Philip Hensher

The demonising of homosexuals in postwar Britain

The tabloids in particular stirred up fear and distrust with lurid stories of orgies, prostitution, drug-taking, political corruption, sinister concealment and susceptibility to blackmail

Joe Orton, photographed in Covent Garden in 1964. [Getty Images]
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  • Some Men in London: Volume I: Queer Life 1945-1959; Volume II: Queer Life 1960-1967

    Peter Parker

    Penguin Classics, pp. 464, £30

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