Molly Houses and Queer Georgian London with Marcus James

Armchair Historians Show Notes

Marcus James — Queer History of London / Molly Houses

Episode Summary

In this episode of Armchair Historians, Anne Marie Cannon talks with Marcus James, founder of Queer London Tours, about the hidden and deeply human history of queer London. Their conversation focuses especially on the world of Molly Houses in Georgian London—clandestine spaces where queer men found community, joy, ritual, performance, and belonging in a time of danger and repression.

Marcus shares how he came to this work, from acting and LGBTQ+ media to building a walking tour that brings London’s queer past to life through both research and personal storytelling. Along the way, Anne Marie and Marcus discuss Princess Seraphina, Mother Clap’s Molly House, Tyburn, Oscar Wilde, and why emotional truth matters just as much as dates and facts when we talk about history.

This is a conversation about hidden histories, resistance, identity, and the enduring truth that even in the darkest times, people still found ways to love, laugh, gather, and be themselves.

About Marcus James

Marcus James is the founder and guide behind Queer London Tours, a London walking tour experience dedicated to exploring the city’s rich LGBTQ+ history.

Find Marcus James

Website: https://queerlondontours.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queerlondontours/

Book a tour (OutSavvy): https://www.outsavvy.com/event/30385/queer-history-of-london-walking-tour

Places and History Mentioned

Old Bailey Proceedings Online: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/

Tyburn Tree: https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/tyburn-tree

History of Tyburn Tree / Marble Arch: https://marble-arch.london/culture-blog/history-of-tyburn-tree/

Vauxhall Gardens — brief history: https://www.vauxhallgardens.com/vauxhall_gardens_briefhistory_page.html

Queer Britain: https://queerbritain.org.uk/

Queer Britain visitor info: https://queerbritain.org.uk/visit

Books Discussed

Mother Clap’s Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England 1700–1830 — Rictor Norton

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Claps-Molly-House-Subculture/dp/0854491880

Mother Clap’s Molly House — Mark Ravenhill

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Claps-Molly-House-Modern/dp/0413769305

The Betrayal of Thomas True — A.J. West

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Thomas-True-J-West/dp/1916788599

Queer Georgians — Anthony Delaney

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Queer-Georgians/dp/1529927684

Closing Line

If you are heading to London and want to experience the city through a richer, more human, and ofte

Transcript

  Hello fellow. I'm chair Historians. Welcome to the show. I'm Annmarie Cannon, your host, historical fiction author, and curious soul, always chasing the human side of history. Show notes include my website, links to content discussed in the episode, how to support the show, and a free short story download that introduces readers to bedlam from my soon to be released historical fiction series.

On this podcast, my guests share the history they love most and we experience it through their eyes, what fascinates them, what they've uncovered, and why the story still matters. Let's get into it. 📍  📍 

 Today on Armchair Historians, I'm joined by Marcus James, founder of Queer London Tours, and a passionate guide to the Hidden Histories of London with a background in acting, writing and l lgbtq plus media. Marcus has a gift for bringing the past off the page and onto the streets. In this episode, we're diving into the world of Molly houses and queer Georgian London, an often overlooked history of secrecy, resilience, performance, and a community.

If you love the stories, history, tried to bury this one is for you.

Marcus James, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here all the way from over the pond. 

It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Anne Marie. So let's start off by, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, so our listeners kind of understand where you're coming from.

Sure. I mean, I, I trained as an actor back in the nineties up in Manchester, but when I moved to London, I kind of got I was a bit disheartened by the amount of rejections I got from auditions and casting. So, you know, I needed to work. And I ended up working in Herod's for a number of years, about four or five years.

And then kind of, you know, just worked around and did temping jobs and went traveling. And I, I started working for the, for the LGBT press in 2002 and I've pretty much worked my writ around all of those titles that we have in the uk. The most kind of profound being the most prolific in the scene, really being gay times and attitude magazines.

I jumped ship between the two of them, not showing any loyalty, but whichever one offered me more money at the time. And then I moved to Barcelona for a few years and came back and I went back to work for those titles and that was kind of how it was going for a long time. Um, then I worked for a magazine that looked after editorial about the gay scene and then 2020 hit us and the magazine kind of folded or parked for quite a long time over year.

So I just discovered the joys of TikTok like many did during lockdown. And, uh, I kind of was it oke my kind of performance roots. And so I was always kind of tempted to want to be a tour guide. I think London is such a thriving city with such a wealth of fantastical kind of in, in, you know, history and stories.

And I did some research and established that there was no queer history tour happening in London. So I realized there was a bit of a gap in the market there. So I started, I curated the tour with someone else. I mean, I put my personalized the tour really very much with my. Stories having come out very young.

I came out of 15, 19 90. And yeah, I was, I was working with another tour company until I set up queer London Tours in 2020, end of 24, 25 kind of got going. And I've been running queer history tours of London now for kind of 18 months and we, we, we sent, we, we journey through the center of London. And our timeline spans really kind of information about kind of Roman London, but concentrating on 18th century how the burgeoning kind of subculture of Molly houses and mo boys existed and how the tea rooms of the 18 hundreds started really the, the very embryonics birth of, of the gay scene as we know it today. Um, so that's me really. I run quail London tours and, uh, I do film and TV, extra work to keep myself out of trouble.

I have a little Airbnb because I live in Central London. I'm just one of those gay kids that loves dressing up in fancy costumes, but now I get paid to do, its for great shows and I do some really lovely period dramas and very pleased to announce that I've been, you know, I've got a role coming up for one of Netflix's top.

I've signed NDAs, so I have to be careful. Um, but one of net Netflix is top kind of period drama shows. Um, so going, you know. Along to those kind of filmings and wearing such fabulous period costumes is, is a real treat. And I really do enjoy it. I think I'm gonna have to see if I can work out a way of getting like a nice 1700 style costume to do my walking tour in and see if that go as attention.

I love it. I, I'm in, I'll have to take it again. So, yeah, I kind of serendipitously found you because I was visiting London this past year. It was 2025, and at some point I usually do some kind of history tour wherever I am, and I thought, I'm gonna look for a queer history tour. I must have thought it, it came up on my Facebook feed and it turns out that you're friends with my niece Megan, which was very serendipitous.

Like she, yeah. It's not even like she told me to take the tour. It's like, you know how that is online, things just come up. The internet reads your mind and then you see ads about it. And so that was working in your favor. And then I made the connection, which made it even more special. So I did do the tour, which is amazing, and I'm just so glad I did it in that we connected.

It was just the two of us, which, you know, I, I used to have a touring business, historical Georgetown, Colorado. And um, and I used to get tours like that, and I was like, I felt bad because I wanted you to have more people on the tour, but I felt like really lucky that I had all of your attention in Molly.

