The Light of Day

<B>'Your book is the "really good book. Just one" that Roger Butler would have wanted' - Sir Ian McKellen</B><BR><B><B><BR></B>'Absorbing and often very moving' - Peter Parker, <I>Spectator</I></B><BR><I><B><I><B><BR></B></I>'Sir, we are homosexuals . . .'</B></I><BR><B></B><I><B><BR></B></I>So began the letter penned by Roger Butler and sent to several British newspaper editors - some of whom were so shocked they thought it was a hoax - in June 1960. Writing such a letter seven years before the decriminalisation of homosexuality was a radical and dangerous move. <B>It was a risk that set a major milestone in the fight for gay rights - one that has been almost entirely forgotten.</B><BR><BR><B>This is the story of the first man to come out voluntarily, using his own name, to the entire British public</B>, a decade before activists started petitioning gay people everywhere to 'come out proud'. Taking us through a criminalised underworld of gay pubs, parties and activist meetings, <I>The Light of Day</I> charts how Roger helped bring about the legalisation of homosexuality, but soon found himself marginalised from the movement he kickstarted after losing his sight in his early 30s.<BR><BR>Enter Christopher - a student asked to visit and read to an old, blind man at the beginning of a new century. As their intergenerational friendship bloomed, Roger came to trust Christopher with his most precious possession: memoirs of his revolutionary past, locked away in his home. After Roger's death, Christopher opened a series of unsent letters, left in a pink folder, addressed to him. They contained Roger's final wish, for Christopher finally to bring his remarkable, hidden story into the light of day.<BR><BR><B><I>'</I>Remarkable . . . a splendidly sprawling part biography, part autobiography, part history and part social commentary . . . the result, a true account, benefits greatly from a lightness, a candour untethered to any agenda or argument' -<I> Times Literary Supplement</I></B><B><BR></B><B><BR></B><B>'Faithfully and beautifully told' - <I>Mail on Sunday</I></B>