Queens' Country: A Tour Around the Gay Ghettos, Queer Spots and Camp Sights of Britain

Paul Burston

Mar 2013 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

The gay community'. For years Paul Burston has heard talk of this fabled people, whose votes are wooed by politicians, whose pink pounds are courted by advertising executives and whose alternative lifestyle is derided by defenders of family values. But he's never been quite sure who they were. So he decided to set off and try to find them for himself. His travels around gay Britain take in a wide cross-section of people and places, from his own childhood in South Wales to middle-aged gay men enjoying a beach party in Bromley, from the gay couple running their own massage parlour in Bristol to gay Young Conservatives in Derbyshire.
Along the way, he comments on the hotly debated gay issues of the day; cappuccino-culture consumerism and community politics; the age of consent and the narcissistic preoccupation with youth; backrooms in bars and gay loft conversions. Witty, irreverent and fiercely intelligent, QUEENS' COUNTRY presents the rich diversity - and occasional cultural poverty - of the forces shaping gay life in modern Britain.

About the author

Paul Burston is is a curator in residence at the South Bank. He is also Gay Section Editor on TIME OUT and writes forTHE GUARDIAN, THE INDEPENDENT and THE SUNDAY TIMES as well as writing & presenting TV documentaries for Channel 4. He has worked with the Gay London Policing Group & was a founding member of ACT-UP.