Of course, your dog who, um, joins you on the tours and is such a well-behaved dog that just follows you everywhere. Yeah. And I see her in the, yeah. Yeah, and you know, it was lovely I think because we had the mutual connection through your N Me who I'm incredibly fond of. And um, it was nice to be able to just kind of hang out with you.

It felt like we were doing the tour and I felt I covered the parts of history and I knew that you were interested in certain era of history, so we could concentrate on those, but you got the full tour, but we were able to kind of catch up and go for a drink afterwards and kind of have a nice chit chat.

So again, thank you for inviting me to come on this podcast and I'm more than happy to kind of spread the word of any kind of queer history that relates to, uh, London or that's of any interest to your listeners. Well, I have a special fondness for hidden histories, um, histories that deserve to have the spotlight shine on them.

And this is definitely one of those topics that I have discussed numerous times on my podcast. Um, I'll put some links in the show notes to some of the different episodes that I've done that had to do with queer history. And one of my favorites was, and I don't know if you listened to this one, but it's two Spirits and it's about the indigenous people and how prior to the colonialists coming in and kinda wiping them out, they were, um, individuals that, I don't know if you would call them trans today. I am not really sure. But they basically have two spirits. So their sexuality is either fluid or else more one way or the other. And, um, that's one of my favorite episodes I ever did, and I think you should check it out, but that there's been a kind of burgeoning again of you know, coming out of that the horrible things that happened to them during colonialization of, uh, the United States and indigenous people.

But anyways, I digress and I would love to know what your favorite history that we're gonna be talking about today is. You know, like I said, London is steeped in all this kind of history and I'm, we, we shared a passion in common in that, you know, the longer I've been doing the tour, the more research I do, and I'm currently reading a fabulous autobiography and Oscar Wilde because Oscar's part of my tour.

And I'm constantly learning more about certain topics. But. I also like to uh, expose these hidden histories the histories that really doesn't kind of get, and I do think that there's some semblance of queer history in particular, kind of being sidelined a little bit and maybe not getting the kind of exposure, um, that it deserves, particularly when it comes to subcultures.

And learning about kind of rituals and events that kind of happened that general public just don't really seem to know about. And, you know, there's very limited literature on certain topics. So I, I've got a few books here that I'll be, um, I'll be promoting for, for the readers and for the authors.

'cause I want them to get an exposure. But yeah, my but I, obviously when I'm doing my tour, uh, I came out at 15 and so, you know, there's an in, I have an interest in kinda the queer history of the eighties in London because there was so much political movement around about that time in America, you know.

Uh, Ronald Reagan was the president. Margaret Thatcher was the prime Minister here. They were kind of bosom buddies and they seemed to kind of, uh, be on the same page with a lot of their opinions. And no matter what your political proclivities, I think there was a lot of damage done through decisions that they made or, or things that they didn't do in terms of investing money into research with HIV and aids, for example.

But I try not to have a favorite when I'm doing my tour 'cause I want to seem and I want to be impassioned at each stop on my tour. But truth be told, I really do have a real soft spot for 18th century, uh, Georgian, London. And that's because there was a specific subculture of Molly Houses and Molly Boys, and there seems.

To be a lack of knowledge around that subculture that I really love telling people on my tour. And it seems to be the part of the tour where people seem to be particularly engrossed. And it can be somewhat comical as well when we talk about some of the Molly names that they had. Yeah. So, and long story, uh, yeah.

To answer. Yeah to answer your question, slightly long Windedly favorite part of history and certainly for the today's podcast would be talking about Molly Houses in the subculture of Molly Boys in queer Georgia in London. So for my listeners that don't really know what that means, could you kind of define that a little bit more and tell us about what the Molly House was and you know, kind of how it operated and let's go on that ride.

I mean, the first evidence of Molly House, it seems to be around the end of the kind of 16 hundreds, but they really were in their peak in the sort of 1720s and 1730s. A Molly house could be a tavern or a pub or a coffee house. But you had to bear in mind that due to the Buggery Act of 1533 that Henry with VIII implemented, being caught having sodomy. I mean, as we know, the word homosexual didn't come into parlance until, uh, the end of the 18 hundreds. A word that kind of was created by Germany, Germans, in fact, but the Molly culture yeah, so this, so you had to be very careful because if you were caught in any form of kind of committing any form of buggery or suddenly then, you know, you were hung.

So obviously this had to remain as a subculture, but it, on the same frame, it was quite popular. So as I said, it could be in any tavern or, or a home. And it was an opportunity for queer men to express themselves through enjoyable kind of, uh, rituals and ceremonies and dancing, and particularly cross-dressing.

So we have Mollies who, if we look at the word Molly. Just back to basics, you know, why were they called Mollies? Well, a a molly for a female would be a female kind of sex worker. But we don't really know is the real answer. But if we look at theology of the word, we know that mo moly in, in Latin means soft, gentle fair.

Mollies would call each other Mollies but it was more of a atory term, I think if, if they were kind of, ac accused of being a molly by, by someone else. So these kind of houses existed. They were operative kind of during the week, but Sunday was really the day that Molly houses would really thrive.

You know, you probably have people guarding the doors to let people in. And in these Molly houses you would have these, uh, ceremonies, which I'm sure we can kind of get into in more detail in a minute. But just an idea that re listeners just have an understanding. Queer gay men celebrating their sort of sexuality by, uh, enjoying cross-dressing.

And they kind of repeated these heteronormative rituals like birthing ceremonies and christenings and things. By all accounts and purposes, you know, it was a very enjoyable day and event to be spent at a Molly house with lots of singing and lots of dancing and, and naming ceremonies and things.

So it was definitely a subculture. It was kind of clandestine, somewhat p and dagger, but thriving up until several points where, um, there was some events that altered that due to kind of rage and things.

So when you talk about the rituals, can you describe like one of those that you learned about and that was interesting. Yeah, look, I'm confused. I'm a little confused about, like you said, the birthing ritual, like that type of thing. I didn't quite understand. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. It's comical to be honest.

Anne Marie. Um, so I mean, let's look at kind of the, the, the routine of kind of the timeline of life. Um, we have birth christening and then they had went marriages, what they called marriages in the chapels. Okay. So the birthing ceremony, so that it was really just for a bit of fun. You would have what a molly who would maybe put some pillows up their dress and then have a wooden doll or a wooden spoon that they would draw a face on the wooden spoon.

And then the Molly would be in the middle of the circle. And it was a bit of a performative kind of, um, show where they would give birth and I guess. You know, depending on how dramatic they were, it would be clapped and people would be pretending they'd really be giving birth. And I was only reading the other day a wonderful kind of excerpt where they were saying, you know, the Molly would give birth and the wooden spoon would come out and have a face drawn on it, and then they would pass the wooden spoon around and people would joke, oh look, it's got your eyes, got your, you've got your ears.

