Bobby, a Life Worth Living

This is the biography of my godfather. I interviewed him in 2004 and recorded eight hours of him telling me his stories. You can hear clips from Bobby’s interviews here.

Here is the blurb and the link to where you can buy the book.

“Variety is the spice of life, they say, but to me, variety was the life of my vice.”

(That’s Bobby and me on the back cover, in 1971.)

Robert Charles Thompson was many things in his life. Among them, he was a teenage sex worker, a gunner in the Royal Navy, and head housekeeper at a prestigious London hotel. He was also gay, and his story gives us a fresh insight into a well-trodden path of British social history.

This is the story of one gay man, born in 1919 in Tooting. There are, no doubt, many others, but maybe not many led such a diverse life. Bobby’s colourful life crossed paths with King George VI, Sir Winston Churchill, the Dalai Lama, Shirley Bassey, David Bowie, Quentin Crisp, Ruth Ellis, and numerous other crowned heads, politicians, entertainers and leaders of society.

However, he came from the underclass of the homeless, drag queens, and illegal lovers. There at pivotal moments of the gay 20th century, this previously unknown gay man’s richly fascinating career has previously slipped under the radar but is now getting the limelight it deserves.

Available from Amazon in Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.