When he created queer club night Sink The Pink with Amy Zing, working-class boy Glyn Fussell found it gave him more than just a job, but a chosen family who would carry him through the hedonistic highs and lockdown lows of the years to come

Words Cliff Joannou

PINK PARTNERS: Glyn (left) with cofounder Amy Zing

Photography Vic Lentaigne

It’s somewhat ironic how Sink The Pink co-creator Glyn Fussell and I first met. The setting was The Wig Party at London’s iconic Café de Paris, an annual charity fundraiser and colossal dress-up affair, which, once upon a time, was a highlight of the queer social calendar. To gain entry, going all-out with your costume was a given.

It was October 2009 and Glyn, then a spritely 28 years old, was sat in a booth at the top of the stairs, dressed in everyday boy clothes, to which I immediately raised a disapproving eyebrow when we were introduced by mutual drag queen friends. His droll standard attire caught my eye among the shimmering sea of glitter and glamour. Now that’s no diss to Glyn – the man is as dashing out of drag as he is outrageously striking on stage in full queer gear MCing the Sink The Pink club events that would soon turn the scene inside out. conversation topics of sex, pop divas and boys, Glyn explained Perversely, that night I was dolled up to the wig line – and beyond. The Wig Party theme that year was All At Sea, and while most of the gays present were dressed as either sexy seamen/semen or sassy mermaids, my ensemble was dubbed ‘Miss Oil Slick’ to represent the dark side of the sea. I was dripping in black body paint, while on my head was a ginormous, Amy Winehouse-esque beehive wig with dead dolphins, plastic bags, bottles and other ocean detritus weaved into the bulbous bouffant. (Greta Thunberg would be proud that my anti-glamour environmental statement – years ahead of its time – won me runner-up in the costume competition.) It was the one and only time I would outshine Glyn in the glamour stakes.