And they would make a big song and dance about this wooden spoon that looked like its mother who was the molly boy across, dressed, flying on the floor, having pretended to have given birth. So I think it, it was a bit of kind of fun, uh, the, those birthing kind of ceremonies. And, uh, it was all, it was all done in, in jest.

Then I guess we move on. The christening ceremonies kind of my favorite really, because. A lot of Molly boys would have frequent a particular Molly house that would be their favorite. Um, and there was one that we can talk about later that was the most famous, which was the one which was raided in 1726.

But, um, yeah, you would have your favorite Molly house. That might be by location. 'cause it was supposed to where you lived or just it was your favorite for, you know, your group of friends went there. And in these Molly houses you would have, you could have a christening ceremony. It would be al almost like a naming ceremony as well.

And it was very common for other mollies to choose your Molly name. This ceremony would be something like, um, you would have your friends invited. Um, you, you would have to, you would have a, a person in a white dress. And I guess that would signify the clinical kind of doctor to nurse character.

And then the Molly would have to kind of pretend to kind of. Be born into the world and do this kind of ritual of kind of wriggling out of the womb and standing up and becoming, you know, being born. And then the person in the white dress would throw a quarter of gin into over them or into their face.

Uh, we think that that probably represented the amniotic fluids having just come out of the womb. And so you had the white liquid IE gin thrown over you, and then they would take out a lipstick and put the lipstick on you and name you your Molly name. And there were some really great Molly names of the time.

And you gotta bear in mind it was really. People at the time they were bakers and butchers, candle makers Milan cobbler. So these, a lot of these men, I suppose would've been, you know, I like the idea. A big sort stoic, stocky kind of butcher. But that was, there was a well-known butcher whose, whose name was Plump Nelly, but we had Plump Nelly.

And to give you an idea of some of the names, the Duchess of Kaile, um, lady Ver there was Princess Sarana Susan Guzzle, I'm not quite sure what she did to earn that name. Um, did di di dip Candle Mary. Um, so yeah. Um, but so it, it would often be prefixed with a lady or a miss or a title like Duchess and then suffix with.

How you looked or what you did as a living or what you drank or where you lived. So it was a quite a creative kind of fun name. And sometimes on my tours, I play that game where people, if they're with friends, they can, they can come up with a Molly name for their friends. 'cause you can give it called duchess something or lady something, princess something and then, or whatever the word.

So yeah. So that was the birthing that was the christening ceremonies. And then some of the moley houses would, somewhere, would have somewhere that they called the chapel. And the chapel is where you would have marriages. Now it's not a chapel as we think of it, or a marriage as we think of it. A chapel was a, a bedroom where you could have uh, you could have sex and where you could consummate your you know, you know, your legal kind of marriage that you might have had.

But, you know, there, and there were couples who lived as couples discreetly. But, um, these marriage ceremonies would, you know, you'd obviously have to have people guarding the door for fear of there being raids. And so, yeah, so a marriage would be an opportunity to kind of have, have sexual liaisons with your, with your loved one.

Talking of the rage though, that's where things got difficult because during this time there was the reformation of Society of Manners, and the Reformation of Society of Manners was an organization that was established to really cut down and cut out this, behavior particularly of Sodomites and really wanted to kind of cut down on that.

And it encouraged people to snitch and it encouraged people to go to the reformation of society. It was an organization that was set up or to the police and snitch and sort of tell, uh, uh, uh, if you knew somebody was a Molly boy and if you knew that sodomy was occurring, um, there were certain areas in London, um, sodomites Alley, kind of, it says on the tin, but Sodomites Walk, sodomites Alley near Holden.

And you know, you might get people that would be going there to see if they could catch out. Somebody who was trying to engage in physical enjoyment with another. Um, and then they would kind of get snitched on and, you know, then they would be spied on. And if they were caught, they were sent to and they were.

It was a dangerous time to be living, but I think it was still becoming somewhat it was becoming quite popular among the, you know, we had about 500,000 people as a population in the 17 hundreds in London, so half a million people. So there was enough people to have a queer community, a gay community of kind of men who were wanting to express themselves and to take the risk of, um, of having, uh, sex and to dress up as a molly.

And obviously you had people who, who were guards on the doors and, you know, so it did exist for a certain amount of time and kind of got away with it. But unfortunately, there were these raids, which, which happened as well. Do you know what the statistic is for that time period? As far as people who were taken to Ty Burn?

Um. Yeah, for my research I, I don't have a specific number for, but I think between 1533 and 1700 there, I think I read somewhere there was about, um, nearly a thousand hangings. Okay. And then between 1700 for sodomy we're saying. Mm-hmm. But between seventeen hundred and eighteen sixty five, eighteen eighty five, when the law changed to gross indecency there was significantly more like, uh, a 1500 or so.

And I think that really that's because of the Reformation Society was, uh, of manners was managing to catch more people. So yeah. Um. It was, it would've been. And sometimes they were very, very young as well, and often parents if they thought that their children were sodomites, would stop them to the authorities and allow them to be taken off to be hung at.

Tbe And tbe, as you mentioned, was right in the center, uh, near Marble Arch. So, and these, these would be affairs where they would attract huge crowds and have people, gleaming from watching people being hung purely because they'd been caught having sex with a member of the same sex.

So it would've been really harrowing for people to, uh, to experience that. Of course. So when, now when did you say they ended this practice of hanging? Well, the law changed in 1885 to gross indecency. And as we, as you might know, you know, in the most. The most famous of people who got charged for in two years in prison, the maximum sentence then, and it changed from hanging to a maximum for gross indecency to a maximum of two years in prison with two years hard labor.

And Oscar Wilde was the first, certainly the first celebrity that that kind of got charged with that and spent his time. In Redding in jail. Uh, and I think really they tried to make a scapegoat out of him as well, but it was an absolutely huge court case. There was three court cases, one for libel when he sued, um, the marks of Queen Spree for libel.

And then actually the, in the main court case against Oscar, the first hearing, um, there was a hung jury, but then in the second he was sent down. Um, so yeah, the law changed 1885. And that was gross and decency. Other people that you might be familiar with who fell under the same charge were people like Alan Turing.

He was chemically castrated for being charged with gross and decency and then obviously took his own life. Somebody who, some could say single-handedly kind of helped the end of the second World War, saving millions of lives known as the Codebreaker and the Godfather of computers.

