Introduction
SECTION I: QUEER CITIES by Matt Cook
1. Brighton
2. Leeds
3. Manchester
4. Plymouth
SECTION 2: QUEER COMPARISONS by Alison Oram
5. Movement and Migration
6. Queer Homes, Households and Families
7. Queer Uses of the Past
Epilogue: The Cities Compared
Select biblio
Index -- .
Matt Cook is a historian based at University of London.
Alison Oram is Professor Emerita at Leeds Beckett University.
Together, Alison and Matt wrote the National Trust's first LGBTQ guide book, Prejudice and Pride.
‘A rich celebration of the everyday LGBTQ stories that have been
shaped by - and have helped to shape - modern English urban life.
Insightful, inspiring, and completely fascinating.’
Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet and The Paying
Guests
‘Being queer is all about change: longing for it, fighting for it -
and surviving it. This brilliantly detailed tour of the last fifty
years of LGBTQ+ culture and lives in four great English cities digs
down through the layers of history and geography and gets to the
real nuts and bolts of our experiences. A real labour of love - and
quite an achievement.’
Neil Bartlett, author of Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall and
Address Book
‘This is a book I didn’t know we needed quite so badly! It provides
a riveting account of LGBTQ+ people forging new lives, creating new
communities, and navigating prejudice and discrimination. It is
beautifully written, and a splendid example of how oral history
enriches previously untold stories.’
Dr Clare Summerskill, academic, writer and comedian
‘This book took me back to my teenage years in Brighton,
Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and beyond where I sought out the bars
where I could belong even though elsewhere we were illegal. A world
of laughter, despair, love, openness, belonging and making
whoopee.’
Michael Cashman, actor, founder member of Stonewall, and member of
the House of Lords
‘History should never tell just one story, and this timely book
challenges the reader to think beyond a single, London-centric
timeline of queer history in England since the 1960s. A ‘must-read’
for cultural historians, queer or not.’
Jane Traies, author of The Lives of Older Lesbians: Sexuality,
Identity and the Life Course, and Now You See Me: Lesbian Life
Stories?
‘This book tells a fascinating and compelling story. It takes us to
places we know and love, and to some we didn’t know so much about.
It tells local stories, personal stories, human stories. It
completes the nation’s queer jigsaw. It’s a must-read.’
Chris Smith, Britain’s first openly gay MP, former cabinet
minister, and member of the House of Lords
'This is a rich and thought-provoking study which provides a more
nuanced and more representative history that challenges national
narratives and draws our attention to how locality not only shaped
queer life in the past, but also emotions, memory, and community in
the present. The methodology, rigorous research, and attention to
hitherto overlooked stories, people, and places that underpin this
book makes it an important contribution to the field, and one that
should stimulate exciting further research into Britain’s queer
past beyond London.'
CLAIRE MARTIN, Northern History
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