LOG BOOKS: VOICES OF QUEER BRITAIN/ THE HELPLINE (HB)

In a crawlspace at the offices of Switchboard, a queer helpline in operation since 1974, lie dozens of log books kept by volunteers describing the phone calls they took: a teenager whose parents had kicked them out of home for dressing as the wrong gender, a lesbian terrified of having her baby taken away from her; a man arrested for chatting up another man in a public toilet. Charged with joy, gossip, sensuality, humour and sometimes fear, and with a potent relevancy to the world today, these stories are brought together here.