So really quite tragic. That's such a a fan, you know, a fantastic humanitarian. He saved so many lives because of his skill. Mm-hmm. Was, um, move to take his own life because of his sexuality and his chemical castration. But actually in 2000, in the UK in 2017 we had a law that was passed called Turing's Law.

And anyone who'd previously been charged with gross ind decency was pardoned. So Turing's Law. But 2017, some would say a, a little too late, but at least posthumously now we can recognize some of these people. And anyone who was charged of gross misconduct has been pardoned now.

But yeah, I mean, the hanging ritual was something that attracted, I say, attracted a lot of attention and, these poor Molly boys. And when I read the books where they were having such, a wonderful time being able to express themselves the thought. In the back of their heads of God, if this place was graded any minute now, and we we're fought doing anything that's untoward and they can prove, you know, that we're, uh, sodomites then know you, you end in the gallow or end.

I mean even the ies, I mean, people forget that the people who didn't go to TA who are hung would sometimes, you know, need to do weeks in the pill is 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM and people would throw boulders if it was for theft, you tended to find that people would throw rotten vegetables and human waste over them.

But if they knew that they were a molly. And they hadn't quite proved sodomy, but they were still being charged with whatever it was. Um, then, you know, people would really take it out on them when they're in the prison and people died in the pill because they were there from for 12 hours and people would be chucking stones and rocks at them and they would get bleeds on their head and everything.

So, you know, people think they got away with it by gonna the pill east, but some of them didn't.

That's distressing. It's interesting because when I lived in, uh, London in 2012, I thought there just, and, and it, it was true. Like you, it seemed like you guys were, are way ahead of us, in the United States when it comes to attitudes about gay marriage and just people loving who they love.

It's not our business. It's extreme. I mean, has much changed. I mean, oh dear. I mean, not that we need to talk about the current situation. Yeah. But you know, I have Americans on my tour now who look at how things are regressing in the states and how, you know, the UK does seem to be still kind of wanting to move forward.

We still have all our DEI departments and things, so, I dunno if that's always been the case and I dunno anything about American history of that time. But I don't, I mean, even if you think that we were. Advanced. Um, I still think it was really horrendous as a time to live. I mean, I would love to risk, to go back in time and risk a week and just to be in London and to smell the future.

It smells that must have been on the streets and to see what kind of foods they were eating and the way that they were addressing. But I can only imagine some people might have got some kind of a thrill from being in these Molly houses. People take risks with having sex in public places and thinking, you know, if you get caught you could get arrested.

And I wonder if there's a similar mentality of this kind of thirst for excitement and this thirst for being caught but not being caught, you know? And but actually it, I do think there was a lot of, there was love around at that time and there was relationships and um, there's evidence of women who, were living their lives as men who changed their names, who identified as men and looked like men and got away with living in a relationship. Uh, same, same relationships. Um, and the same men who might have kind of dressed as women and tried to kind of hide the fact that they were really a man, just so that they could live with their partner and their loved one, um, a week of my life just to experience knowing what that time was like in London.

But it must have been pretty awful, to be fair. Yeah. So who, tell us about one of the most famous Mollys you had said you were gonna talk a little bit about that. Well, we know really about mo culture predominantly. I mean, when people tell stories, you know, PE anyone can write a book and, it could be fiction, but we pretty much rely factory with queer history on, court transcripts, very reliable and love letters, also very reliable. There's no reason why a love letter from the 17 or 18 hundreds would've been Doctor on Not True. So we can rely on those. FI think. But we do know about a particular court case which involved probably the most famous of all the Molly Boys.

And that was someone by the name of John Cooper. And his drag name was Princess Athena and they lived off the Strand and they were known as a Molly Messenger and used to kind of coordinate a lot between the Molly houses and the other Molly boys. They were very much a figure in London. Um, used to borrow dresses from a dress maker and used to look entirely kind of fabulous.

And one of her first kind of public outings. Was at the, the very glamorous Ruter Alfresco in 1721, I think. I can't remember exactly, 1720s in the, and the voxel pleasure gardens. And so Athena was really getting a reputation for kind of being very glamorous and I think was kind of, known about in kind of by society would get invited to kind of various events and dress up and kind of was known about just due to their character.

And yeah, so I think she saw herself as a bit of a leader of the Molly Boys. One would say, I mean, I'm, I'm speculating somewhat, but. Anyway, an event happened in 1726 where Princess Surfing, well, John Cooper was in the tavern drinking, and, uh, somebody propositioned him and, you know, he made a bit of a come on.

And so INE or John Cooper was kind of up for it. He was stressed as John at the time, and they went down an alleyway. And then this person got out a knife and demanded that John Cooper took his clothes off and that they exchanged clothes. Um, because obviously his clothes were somewhat nicer. So this was just a, a robbery and.

You know, John, John Cooper decided very bravely that he wasn't gonna stand for that. And, you know, and he, he got a group of friends who went back to the tavern the following day and they made a kind of arrest uh, of this person. And there was a court case. And I guess we kind of, we, that's quite a brave thing to do because when it went to court the perpetrator was saying that while I was being propositioned down in alleyway, it was nothing to do with me.

And unfortunately, you know, the end of the court case isn't in favorable to, uh, John Cooper because, um, the perpetrator was acquitted. But it's the first time that we really know about a court case that was. And know there was this element of kind of homophobia. We know that in that court case as well, that Thena frequently was using they, them pronouns.

Um, and we know about other Molly boys because when they gave their witness statements, they gave their names and their Molly names as well. So, thankfully, because of that court case, we have the knowledge of the Molly names that, that were used and, you know, the general public who might have thought, yeah, well you're fabulous when you are Justice Raffin and we've seen you kind of walking the streets and going to these events and we think it's all very large dire and very, uh, enjoyable.

But actually you probably are a sodomite and we don't agree with that. And so, you know, when it pushed, came to curb sho and it came to a jury making a decision, even though the facts were that fin had been mugged the jury couldn't see past the fact that they were more likely to take the word of the other person because they said that, you know, he tried it on with him in the alleyway.

So. But surfing really goes down, I suppose, in history if you were to kind of Google first drag Queen of London, and I think really that's quite an accolade to have. So princess surfing really is recognized as our first drag queen and was very much pivotal in the kind of formation I think, of these kind of Molly houses and that Molly house subculture and arranging messages to go to and from the houses in between the other Mollies.

There's really not a lot of coverage, you know, about Yeah, well any of this topic, you know, there really isn't because it was a short period of time. You can, you know, if you type in Princess Seraphina normally it's the same kind of image that comes up. I'm not sure if that's a representation of Seraphina.

But he wasn't famous enough to have. Drawings, paintings made of him. So I think there's, uh, guess some guesswork done in terms of an image of how he looked. But we've got some sort of idea of what the clothing was like and how men would look like, kind of dressed in those kind of beautiful big lins in these big huge wigs and everything that you can imagine.

