Matt Cook

Leading LGBTQ historian Matt Cook tells the story of queer British history away from the bright lights of London.

Cook and his co-author Alison Oram celebrate queer life in four English cities from the 1960s to the noughties in their book Queer Beyond London: LGBTQ Stories from Four English Cities. They cover the bohemian world of Brighton, the semi hidden queer life of military Plymouth,  the lesbian activism of Leeds and the cutting-edge dance and drag scenes of Manchester. Cook and Oram explain how local people, places and politics shaped LGBTQ life in each of the cities to create vibrant and distinctive queer cultures of their own.

‘This book took me back to my teenage years in Brighton, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and beyond where I sought out the bars where I could belong even though elsewhere we were illegal. A world of laughter, despair, love, openness, belonging and making whoopee.’ Michael Cashman, actor, founder member of Stonewall and member of the House of Lords

Cook is a social and cultural historian specialising in LGBT and queer history. He is Jonathan Cooper Chair of the History of Sexuality at the University of Oxford. His previous books include London and the Culture of Homosexuality and A Gay History of Britain.