LGBT+ Life Stories Booklist
Here is a selection of books featuring the life stories of LGBT+ People to help inspire us to record our own stories for local archives. Most of these stories are about people’s lives in larger cities. Our unique experiences in, or connected to, Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire will be of great interest to present and future generations so please consider taking part in our photography and heritage project.
Inventing Ourselves: Lesbian Life Stories
Author: The Hall Carpenter Archives
A collection of short personal biographies compiled in the 1980s by the Hall Carpenter archives. Out of print but easy to buy secondhand.
Walking after Midnight: Gay Men’s Life Stories
Author: The Hall Carpenter Archives
A collection of short personal biographies compiled in the 1980s by the Hall Carpenter archives. Out of print but easy to buy secondhand.
Tales From Out in the City
Author: Out in the City
Compiled by Age Concern and Out in the City, a Manchester based older LGBT+ group that helped inspire Maurice to set up our group. It’s out of print and hard to find but local libraries can probably source it, and a few OLGBT+ members have copies.
Free to be Me
Edited by Jane Traies
Refugee stories from a Lesbian Immigration Support Group.
Between the Acts: Lives of Homosexual Men, 1885-1967
Edited by Kevin Porter and Jeffrey Weeks
A fascinating insight into gay men’s lives in the first half of the twentieth century.
Now You See Me
Edited by Jane Traies
Lesbian Life Stories compiled from the accounts of older Lesbian women.
Bobby – A Life Worth Living
Author: Jackson Marsh
Bobby was a gay man born in 1919. This biography tells us about a rich an varied life that included being a teenage sex worker, a gunner in the Royal Navy, and head housekeeper at a prestigious London hotel. The married man he falls in love with while serving in the Royal Navy came from Stoke.
Books by Local Authors
Without Favour or Affection, Malice or Ill Will
Author: Steve Johnson
In 2006 Staffordshire Police were recognised by Stonewall as being the most “gay friendly” employer in Britain but the force has not always been LGBT friendly. In this full length biography Steve Johnson recounts his experiences as a Staffordshire police officer, and the way he was treated when he came out as gay in the 1990s.
How Can We Be Wrong
Author: Max Austin
A bio-fictional LGBTQIA+ memoir based on Max’s experiences of bullying and harassment as a gay nurse working in the NHS.
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