So yeah, that's, um, yeah, kind of. So it was okay to dress in drag? I wouldn't say that it was okay. No, I, no, I mean, don't misunderstand me. I think that ena, it sounds to me from the research that I've done that. Don Give was an incredibly kind of strong character and a bit of a tour de force, and really owned this look and the persona that he had as Sarah Athena.

And I think at these sort of, maybe these high society events and these masquerade balls, but to turn up, he would kind of be accepted, um, wearing these, um, cross-dressing into these wonderful clothes. But I can't imagine that it, you know, that there was people wandering down the streets in, in men dressed as, as women.

So no, I wouldn't go as far to say that it was okay to cross dress. I think maybe if you are at a ball or a garden party or a masquerade and you can look as good. We believe Princess Serafina did, and you can carry it off. Mm-hmm. This is the first time I think, in society people were kind of looking at that and looking at it in a, some said that Serafina was able to do these incredible, courteous very slow, kind of low curies and in the heels, and some women allegedly were kind of watch as he curtsey because he was, he was so good at doing this very elegant curtsey.

So I think it was seen as sort of fascinating. Mm-hmm. Um, but there would've been a backlash to that with certain people as well. But I think John Cooper was the kind of person who could carry off. And obviously the fact that he was brave enough to take this person to court, knowing that.

That would, he would be subjected to investigating into his private life. Yeah. The fact was he was robbed and that was what he wanted to go to court for. But the fact that, you know, he was insistent on using they them pronouns and the fact that the witnesses gave their Molly names. It's the first case, and I think we're going right back to 1726.

So it was all quite brave to kind of come out and do that at that time. Huge. Absolutely huge. Yeah. Um,

and you've kind of, you know, you've, you've investigated this area 'cause you were kind of looking at bedlam weren't you? And the kind of places that the mental institutions at the time, you know, and I wonder whether or not I haven't got any evidence of it, but it wouldn't surprise me if, um, molly's I, I'd be interested to research it if to see whether sure anyone convicted was sent to Bedlam and, and, and if it was seen as a kind of mental illness to um, be attracted to the same sex. Is there anything you've found out, anything about that in your research? I haven't. I, my book is coming out, Bedlam the case of Lord Simon is coming out in Octo in September as a soft launch.

October is gonna be the, um, the actual book launch. But for the purpose of my book, I did not really investigate that. What I did kind of investigate, and two of the characters in my book are a queer couple, obviously hidden. And, um, a lot of that was ba based on some of my research, but, um, more kind of like conjecture and trying to.

Think about what it would be like to be, you know, for two men to be in love with each other and how that would look and feel. And so a lot of that is, I write fiction, so it is fiction. But I also assume, and I can't say I've come across anything specific in Bedlam. 'cause this is the 1500, so we're talking pretty much 1554, um Oh right, okay.

I was significantly earlier. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So my main character is basically he finds himself in Bedlam and Insane asylum because he is basically a nobleman who is a sick alcoholic and his family's kind of done with him and he ends up in Bedlam and it's like, you're gonna have to live with that.

So it's, it's about his relationship. His fellow bedlam mites and how his salvation comes through those relationships. But yeah, I do have a, there'll be ongoing characters. Actually there's three characters and I do wanna do more research on, on it. And that's a really good question. And that's why I was asking you if you knew anything about, the queer community in the 15 hundreds.

It's, it's nebulous. It's hard to find information. Um, and I think one thing that's so compelling about, um, the Molly houses is that there is a lot of information. It might not all be reliable, but there is information. And the further back in history that we go, the less information is available about your kind of general population.

It's more about the, the, you know, court intrigue and politics mm-hmm. And that type of thing. I mean, there's a lot of information that's lost and we, you know, we know about, I mean, yeah. So there, it was a short period of time. I mean, I don't know much about queer history in the 15 hundreds 1533 buggery actors introduced.

So I'm not quite sure what was happening to people who were committing buggery before the Buggery Act, but I can't imagine that, it. They were, uh, it was a tour celebrated or accepted. Certainly after the Buggery Act, people would've been a lot more careful. Obviously back in the 17 hundreds when they introduced this Reformation Society of Manners to try to get more people to get caught 'cause of what they were doing.

In fact, it was that organization that did this sting operation on the most famous of all the Molly houses. And that was, um, that was mother claps Molly house. The one, the woman who run it was Margaret Clap. She was married to a baker and. You know, she sounds like a real fabulous character, you know, by all accounts, you know, she would love hearing the Molly Boys regaling her with stories of who they'd met down Sodomite Alley or she would help them to go and get dressed.

And she ran this house that apparently was very, the most popular of all the mall Molly houses. Just off, uh, field Lane in, in Holburn next to a bunch of grapes. And, I dunno how long they stayed off the radar for, but they managed it for a long time. But it was a very, very popular, booming kind of Molly house.

And yeah. Um. 1736 it was raided. Um, they think that, you know, one of the mollies that was going there was kind of a spy and snitching to the Reformation Society of Manos. So they had, they had a list of names of people that they were looking for, and they raided it in April. And they, yeah they arrested 40 people, uh, and 40 people.

And, you know, they would've been taken to Newgate Prison or to Cha Cross station. And, you know, they'd been on the back of horse and carriages and some reports I read were, you know, they weren't given the dignity. They might have taken their wigs off, but they would've still been in, kind of have met female makeup on their faces and they'd have been half dressed in women's clothing and been on the back of a horse and carriage.

Like I said before, you know. If you were a candle maker or a butcher or baker, you, you know, and people saw you or you know, and you were recognizable. People aren't gonna be shop, they're never gonna shop in your shop again. So even the people who weren't charged, they would've been vilified and ostracized from their custom and would, would've lost their livelihood because of it.

But three people were convicted of sodomy from that one raid. And yeah. So because of that one event, that was the first time really, there'd sort of been a multiple, uh, hanging based on one raid. And Margaret clap, bless her, you know, she, she was sentenced to two weeks in the Pillories and then two years in prison.

But there's no record of her ever arriving at prison. So it's assumed that she died in the pill. And that's because, you know, PE people would've stoned her to death probably. Mm-hmm. What was her name and that. Uh, Margaret Clap. CLA double P. And that was called Mother Claps Molly House. All the Molly houses would've had their names.

There are, that brings me nicely onto a couple of books I can mention to your readers. I'm absolutely honored that someone by the name of Richter Norton has recently accepted a friend request that I sent him on Facebook, and he started to like some of my posts, which I'm so honored by because I'm a massive fan of his book.

