This is a change for me. It’s a biography of my godfather who lived an extraordinary life. If you are interested in the gay history of Britain, or simply history, then this true account, as told by him and edited by me, will fascinate you.
Born in Tooting, South London in 1919, Bobby left home at 14 to cross the Thames and make a life for himself. On more or less his first day, he found that a 14-year-old boy could make money from men in the bushes in Hyde Park. A few years as an independent rent boy followed, a time during which he met many well-known people (some of whom are mentioned). After that, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, became a gunner, and saw active service in the Med and Pacific while making sure his fellow crewmen never went without sex. After the war, he finally settled into a post at the Hyde Park Hotel where he became head housekeeper and met even more well-known people.
Winston Churchill, Shirley Bassey, the Dalai Lama, the Duke of Edinburgh, Quentin Crisp, Angus McBean, David Bowie, Frank Vosper… The list of names whose path Bobby crossed or walked along is seemingly endless, so much so, that I was unable to include all of his stories, and there were some names he refused to put in print. He was also involved in the Wolfenden Report (that eventually led to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK), he reminisces about Lady Malcom’s Drag Balls at the Albert Hall and other drag and theatre events and people.
Click the cover pic for the Kindle and KU versions and the full cover image for the print version.
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.
Available from Amazon US UK DE FR CA AU and all around the world.
Don’t forget there are still four great promos running, and here’s the 19th-century historical fiction one. Scroll down to last week’s post to see them all.
Following hot on the heels of ‘Where There’s a Will’, I have another book almost ready to release, and that will be the second within four weeks (assuming it doesn’t get held up like last time).
However, I have been working on this one off and on for 20 years. It’s only been in the last couple of months, since losing two paid jobs and finding myself with loads of time but no money, that I’ve finally finished the editing and fact checking.
Here’s the blurb and front cover.
“Variety is the spice of life, they say, but to me, variety was the life of my vice.”
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 biography of one gay man, born in 1919 in Tooting, South London. There are, no doubt, many others, but maybe not many led such a diverse life. Bob’s path crossed with those of Hollywood actors, prime ministers, and royalty, but he came from the underclass of the homeless, drag queens, and illegal lovers.
Caught up in 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.
The files are with the guys who do the layout, and as soon as they are back and checked, I’ll send them up to be published, and then, I’ll tell you more about the story behind the book and what’s in it.
Meanwhile…
As you may have seen from the monthly newsletter, I have four promos running this month. Here, again, are the details. Click the links to see loads of new titles and authors with most books being in KU and some being on audio.
Happy reading!
Searching for your next MM romance? There are 49 titles to check out at this BookFunnel promo.
All on Kindle Unlimited and/or $0.99. 68 books including box sets. Promo running all month. Includes Deviant Desire – Guardians of the Poor – Finding a way
Today’s blog post is a general chat about what’s going on, what’s coming up, and what’s new. I have had family staying for the last couple of weeks, so I’ve not been able to get much done, but I have been working in the background and now I have two projects on the go. Here are a few notes.
After being held up in a most unusual queue at Amazon for six days, Will has launched himself into the world. This is the first book where Will Merrit is the central character, rather than his older and more cumbersome brother, Jack. Both brothers are called to an isolated castle to attend the reading of a will, and the reason why becomes clear only when the will is read.
Although it has only been on sale for a couple of days, Where There’s a Will has already overtaken Deviant Desire and Finding a Way for the number of sales this month. Interestingly, it has sold more paperbacks than Kindle versions, which is nice to see because it means the book will be on display on several bookshelves around the world.
What’s the Next Delamere File?
I have been searching for the next title and story, and I now have some possibles. I am thinking of setting the next one in the world of magic, magicians, Mr Maskelyne and Cooke’s entertainment at the Egyptian Rooms, or something similar. I have a draft title, ‘A Case of Make Believe’ but that’s tentative. I do, though, have a challenge set by a friend who said he would buy five copies if I included a character by a certain name – and that’s something I intend to do, no matter what the story ends up being. ‘Cutthroat Fanny’, or ‘Fanny Razor’, is the madam at a Clerkenwell molly house (boy brothel), and she’s an arch criminal, of course. She may well be the sister of Violet Flay from the earlier books.
I am about to start on this story, but first…
Bobby – A Life Worth Living
I have been working on this for several years off and on – mainly off, actually, for one reason or another. Now, though, I am at the stage where Andjela is thinking up a cover, and I am on my final proofing before sending the text off to the boys to be formatted. Expect yet another Jackson Marsh in a few weeks’ time.
This though, is not a novel, but the true story of my godfather.
Born in Gambole Road, Tooting in 1919, Uncle Bob was my godfather. Lovely, dear, but why write his biography? Mainly, because many years ago, he asked me to. He had a story he wanted the world to hear. Here’s the opening:
Robert Charles Thompson was many things in his life, among them he was a son, a schoolboy, a teenage sex worker, a gunner in the Royal Navy, a mushroom farmer, a landlord, and head housekeeper at a prestigious London hotel. He was also my godfather and very, very gay.
