In 1974, a group of people gathered in an office near King’s Cross in London. They shared a mission to support a growing number of queer individuals who were seeking guidance and an understanding they couldn’t find anywhere else. Other than the Gay News, guidance was limited at the time for people wondering how to explore their feelings, particularly as homosexuality had been recently decriminalised in 1967. Without realising, this group of people were to become a lifeline for some, an oasis amongst feelings of confusion and taboo, and the UK Switchboard LGBTQIA+ was established as the Gay Switchboard, later changing its name in the mid-1980s to the Lesbian and Gay Switchboard.
Fourteen years later, Section 28 was introduced as part of the UK’s Local Government Act, under Margaret Thatcher, restricting local authorities from “promoting” or endorsing homosexuality in schools. As a result, children were largely limited to books that portrayed only traditional family structures, while stories, materials, and educational resources that might have helped them explore or understand questions of identity were restricted or removed altogether. This environment rendered LGBTQ+ topics largely taboo within education, leaving many teenagers and young adults from that generation feeling confused, isolated, and unsupported. It was at this point that the Switchboard potentially became more important than ever.
In The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and The Helpline that Listened, writers Tash Walker and Adam Zmith reflect on intimate moments of self-discovery as they come to recognise and embrace their queerness, having grown up under the shadow of Section 28. They revisit their upbringings with honesty and vulnerability, from Tash’s childhood longing to dress like Jason Donovan, their early desire to kiss girls, and the unexpected tears that came at thirty-five when they cut their hair short for the first time; to Adam’s quiet repression of his feelings through academic success, before finally letting go in his late twenties, discovering Grindr, nightlife, and the profound sense of togetherness found in shared queer spaces.
These realisations were sparked in 2014, when Tash, while working as a volunteer, uncovered boxes of handwritten notes and scattered scribblings hidden away in Switchboard’s storage area, just as the organisation was approaching its fortieth year of operation. Spanning decades, the entries told stories of people from across the UK seeking guidance, ranging from those looking for advice on how to have sex for the first time to others searching for bars where they could mingle with people who shared their fetishes. Stories ranging from those grappling with the realisation of being gay after years of heterosexual marriage to LGBTQI+ people with disabilities, searching for gay bars with accessible spaces where they could belong.
The log books, covered in tea stains and doodles, were real-life accounts of how queerness was truly well and alive, just in need of a space to thrive, proof that topics such as coming out, discrimination, sexual health, social isolation, the search for community within LGBTQIA+ spaces, complex family relationships, dating, and mental health, were wanting to be voiced by people from every corner of the country. Demand was so overwhelming that, just over a year after its very first call, the service expanded to operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The book follows the authors as they reach out to Switchboard’s “elders”, the voices behind the handwritten notes. They were the people who helped shape the service’s vital role in queer British history, and held the hands of those in need at a time when their identities and desires were marginalised, and who simply sought to live their lives to the fullest. Their stories offer not only a window into the challenges and triumphs of queer life in Britain, but also a testament to the resilience, compassion, and community that continue to shape LGBTQIA+ history today.
Written by Eve Hebron.
Eve Hebron is a freelance writer currently working in education. Originally from North Wales, she studied in Manchester and London and is now based in Paris.