We've got mother Claps, Molly House by Richter Norton. Um, this is a nice book that's really explains the story of the subculture. Um, talks about Mother Cat, smiley house, but really goes into, uh, detail on that kind of the birth of the subculture and areas of London. And yeah, just explaining a lot more detail about what that subculture meant, um, and, and who existed within it.

And then there was a play by someone called Mark Ravenhill called Mother Clap, Molly House, a Mother Clap, Molly house mark Ravenhill also the playwright of a play called Shopping and Fucking, which was very out there, quite you know, I remember going to see it. And I also saw Mother Claps Molly House too, before I knew I was even gonna be doing tour guiding.

But it compares kind of modern day, culture to the mother, claps culture, and it switches between past and presents. And then I'm currently reading this wonderful book by someone that I had the pleasure of meeting recently, who's AJ West. And this book is called The Betrayal of Thomas. True.

And the Betrayal of Thomas True is just as from the most fantastic novel, beautifully written. It's a Sunday Times bestseller, and he's kind of used his knowledge and historical knowledge of Molly's at the time. Mm-hmm. And he basically used his mother clap as the main kind of Molly house in his story and has a main character and the various events that happened to him having just moved to London and experiencing becoming, uh, a Molly himself and how he gets the witness, kind of the crime and, and how, what kind of goes on with that.

And, yeah, I'm kind of halfway through it, so I, I can't sort of sell too much of it without knowing too much about what happens, but I'm absolutely enjoying it. It's absolutely beautifully written. His, his language skills just out this world. So, yeah. But that's it really. There's not many books on, on Molly House for Molly culture, so I would recommend those three if any of your readers are interested.

Okay. I'll put those in our, um, show notes. Um, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to share with us about this history? I don't think so, really. I mean, it, it's, you know, it's not a. I would say it's not an exhaustive topic. I mean, there's a recent book that came out called Queer Georgians but Molly Houses is kind of one chapter of that.

So I would say that queer Georgia and London is probably a larger subject, but if we're concentrating on Molly Houses and Molly Boys, I think we pretty much covered the main events, you know, events, the ceremonies, the rituals the period of time in London, the kind of various Molly names fin are in her court case, mother claps, Molly house and the raid of that.

There will of course be other tales and I'm, no I'm no. I wouldn't call myself an expert on the subject, you know, I'm read up on the subject, but mm-hmm. I'm sure people can find out more information about it. Richter Norton himself actually is an academic and on his webpage he has a whole load of court transcripts and people want to delve deeper.

His website, a lot more detail. Even Margaret Claps court case at the old Bailey is, is all there transcripted. So I think I would say pretty much for, in terms of that subject, pretty much kind of covered all the areas certainly that I'm aware of, that I'm able to talk about. I would say. Well, I do have a couple other questions.

Um, one of 'em is, why is this history important?

I think like we were talking about with Hidden, hidden History I heard AJ West say on a podcast recently that. If he'd lived in this time, he couldn't see himself having been a Molly boy. And I can absolutely say the same thing for myself. I think that if I'd lived around this time, I would ab you know, I came out at 15 Anne-Marie, so, you know, I've always been pretty sure of who I am and pretty confident in who I am and my, and my sexual orientation.

And it's, again, I'm just repeating what he said 'cause it really reverberated with me in that, you know, these were people. These are real people. You know, we may read history sometimes I think that we read about kings and queens. Mm-hmm. And we can't really understand what it really would've been like to live in the palaces or to, to have experienced that, that kind of life and that medieval world or whatever.

But I think when we would really look at the kind, this why it means a lot to me, it's just because these were real people and they felt the same way about members of the same sex that I do. And Castigated doesn't even touch it. You know, if you're caught you know, you'll get a noose put around your neck.

So I really do feel that, you know, some of these people would've been in love and I find it abominable to think that we've had, we've lived in a culture and I have a history where people were sentenced to death. Purely because of the fact that they had an attraction to members of the same sex.

Unfortunately, in 2026, there are still some countries that do that. And I just I, I like to feel that, you know, we, I like to personalize these people and realize that they are real people living in my city. And I live in London Bridge, and so it's quite an old area. And, you know, I like to just think sometimes when I'm walking my dog absolutely named Molly.

Um, that, um. Had I been a Molly boy, you know, how scared would I have been and how would I have hidden my love? Or where would I have gone looking for sexual gratification and, you know, which Molly house would I have gone to? Mm-hmm. And, would I have had any friends and would I have been able to keep it secret?

And, you know, so that's why it means so much to me because I, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like I'm reading parts of a history book now. Mm-hmm. It feels like I'm reading a life that I would've led had I been alive at that time as well. You know? Well, I love this. I love that you're doing this. And I will say there's more to your tour than the mos and anybody who is going to London, I will encourage them and put a link out to where they can find you when they're there to do your, uh, tour.

Because, you know, it made me look at the city differently. When I went on your tour, because you talk about, you know, you talk about more recent history. Interestingly, I don't know if this hurts your ego, but history that you literally lived through, which I, I get chills thinking about the stories you tell, you told me, but, um, it is, I think it's important.

Somebody told me once, when you're doing a history tour, people generally won't remember facts and figures. And thankfully, I'm not very good at facts and figures, as you might have known from this podcast. I trip over dates and things, and then I don't wanna get the dates wrong 'cause I don't want listeners to go.

I know that that wasn't then it was there, you know, it is just simply a date. I, I might have the right walkup and the dates I've given, I've been careful to try and give the right ones, but but people don't, but it's not emotive If I give a date to you and say, mm-hmm, mm-hmm oh, the, the, the Oscar Wild, you know, went to prison in 1885 because of gross in decency.

But then that doesn't. But if I tell you that. When he was stood on the platform at Clapham Junction Station, and the same people that used to shake his hand and celebrate them and enjoy his works were the same people that were throwing rotten vegetables and feces at him and calling him an abomination of nature and everything name under any homophobic slur under the sun.

And the fact that he cried in his prison cell allegedly every day at the same time for a year, and wrote in the worst part of his incarceration of two years was the 20 minutes when he was changing train to get to be taken to Redding. That's an emotive story. That's an emotional thing that you can think, oh, that poor guy standing on a platform when he used to be so grand and, and eloquent and, you know, so, so ur to having his head had his head shaved and being in prison scrubs and being, having food chucked over him, that, that makes people think.

About what that would be like as a person. And so for my tour, I do inject some stories about myself because I'm 52, I came out at 15. I've seen the, I've seen the, the LGBT community LGBTQIA a plus if you want to do the full acronym, community change a lot over the years. And, and I feel that. It helps to kind of, it resonates to give an emotive stance.

