Tales of the Suburbs, by John Grindrod

I've had a busy couple of weeks chasing about, and need to write up notes on various things read. Yesterday, I was at Riverside Studios to see the first three episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan in the company of lots of friends, as well as star Peter Purves (who I had the chance to catch up with) and the families of many of those who worked on the episodes. It was all a bit emotional, I think in the best way. Thanks, for ever, to the team at Film is Fabulous.

On Thursday, I had a night out in Manchester to hear Andy Miller interview John Grindrod about his excellent new book, Tales of the Suburbs. I'd heard John read the audiobook version the week before, on my long journey to and from a day's research at the BBC's Written Archives Centre in Caversham. 

It's a fantastic book: observant, funny, smart and often very moving. John begins with a story from his own experience. As a teenager, he once went home with a slightly older man to a posh house in the most respectable bit of suburban Croydon, only to find the man's wife, daughter and mother-in-law waiting up for them. It's awkward and funny, like something from a sitcom or even a Play for Today, but writing about it now, John finds sympathy for each person involved. The point is that the suburbs are full of secrets, arrangements and things not quite what they appear. But it's typical of the witty, wise and empathetic perspective to follow.

In each main chapter, John talks to someone from the LGBTQ+ community about their experience of growing up in suburbia. There are stories from all over the country, covering a range of different sexualities and identities. With hindsight, they can explain the key moments that mattered, that helped or hindered. Sometimes, the events described are harrowing but overall the sense is optimistic: tales of people working themselves out, overcoming adversity, finding peace and happiness and love. Small acts of kindness, of understanding, shape whole lives.

Each interview is followed by a short coda where John shares a story from a little further into the past, in many cases just beyond living memory. These are interesting vignettes but I wasn't sure, at first, how each one connected to the oral history it followed.

But as the book continued I began to spot connections between the individual stories told here. There were themes - of misfits, of loneliness, of the importance of the goth scene. Three of the people interviewed, who all felt so alone, lived within streets of each other and might have offered support if they'd only been aware. Access to information, to representation, is often key. The same support organisations or kinds of intervention crop up time and again. There are patterns. But what those patterns and connections might be are now spelled out; that is left for us. The result is a history that lingers. I've been dwelling on it all week.

Many of those interviewed can see parallels between the way trans people are spoken about now in the press with their own experience of growing up gay under the twin shadows of Section 28 and the AIDS crisis. There is something to be learned from the hard-won lessons of the past.

The result is that these individual stories build up a rich and vivid history - of the last 70-odd years, of the suburbs, of queer people, of what turns out quite often to be common experience among people who felt themselves to be sole misfits. What a privilege to hear their stories, to be in their company. What a brilliant book.