Justin Bengry – författare

A beautifully illustrated compendium of LGBTIQ+ life, A Queer Scrapbook offers a rich archive of histories from across Britain and Ireland. Brimming with interviews, newspaper clippings, photographs, and flyers, it traces urban, rural, and regional queer experiences from 1945 to the present. Commentaries and short essays introduce a changing queer landscape, organised around four themes: home and family, socialising and sex, arts and culture, and activism and community. The book explores domestic life and parenting, reveals the unexpected places where LGBTIQ+ people gathered for fun, highlights the importance of creative expression, and documents campaigns for justice and equal rights. Rooted in the tradition of collecting as a way for marginalised people to assert identity and community, A Queer Scrapbook vividly captures the diversity of queer and trans lives across the British and Irish isles since the Second World War.

Ranging from the mid-19th century to the present, and from Edinburgh to Plymouth, this powerful collection explores the significance of locality in queer space and experiences in modern British history. The chapters cover a broad range of themes from migration, movement and multiculturalism; the distinctive queer social and political scenes of different cities; and the ways in which places have been reimagined through locally led community history projects. The book challenges traditional LGBTQ histories which have tended to conceive of queer experience in the UK as a comprising a homogeneous, national narrative.Edited by leading historians, the book foregrounds the voices of LGBTQ-identified people by looking at a range of letters, diaries, TV interviews and oral testimonies. It provides a unique and fascinating account of queer experiences in Britain and how they have been shaped through different localities.