In May 1945, the British photographer John S Barrington was celebrating the end of the second world war in his own way. He pushed through “the crush in Piccadilly Circus, kissing every soldier, sailor and airman I could meet”, before rounding things off by deciding to “pick up superb sailor, take him to office and fuck him ‘silly’”.
This is the striking start to the lively first volume of Some Men in London, an anthology of gay men’s experiences in the mid-20th century collated by Peter Parker, whose previous books include biographies of Christopher Isherwood and JR Ackerley. It’s a multi-format chronology of underground practice and public discussion, its title deriving from the News of the World’s declaration that, although homosexuality was present throughout England, “for the black rotten heart of the thing look to London’s golden centre”.
