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Dr Matt Cook is a cultural historian specialising in the history of sexuality and the history of London in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Based at Birkbeck College he oversees the Faculty of Lifelong Learning’s history certificate and diploma programme including ‘Queer Histories: London’s lesbian and gay past’. He is the author of many books, including A Gay History of Britain.
Paul Hunt caught up with him to chat about the past.
How did you become interested in the history of ‘gay Britain’?
I think my work is kind of autobiographical really - or at least it’s about understanding who I am: my first book was about London and queer culture at the end of the 19th century and I wrote it just after I moved down here. I guess A Gay History of Britain was about trying to put that story in a wider context - going further back and further forward in time, and also looking beyond London - which does get a bit too much attention sometimes.
Why is it important to preserve history?
It really enriches our sense of who we are and also allows us to understand the complexity of queer cultures and identities. We’re encouraged to think of ourselves as a minority - and sometimes a very isolated one - but I love the way history shows us how queer men and women have been so much a part of wider social and cultural life; a part of a much bigger story. History also alerts us to how swiftly culture and society can change. It always amazes me how in the past 40 years we’ve moved back and forth through waves of homophobia and apparent liberation. I always want to know why and how these shifts happen - perhaps as a way of thinking about how fragile apparent certainties in the present can be.
When reading AGHOB I was struck by the fact that most of our history is hidden and appears to be only now emerging.
I think it’s not so much about ‘our’ history being hidden. Men understood the sex and relationships they were having with each other in different ways at different times. Shakespeare almost certainly had sex with other men - but he certainly didn’t attach an identity to that as we do now. So the challenge is not so much about finding evidence of sexual and emotional relationships between men - we have quite a lot of that - the bigger challenge is how we understand what those relationships meant to the men involved and to the people around them. That’s where it’s important to look at the culture more broadly and to think about how people generally were thinking about identity.
You must meet and interview some interesting characters: are there any that stick in your mind?
I love the bits of gossip - one of my interviewees remembers having sex with Joe Orton in a cottage in Holloway Rd. That made my day!
What elements of the historical male gay subculture most fascinate you?
At the moment I’m really interested in some of the experiments in living in the early 70s and especially a community of gay squatters in Brixton who were trying - in lots of different ways - to really live out their politics.
How accurate are some of the recent portrayals of gay culture in the broadcast media of late - series like The Tudors?
I didn’t see it! It’s always good to see stuff on TV though - especially I think when it’s presented as part - and an integral part - of a broader history.
If readers are interested in pursuing an interest in queer history what’s your advice on how to start?
If you’re not sure quite what part of the queer past you want to explore I’d suggest starting with something like Neil Miller’s Out of the Past or Alison Oram’s The Lesbian History Sourcebook. They’re great because they’re a mixture of source material and commentary. Books of testimony always hook me in - Jeffrey Weeks’ Between the Acts has the accounts of men living between 1885 and 1967 and is really compelling. A Gay History of Britain and Rebecca Jenning’s Lesbian History of Britain give an overview and context for more detailed studies so (of course!) I’d recommend them too. Libraries and record offices are also getting much better at highlighting relevant holdings, and some have really interesting collections. It’s really worth talking to librarians and archivists about their holdings: it’s amazing what crops up sometimes. A colleague once opened a box at the National Archive and found a dress worn by a male party-goer in the 1930s.
If you weren’t a historian, what could - or would - you have done?
I’ve always been into architecture and the way it affects the way we live and organise ourselves so maybe I’d have gone in that direction.
What is on your radar for the future in terms of work?
I’m working on a project on ‘queer domesticity’ at the moment… hence the work on the gay squats. There’s been a lot of work on public cultures - bars, clubs, Pride, radicalism - and I thought it was time to take queer history indoors and look at the different ways in which men have organised their domestic lives over the past century. It’s kind of autobiographical again: I’ve got a bit of a ‘queer’ family, so this work is in a way about exploring the precedents for that!
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