Subtitled “A history of lesbian and gay Britain in the 20th Century”, this book ties in with the BBC2 TV series under the same name shown in three parts in May. Since the three programmes totalling only 150 minutes set out to cover 80 years of our history, it’s all too easy to play the “but you left out such-and-such” game. Jivani’s book, however, is a substantial volume of 224 pages and thus crams in a great deal more information.
But I must express a personal disappointment at the outset. When the series was first envisaged, the producers intended to feature lesbians and gays who had also been active in the peace movement, trade unions and left-wing politics generally. Well it hasn’t worked out like that. Perhaps that approach would have been altogether too specialist, less “commercial”; nonetheless I think such an analysis, examining the connections between these different movements, would have been useful. It is arguable, for example, that the Gay Liberation Front in the States would never have made such a stunning impact had it not been for the campaigning lessons already learnt in the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s Liberation movement and the Anti-Vietnam campaign. The same is true of our country. Activists do not spring fully-armed from cosy suburban homes; there are techniques to be acquired – how to organise a demo, how to deal with the police, how to liaise with the press.
It’s Not Unusual is based on a series of interviews with some thirty-six lesbians and gay men, and this interview material is skilfully deployed to illustrate the sweeping historical and social changes which took place over this remarkable period. I could have done without the first 50-odd pages which trudge through the already well-trodden ground of Noel Coward, Dietrich, Cecil Beaton et al. – though it is a joy to encounter Evelyn Irons, an astonishing woman of 97 (sic) who was a friend of Radclyffe Hall. When Jivani moves on to World War II things get more interesting since he mercifully abandons the poseurs and celebs and features “ordinary” lesbians and gay men many of whom seem to have had the time of their lives groping about underneath lorries, fumbling their way through the blackout and merrily masturbating each other in their hammocks whilst sailing the high seas. This is presumably what was meant by “having a good war”.
By contrast the 1950s were bad news for lesbians and gays, with the actions brought against Montagu, Wildeblood and others, and the witch-hunts set in motion by a bigoted Home Secretary. But Jivani does a good job in identifying the causes of this hysteria, in particular the fact that the UK government was being “leant on” by the Americans, only too well aware, in the midst of this Cold War period that British civil servants and diplomats were privy to secrets that the Americans wanted kept that way.
Another feature of the 50s was the emergence of the coffee-bar, and Jivani reveals that the gay Humanist author E. M. Forster, no less, was an habitué of a gay coffee-bar just off Piccadilly called the Mousehole (which seems appropriate). What the Dilly boys must have thought of this elderly Edwardian figure sitting amongst them sipping coffee is not recorded.
It was in the 50s that the Wolfenden Report was published, though the modest reforms it proposed were not to become law until ten years later, in 1967. The Wolfenden Report prompted the setting up of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, the first organisation in this country to campaign for reform; this in turn led to the North-West Homosexual Law Reform Committee which was set up by Allan Horsfall (now a GALHA member), and became the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE). These long years of patient – and brave – campaigning are somewhat perfunctorily described; oddly there is no mention of Antony Grey, who was secretary of the HLRS from 1962-70 and a leading figure in the cause of reform. This seems a curious omission.
With the 60s came the most sweeping changes of all when the country happily threw off the austerity of the 50s and eagerly embraced Flower Power, the Beatles and Carnaby Street. More seriously, the 60s brought in enlightened approaches to abortion, divorce and homosexuality; women’s lib was founded and CND took off. And Stonewall triggered the emergence of the Gay Liberation Front in the States and subsequently in the UK. All this is well documented here, though the GLF material seems to have been borrowed fairly freely from Lisa Power’s excellent history.
The 70s were a period of consolidation and growing public acceptance for lesbians and gays, but two major setbacks were on the way. The first was of course the emergence of AIDS, and the second the infamous Section 28. Jivani makes a good case in pointing up the positive sides of these two disasters; Section 28 “brought people out fighting”; AIDS gathered together and united the gay community.
It’s Not Unusual is readable and informative – it’s also brilliantly illustrated. Get your Public Library to order a copy.