Uncle Bob’s story begins in Tooting, London, in 1919 and ends in Peacehaven, East Sussex, in 2007. He wanted the book to be called, ‘Bobby, a Life Worth Living,’ because he always said that was what he had had. It might easily have been called ‘The gay story of 20th century Britain’, as you will see.
The hotel in question is the Hyde Park Hotel, London, where he met many famous people including David Bowie, Winston Churchill and the Dali Lama.
I’m hoping Bobby will be out before the end of the month.
Promotions
As you may know, I have been involved a few promotions this year, and they are proving very useful for gathering new readers. Also, I hope, they have been useful to other authors too, because where I publicise my books as being in them, so everyone else involved does the same, and we do a joint group promo to help each other out. You can find out more about these via my newsletter (there will be one early next week), here, and on my Facebook page and private group. Coming up in July, we have a promo with lots of historical fiction, two others that revolve around crime stories past and present, and one that’s all about pure MM romance (The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge will be in that one.)
Watch these spaces for more details.
And Finally
This weekend will be taken up by finishing ‘Bobby’ and plotting ‘A Case of Make Believe’ or whatever it will be called. On Monday, work will begin on the next Delamere, and I have an idea that we may see a couple of Larkspur Academy men make guest appearances…
As well as writing my fiction, I am working on a true story. It is that of my godfather who was born in 1919 and lived well into his 80s. Uncle Bob, as I called him, was gay and wanted everyone to know his story, so when I was in the UK several years ago now, I recorded him telling his lie story, and later, started transcribing it. I am now working on a version for publication (eventually), and today, I thought I would share the opening with you.
I have checked and amended certain facts as best I can (because his memory of all those years ago may not have been accurate), but other than that, the text is written more or less as he spoke it.
Here’s the first page.
Tooting 1919 – 1933
When I was born in 1919, our house was worth 100 pounds. Fourteen years later, I was earning that amount each week as a rent boy in Piccadilly.
Three things happened to me between 1919 and 1933 that had a lasting effect on my life. I look back on them now as defining moments, but at the time they were more than that. I suppose you might call them revelations. I didn’t realise at the time what exactly they meant to me, only that they were important. But now, recalling the 85 years of my life, I can place them in the order of things, and understand their significance.
They were small events at the time but things which shaped the way I approached my life – a life that took me from the house of my birth in Tooting, to the West End of London when I was still only thirteen, and from there to Wormwood Scrubs, the Royal Navy, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, and then back to London where, in the course of my professional duties, I was to meet politicians, religious leaders and royalty. They are the first things that I remember encountering on my path through almost a century of gay life – a century that saw the world change rapidly. Television, telephones, computers and gay rights were not even things of science fiction when I was born.
But what are these three clear-as-a-bell memories from an early twentieth-century childhood? They are more than just recollections of a post-First World War life in south London. They are not just snapshots of a life lit by gaslight, when boys went to school barefoot, and Mr Gilman walked ahead of the horse-drawn funeral carriage, stopping the traffic. I am certain they are not parts of dreams that come back to me in old age, tricks played on the mind by my four score years and five. These moments are as real to me now as they were then. It is as if I can reach out my hand and touch my own history, like Alice putting her hand through the looking glass and reaching into another world. Only, when I do it I am touching another time.
I can still see the group of ex-servicemen, wearing women’s clothes and pushing a barrel organ along our street.
I can still feel the older man’s hand touching mine.
I can still remember the moment another boy kissed me for the first time, and I realised what was different about me.
These are the three most prominent moments in my memory of a childhood in Tooting. But they are not the only ones.
Tooting High Street, 1919. Looking south towards Colliers Wood with what’s now the @themanortooting on the right, Longley Road on the left. Photo from Tooting Newsie on X
Beginnings
My birth was the result of the Great War, although not the only result, of course. Far more important matters were taking place in the world at that time, but on November 12th, 1919, a year and a day after the fighting had stopped, and London was beginning to return to normality, I was delivered into my parent’s front room. More precisely, I sloshed out into the world in the safe hands of Mrs Allen, the formidable, fat midwife who delivered all the children in the street. Like some matronly earth mother, she was also the one who laid out the dead, often before the doctor arrived; if the doctor arrived at all. She was a central character in Gambole Road, Tooting, whereas I was just another post-war baby.
Gambole Road was typical of its time; a side street of terraced houses, dimly lit at night by gas burners. Each lamp was hand lit at dusk by the man whose job it was to walk the streets and ensure that we had light. There were three families living in our building, number 30. The house had three floors, one family on each, and like most houses at that time it was rented. It was quite common for one landlord to own several properties in a street, as ours did. He was a local decorator and kept his houses in good repair, investing some of his rental income back into them.
Academic romance novels promo collection – click and rowse
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