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The Diaries of Mr Lucas

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The Diaries of Mr Lucas

By: Hugo Greenhalgh
Narrated by: Will Watt
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For 60 years, Mr George Leo John Lucas led a double life. By day, he was a civil servant at the Board of Trade, but by night—unable to live openly as a gay man before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967—he was a fixture of London's colorful underground gay scene, a twilight world of petty crime, louche pubs and public lavatories. He was also an obsessive diary writer.

When Mr Lucas died in 2014, he left his diaries to the journalist Hugo Greenhalgh. This book combines Mr Lucas's deliciously indiscreet entries over the course of the 1960s with Greenhalgh's razor-sharp historical insights. Together, they give a vivid, one-of-a-kind account of gay life that has been overlooked.

©2022 Hugo Greenhalgh (P)2024 W.F.Howes Ltd Biographies & Memoirs
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All stars
Most relevant
Absolutely riveting from beginning to end. An extraordinary glimpse into an extraordinary world, even if Mr Lucas would have perceived his life to be dull! An historic memoir of great importance. I now await the stage or screen adaptation!

Exceptional

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The Diaries of Mr Lucas made me laugh, wince, and nod in recognition. Though living in contemporary times, I came out later in life, and feel a spirit of community with this story. It’s sharp, warm and oddly reassuring, giving hope that it’s never too late to live honestly. Beautifully written and narrated it gives me much to think about.

An important record of hidden times

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I’d been looking forward to this release since the original “Mr Lucas’s Diaries” program on BBC Radio 4 back in 2022, where the diaries were read by Mark Gatiss, who imbued Mr Lucas with a sort of sympathetic but fussy weariness. Sadly Mark Gatiss does not perform here, and the narrator alternates between a maddeningly smug tone for the regular prose and a stupid “old man voice” for Mr Lucas himself.

Ruined by the performance

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I listened to this performance on a dull damp Sunday in May , and it did nothing to lift my mood. Such a dreary and negative view of gay life in the post-war period , full of self-hatred and internalised homophobia. We didn’t all live with our heads in the gas oven.

The Unhappy Homosexual

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