Mm-hmm. Um, be it talking about HIV and aids or be it talking about my first time to have a nightclub. I don't want it to be the Marcus show, but I do, I do want people to know that I've lived through some of it. And people burning effigies of Margaret Thatcher was for a reason. There was was a reason why they were so angry.

It's not just that story. And so when I saw people burning F Epstein, Margaret Thatcher, my father, who was in the military, who was an absolute thatcherite, I needed to then question my reality of going, well, I thought she was great. 'cause my dad said, she's great. So why isn't she great? She'd done. And then when I realized, you know, about her actions and the introduction of Clause 28, which was a law that meant that people weren't allowed, schools were no longer allowed to even talk about or promote same sex relationships.

It got me passionate about, about why things were wrong in life and why people shouldn't do certain things and why it was okay to be who I was. So thank you for saying that. But I do absolutely try to put a, a personal spin on my walking towards for that reason, just so people come away with it, having felt this isn't just history, but this is how it's affected the person's life who stood in front of them.

And that's emotional truth is so much more powerful than, you know, that's why we're armchair historians because we're not academics. We're not hung up on, the dates and that type of thing. And I think that what we try to get. To through armchair historians is that resonating emotional truth you just talked about.

And I think, you know, that that was one of the reasons why I especially love the tour. I love the history and, you know, this happened then, but, um, I suck with dates myself. And what I try to get at in my historical fiction is, you know, that kind of emotional truth. And so I really appreciate that about you and your tour.

What is the one thing that you want people to remember about this history? If they walk away just one fact that, or truth that you want them to remember. Oh, that's a really good question, and it's not something I've ever really thought about really. I mean, if it's one thing I don't know. I mean, look, it's really difficult because.

I do like on the tour talking about the birth ceremony because it's funny and you know, there's an element of like showmanship to it and there's an element of theater to it. Mm-hmm. And it's kind of, and I don't want people to think that it was really totally repressive. You know, there are things I'd say, well just remember that, you know, this event happened.

Mm-hmm. But thinking about it in that context, I have to be very conscious of my tour that I'm talking about repression quite a lot. Yeah. We had an awful, we had an awful bombing in one of our pubs and that killed four people and they always say three, but one of the women was pregnant. So I always like to count that life.

Mm-hmm. And and then I go to the next stop and talk about HIV and aids. And I'm very aware that this is quite, emotionally draining and a little bit I gotta kind of be aware that I'm taking people on a walkin tour and I want 'em be interested. Mm-hmm. But if there was one takeaway, to remember that whilst people were living in this repressive society and being castigated and vilified and you know, all of these other things. There was a lot of happiness and there was a lot of love, and I think that, we still say in 2026, love is love and queer Georgian love was love too.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, to take away the fact that there would've been some people who were. Happy in themselves. They had to live very differently and very carefully, and they had to be very mindful of how they operated. Fortunately, they had to be very clandestine and all this broken dagger kind of lifestyle.

But I'm sure that there was a lot of laughter, and I'm sure when people got together in a Molly house, you know, even though in the back of their minds they'd be scared of a rage, they would've been enjoying dressing up and putting on each other and getting, so, I like that there, that there was some fun.

I don't like to think that these people lived there relatively short lives compared to today, constantly in fear. Mm-hmm. And constantly worried that they're gonna end up in with a Noosa on their neck. I like the idea that there was that areas times where they were super happy and laughing a lot and loving their lives, and I hope that that is the case.

Yeah. Well I think, and you know, I, the. Contemporary, what's going on in the United States is not lost on me. A lot of the parallels I was thinking of with regards to MAGA and if you're brown and have an accent, um, yeah. Then you could be taken down and put into a concentration. It's really not dissimilar, is it?

No. To think about. It's not. It isn't. Yeah. What a sad, what a sad state of affairs to think that, that we're talking 300 years later and, you know, I mean, we don't even need to go down. I'm not even gonna, I choose not to mention that person's name, but I think for people to be living in that kind of fear.

Yeah. It, you know, have we really not come that far where we've learned lessons? But just to put a happier note on it, I just think that people who have the strength of character to know that there's nothing wrong with. How they've been born, be it through their, be it. If they need to change who they've been born to someone else to make them happier.

But nobody has the right to to challenge your sense of worth and your sense of what is right when it comes to who you love and what you look like. That's beautiful. And so the other thing I was gonna say about that is in the parallel is, so my mother, uh, was born in Belgium. Her family fled the Germans and as they were coming through Belgium, they called it the rape of Belgium.

Anyways, all those things really horrible, but sorry, with this person we're not gonna mention and my. Utter horror and fear about what was to come. I kept drawing back on my mother's experience and her cousin who was a courier for the underground, and I kept kind of mulling that idea over in my head.

And it kind, this is gonna kind go back to what you were talking about, about living your life and that there's joy and that how can I resist? But not like totally emotionally fall into despair. And there is something about that, there's something beautiful about finding a way to do that. And I found like the more that I thought about it, the more I researched it the more that I realized that in spite of the fact that, you know, they end up in my family ends up in France.

The Germans end up occupying France. They end up. Not only occupying France, but the town that my mother was a war refugee in, they end up, um, having a military base. The Germans do there. Mm-hmm. I think about the stories, like there are some stories, there are some things that happened during that time that were hysterical.

It was awful. But, you know, you, you find a way in spite of it to carry on as you guys like to say, and to carry on, not just carry on, not just, uh, survive, but, uh, to survive in meaningful ways. And I especially loved the story that you tell about the christening and like it's so rich in symbolism. You know, and, and come, you know, it's the idea of coming out and having your, your identity and like, it's a birth.

And I think that's especially beautiful. I'm sorry I cut you off. You were gonna say something? No, I just think we were saying, I think as, as decent human people, you know, we have a human, human, uh, a humanitarian kind of reflex that when we, if we actually think about Auschwitz or we think about. In the gall being, waiting to be taken to be hung for your sexuality.

It's too much for our mm-hmm. Thought process to know exactly what that was like. So we live in hope that, you know, that there were people that they, that there was some happiness or that there was some joy, or that people lived their lives up until this awful, horrendous event happening. That there had been some happiness there.

And I think that's the way, if I think about it, the way that I kind of process it and the way that I kind of think, you know, okay, so if that person kind of had their life taken, but with a no, you know, in their mid twenties, I just hope that there'd been a lot of laughter and there'd been some love and some great sex before that happened because, you know, that's just, that's just, you know, I want to know that people have had lived their best life and, you know, it, it's only the, the way that we can kind of process it and, you know, that's what I, I'm glad that the, the Christian story resonated with you because.

This book actually the AJ West book about the portrayal of Thomas True, he really brings the Molly house to life. 'cause he gives long descriptive details of what's happening in the Molly House and the shows that they're doing and miming and all this kind of stuff. And, and music. Music and stuff.

