The Diaries of Mr Lucas: Life in 1960s Gay London

Paperback Published on: 01/05/2025
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Synopsis

For nearly 60 years Mr George Lucas led a double life. A mild-mannered civil servant by day, by night he was a fixture of London's colourful underground gay scene - a twilight world of petty crime, louche pubs and public toilets. He was also an obsessive diary writer.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Mr Lucas had a passionate and fraught affair with a rent boy associate of the Kray twins known as Irish Peter, one of many men Mr Lucas paid for sex. Together, Irish Peter and Mr Lucas represent the spectrum of gay criminality prior to the partial decriminalisation of gay sex in 1967.

When Mr Lucas died in 2014, he left his diaries to the journalist Hugo Greenhalgh. The Diaries of Mr Lucas combines Mr Lucas's deliciously indiscreet recollections of a life spent sometimes literally in the shadows with Greenhalgh's commentary - this is gay London like it's never been seen before.

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Atlantic Books
  • ISBN: 9781838958145
  • Number of pages: 320
  • Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 25 mm
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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The Diaries of Mr Lucas
Unique and remarkable
This diary is truly astonishing and a valuable slice of social history. It’s unlikely that it will ever be matched. It’s packed with detail about life as a... READ MORE
Anita Wallas
The Diaries of Mr Lucas
Recommended.
An interesting memoir, the diary of a man who had to live two lives: one as proper and prim civil servant, the other as a gay man looking for sex and relat... READ MORE
AMG