Queer Company: Growing Up Gay in Post-War Britain

As Pride has become middle aged and monetised, queer lives have never been more visible - or, perhaps, as celebrated. But there is no tide of history that may not be reversed, and stories of a past shadowed by oppression and denial should be heard and heeded; this is one such story.

In 1950s suburban England, a friendship bloomed between Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O'Neill - both gay men coming of age during a time when homosexuality was still a crime. Their relationship was inflected by secrecy and fear; and when the prohibition on same-sex relationships was partially lifted in the 1960s, they were already well into adult life. The shadows that had distorted their adolescent friendship were never wholly dispelled.

Lyrical, candid and poignant, Seabrook deftly braids together questions of sexual identity and working-class social history. A memoir of unparalleled authenticity, Queer Company is both an elegy for a doomed friendship and a reminder of what always remains, for any minority, provisional and in need of constant defence.