A very important historical account, which should be read by everyone.

Very important historical account which adds depth and richness to queer history.
I strongly recommend this book to anybody who wants to understand why are still struggling equality for all. Thank you to the author for a painstaking and fascinating account of some of my queer history.

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Amazing insight in to WW2 sexuality.

Fascinating and surprising but a pity about the narration which is not good at all. Nevertheless I listened with great interest.

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Interesting, important, flawed

There are lots of stories and characters here, all of them interesting but perhaps there are too many for one book. It’s sometimes hard to keep up with the many complex story lines, tangents and varied personalities, especially with an audiobook where you can’t easily leaf back through the book.

Stylistically it’s a bit sloppy and at times anachronistic. Czech is not an acceptable abbreviation of Czechoslovak, Russian isn’t an acceptable synonym for Soviet. England isn’t the UK (if a source uses England or English instead of British “sic” should be used. It isn’t). Anglo isn’t British. Countries aren’t female.

The reader is engaging but there are far too many pronunciation mistakes. Surely if you’re being paid to do a job like this you should check the pronunciation of unfamiliar words or names?

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2 people found this helpful

Eye-Opening

Very interesting book and so many people I didn't know were homosexual or bisexual! Names I remember from my youth being fleshed out and given a whole new meaning for me. Also details about parliament in the lead-up to World War II. While I was, of course, aware of the general events in the country, the insight into the brouhaha in and around the House of Commons was all new to me. Let down somewhat by erratic narration; Raj Ghatak, who is so good in the Waringham Chronicles, is a bit out of his depth here. Too fast, too much wrong accentuation and far too many mispronunciations. Still a fascinating listen though.

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2 people found this helpful

Fascinating, beautifully read

Chris Bryant is a master of this genre of non-fiction- it’s an important, largely hidden story that he brings light and understanding to.

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Interesting story spoilt by poor narration

Whilst familiar with the names of some of the protagonist of this story, it was interesting to learn more about them and their fellow Glamour Boys as individuals and their hidden lives.

Unfortunately, the story was spoiled by the narrator. He continually mis-pronounced words, names and place names. It was as if he had never seen some of the words before and was trying to make an educated guess as to how they should be pronounced without bothering to check. I’m sorry this wasn’t picked up during recording. In addition, his delivery was flat with little intonation.

Despite these reservations, I enjoyed the story.

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting story

Footnotes to the start of the second world war.

A group of the Tory MPs who opposed appeasement were gay. Some had visited Germany and experiences of friends and lovers informed their concerns.

Also, a lost world of country house weekends diletante politicians and deferential constituency parties.

The author's immersion in contemporary politics and Commons culture add greatly to the narrative.

I enjoyed this book

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Slow to get going, but full of detail

I'm not sure this is best suited to audio. There are a lot of names to keep track of, and the first part of the book is heavy on "then he did this, then he did that" which I might have preferred to skim. The political detail is much more interesting once it arrives, though. The narrator is a bit irritating, often stressing the wrong word and obscuring the sense of a sentence, and generally just a bit flat.

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2 people found this helpful

Pride for those Glamour Boys

Fantastic book by Chris Bryant and well-performed by Raj Ghatak.

Such a fascinating insight into the inner workings of Government pre-war and the impact of a handful of queer and nearly queer MP's campaigning to take the government to war against Nazi Germany.

The book goes from insightful to inspiring and then politically, highly frustrating, you feel the shame and pain they went through just to be themselves.

I want this book to be in every school, we should celebrate the lives of those who fought so hard for our freedoms.

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Essential reading for all keen students of history

This is an amazing story. It shows how Britain's will to fight Hitler and its ability to do so was fought for consistently and against huge odds by a group of gay men, particularly politicians, who had everything to lose at any point in time. It also shows how stupid and how wrong the popular view of a country can be electing a prime minister who, by this account, was a really nasty piece of work in an enormous landslide election.
This is essential reading for any who wants to understand why Hitler did not win the war (of course there were a whole number of reasons, but this was a very significant and hardly known one).
It is quite a nice story, Quite well written and quite well read, Though hardly spellbinding.

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