The Lambeth Libraries LGBTQ+ Book Club Sensible Footwear: A Girl's Guide - A graphic guide to lesbian and queer history 1950-2020 by Cartoonist Kate Charlesworth.
Peopled by a cast of gay icons such as Dusty Springfield, Billie Jean King, Dirk Bogarde and Alan Turing, and featuring key moments such as Stonewall, Gay Pride and Section 28, Sensible Footwear: A Girl's Guide, is the first graphic history documenting lesbian life from 1950 to the present. It is a stunning, personal, graphic memoir and a milestone itself in LGBTQI+ history.
In 1950, when Kate was born, male homosexuality carried a custodial sentence. But female homosexuality had never been an offence in the UK, effectively rendering lesbians even more invisible than they already were-often to themselves. Growing up in Yorkshire, the young Kate had to find role models wherever she could, in real life, books, film and TV.
A fascinating history of how post-war Britain transformed from a country hostile towards `queer' lives to the LGBQTI+ universe of today, recording the political gains and challenges against a backdrop of personal experience: realising her own sexuality, coming out to her parents, embracing lesbian and gay culture, losing friends to AIDS. Kate's ex-navy dad said to her: `You shouldn't have told her, love... you should have just told me.' But it turned out her mother might have known a bit more about life, too.
For a copy of the book you can reserve it to be picked up at your local library on our online catalogue http://libraries.lambeth.gov.uk or by contacting your library. For more information please contact Zoey (zcdixon@lambeth.gov.uk) or Colette (ctownend2@lambeth.gov.uk)