Hope I’m not jumping the gun here but the #1940Club starts next week and I’ve been gearing up and getting ready. The idea is simple. It’s a fun event with no pressure because you can choose anything from the year and read as much or as little as suits you. You can share on your blogs, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, in…
The Year Begins in October Armistead Maupin based his vignettes of gay life in 1970s San Francisco – Tales of the City – on Jan Struther’s Mrs. Miniver (1939). They first appeared in a long-running serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. Instinctively I wanted to write a gay male Mrs Miniver, the minutiae of gay life with Michael Tolliver as…
When intelligence officer Arthur Marshall was on the beach at Dunkirk in 1940 he turned to the work of Angela Brazil for psychological support. Wounded in the ankle, he encouraged his men to face enemy fire and so reach the awaiting ships with: “Come on, girls, who’s on for the Botany Walk?” In his autobiography he explained how he managed…
1940 has been well served by blockbuster movies this past year. Last summer there was Dunkirk as legendary saga and then this winter Darkest Hour focussed on the Westminster drama of the political backdrop. Dunkirk tells the story of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force by following what happens to some representative figures – soldiers trying to get off the beach; a…