A Queer Scrapbook: Britain and Ireland Since 1945 - Paperback

by Justin Bengry (Editor), Matt Cook (Editor), Rebecca Jennings (Editor)

A beautifully illustrated compendium of LGBTIQ+ life, A Queer Scrapbook offers a rich archive of histories from across Britain and Ireland. Brimming with interviews, newspaper clippings, photographs, and flyers, it traces urban, rural, and regional queer experiences from 1945 to the present. Commentaries and short essays introduce a changing queer landscape, organised around four themes: home and family, socialising and sex, arts and culture, and activism and community. The book explores domestic life and parenting, reveals the unexpected places where LGBTIQ+ people gathered for fun, highlights the importance of creative expression, and documents campaigns for justice and equal rights. Rooted in the tradition of collecting as a way for marginalised people to assert identity and community, A Queer Scrapbook vividly captures the diversity of queer and trans lives across the British and Irish isles since the Second World War.

Back Jacket

A queer scrapbook offers a treasure-trove of LGBTIQ+ histories from across Britain and Ireland. Packed with materials, from interviews and newspaper articles to photographs and flyers, the book explores urban, rural and regional queer life since 1945.

Commentaries and short essays introduce a changing queer landscape, spotlighting four broad themes: home and family, sex and socialising, arts and culture, and activism and community. The book delves into the meaning and experiences of domesticity and parenting and explores the sometimes unexpected places LGBTIQ+ people met to have fun. It examines the importance of creative work in forming community and identity and shows how people have fought injustice and advocated for equal rights.

Collecting has been a way for the marginalised to explore and assert identity and community. A Queer Scrapbook vividly illustrates the diversity of queer and trans lives across the British and Irish isles since the Second World War.

Author Biography

Justin Bengry is Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London
Matt Cook is Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality at Mansfield College, University of Oxford
Rebecca Jennings is Professor of Modern Gender History at University College London
E-J Scott is a curator, Founder of the Museum of Transology and Senior Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London