In 2003, Christopher Stephens, then an Oxford University student, was asked by a peer whether he would take over as a reading volunteer for a blind man in the east of the city. He agreed.

Cycling to the home of Roger Butler on an October evening weeks later, Stephens didn’t know that he would eventually and inadvertently uncover a piece of British LGBTQ+ history that has laid buried for 65 years. Back in 1960, seven years prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Roger had publicly and unabashedly outed himself as a homosexual ; he’s believed to be the first man to have done so.

“It took us a while to break down some of the barriers. Plenty of gin and tonic and a bit of prodding,” Stephens says today of the first time the pair met. “Once we’d established that we had some similar i

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