Hello Sailor!: Gay Life for Seamen [Paperback]

"What this fascinating book is really about is not 'gay life at sea' in general, but the gay ghettos on many liners and cruiseships during the fifties and sixties."

George Melly, The Mail on Sunday 

"...this path breaking book tells the hidden story of passion and liberation at sea. This is a vital addition to the understanding of gay and sea history."

Publishing News 

"...candid confessions cause the narrative to leap into life."

 Independent on Sunday. 

"...a fascinating account."

 Gay Times 

"...Hello Sailor! transcends its niche as a piece of gay history and, instead, becomes something that has resonances for all readers, whether gay, straight or something in between."

The Observer 

'...an eminently readable, often amusing and original book...'

Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 41, No 1

When gays had to be closeted, ships were the only places where homosexual men could not only be out but also camp. And on some liners to the sun and the New World, queens and butches had a ball. They sashayed and minced their way across the world's oceans.

Never before has the story been told of the masses. These are the thousands of queer seafarers, mainly stewards, who sometimes even outnumbered the straight men in the catering departments of ships that were household names and the pride of the British fleet. Hello Sailor! uniquely shows what it was like to be queer at sea at a time when land meant straightness.

   

This was a really exciting book to research and write - and I hope you'll enjoy it. It's a subject I've been wanting to write about for years. I could never have predicted how much pleasure I'd get from meeting the gay seafaring men in their homes - often at seaside resorts - and hearing about their history as we drank tea. Although being at sea in that exceptional way was fun for them - camping and flouncing their way across the Atlantic, it was also a poignant experience of solidarity at a time of homophobia. Paul(my co-author)and I think they were brave and we're proud to be associated with them.

'From Quentin Crisp cavorting with US marines in 'The Naked Civil Servant' to Jean Genet, Fassbinder and 'Querelle', a celebration of sailors has long been a part of gay culture. But very rarely has it been the subject of serious study. Here at last is the book that puts all that to rights. Thoroughly-researched and engagingly written, 'Hello Sailor' looks beyond the butch, bell-bottomed image and explores the real meaning of gay life for sea-faring men.' Paul Burston, TimeOut

"Innovative, revealing and brave, this book peers through previously forbidden portholes and unravels a neglected strand of British history. It tells many fascinating stories of lives lived against the odds…" Andy Medhurst, University of Sussex

"…meticulously researched, cogently argued work of high scholarship…producing an endlessly fascinating and finely nuanced examination of the culture and mores of homosexuality afloat…This book is greatly to be commended." Dr Campbell McMurray OBE, Director, Royal Naval Museum

Paul has written two books on Polare, which came out in 2002. He's a world expert on the subject. I (Jo) specialise in gender and the sea and have written articles about seafaring women in many academic journals. If you want to read more about women sailing the seas - and they DO throw a light on seafaring men - go the National Maritime Museum UK site and look at the Women and the Sea Newsletter articles, which I edited.