Summer of Heroes please contact David Peel at davidpeel@peoples-press.com