And I kind of like to think, oh, that sounds like it was really fun. I'd love to step in there and know what that was like. And I, I would love to know what I was wearing and how camp my outfit would be, and what my makeup would look like. And, and then suddenly you are in a happy place. You know, you're like, oh, that sounds fun.

Rather than just thinking, well, when we think of history, it's very dark and repressive and gloomy and oppressive and dangerous and, and scary. So, yeah being a humanitarian and caring and loving about people, and particularly about my own community, I just hope that there. There were kind of pockets of kind of real fun and laughter and happiness in the time that the outside world was trying to bring a lot of doom and gloom.

I hope that there was all that joy and laughter. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's mixed. It's definitely mixed and I think to, take part in your community, in a Molly house, you know, there is something that is, um, oh, I can't think of the word, but it's saying yes to yourself and who you are in spite of what the rest of the world is saying.

It's like, in a way it's social justice for yourself, and there must be something powerful in that. I can only imagine 'cause I write fiction. So that's what I do. I always try to imagine. This has given me a lot of food for thought. Where can we find you? I mean, obviously, uh, you are, you're doing the tours.

Yeah. What's the name of your company? Oh, so my tour company is called Queer London Tours. Um, I have a social media presence, so I'm on Instagram as queer London Tours and my website address is queer london tours.com. And when you go onto my website, if you wanna contact me, there's a contact button there.

You can reach me through WhatsApp on there. And then I have my booking platforms on the website. So should you want to kind of book on on one of my tours, you can go onto Queer London tours and just tap uh, I use Out Savvy, uh, which is an, I dunno if you do, you have out Savvy in the us You're familiar with it?

No. It's like Eventbrite, it's very similar. It's a very similar booking platform to Eventbrite. But it's specifically for the LG bt lgbtq i plus community. And it'll be exhibitions or club nights or walking tours. Ah, okay. Or cookery classes, the drag queens or whatever, whatever it is. Yeah. So, so that's the one that I get most of my business and bookings from.

But thank you for, um, thank you for asking. And if you, you know, if few readers do wanna come on the tour or they just wanna find out any more information, they're more than, more than welcome to reach out. Right. Um, and you're you're also still acting. I'm working on quite a lot at the moment. Yeah, it's, I mean obviously there's a lot of platforms.

Um, now with, um, it's getting dark in here, um, with all the streaming platforms, you know, you've got Amazon Prime and Hulu and Netflix and blah, blah, blah. So there's lots of stuff that's happening at the minute. I've worked previously on slow Horses and there's a new season of that's coming out, so I don't think I'm breaking an NDA by saying that because that's wrapped.

So I've got a nice sort of featured role in that. So look out for me in the next season of that. And there's a lot of exciting films and. There is a nice LGBT film coming out. There was a play last year that Ian McKellan was in, and it's kind of about finding love later on in life through the love of dogs.

And Ian McKellan goes to Hamstead Heath and meets someone through dog walking and I was absolutely honored to be filmed with that with Molly in the opening credits. There's several of us dog walkers that do this nice little choreograph sequence. And that's called Frank and Percy, and that'll be coming out I think this summer.

So, um, yeah, keep your eyes open for that too. Yeah. But I dunno, there's other stuff which is Netflix e which I can't say otherwise. I'll get, I'll get in lots of trouble. No, yeah. Well, I will, um. I with the episode, I'll put your picture up there. So I'm just gonna say to my audience, keep your eyes peeled and some of the famous shows that you like to watch on the streaming networks.

And, uh, you might just see get a glimpse of Marcus. Well, I hope that this subject has been of interest and I dunno how it ties in with your other topics, but, um, yeah, you know, I hope that there has been some stories that have interested people and, you know, I, I want people to learn about this topic and to know that this is a subculture that existed and mm-hmm.

Um, it's lovely of you to promote me and that's very kind of you. And obviously everybody's super welcome, uh, if they come on my tour. And I just love, I love meeting people and I love taking people on a tour. I had a mother bring someone on her tour. This is a nice note to kind of happy note to kind of end on, I guess.

But, you know, I get all sorts of people from all over and I get people who are transitioning and I get people who. Challenge me with pronouns because they maybe feel my presenting and their pronouns are he them or he him. And that's really good for me. And I believe that we live in a world where we're in a gray area right now.

Mm-hmm. And I think that pronouns, people don't understand it. And they look at someone and they see what they think is. And so they'll think. They'll assume that's a she her. But I think we're transitioning and I'm thinking, I don't know. I reckon 10 to 15 years, I don't think it's gonna be that long before we just simply won't live In a society where we make an assumption of who we see, we won't assume.

And by assuming then we don't offend. And then when someone tells us their pronouns, we know to respect it and there will, but there will be a transitional phase. But I had this woman on my tour about a month ago, and her son was 15 and she was from the States and she'd booked my walking tour because her son had recently come out to her.

And as a surprise, she'd booked my tour to show her solidarity to her 15-year-old son. Mm. And I really don't think that there's many tours in London that can do that, and you could go on any kind of historical walking tour, but I really, you know, I saw them hugging a lot whilst I was doing the tour, when I was talking, and how they were understanding how difficult life might have been for me back in the eighties.

And really, um, it really is wonderful and I really feel impassioned about knowing that I can bring that to someone. Mm-hmm. Not only just for their visit to London, but for their relationship. Sure. To try to bring that joy and, and how moving and wonderful for a mom to kind of use me as a kind of catapult to create this kind of history and knowledge and relationship progression with her son because of the fact that she, he, her son's come out and she's been so cool as to, to express an interest in, in queer history to show solidarity. So we, and that was an American mom and kids, so no matter who is at the top of the administration love is love and there, and there's lovely stories like that coming through where they're not listening to what people in power say.

They're listening to their hearts and listening to what their kids are telling them. Yeah. Wow. That's beautiful. Thank you Marcus, for being here. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you. Love to love being here. It's been nice to talk about it, you know, as you can tell. Often, I've gotta be careful because when I do my tours now I've only, I'm supposed to do my tour in two hours.

And the more I read, the more I learn, the more I kind of find each stop, I've got more to say and I have to self-edit myself because I always joke at the beginning of the tour and I say it on every tour. Now I'm like, oh, you guys seem great. I, you'll probably end up getting a bit of a director's edit today 'cause I'm in a kind of good mood.

But I say that every day because the, I can't get the tool shorter than two and a half hours right now, but I have to be careful. Sometimes people say that they're really glad that they got a little extra half hour. But it is a subject that I find passionate and about and I love talking about.

So thank you for letting me talk about it on your podcast today.

Thanks for spending time with me on Armchair Historians. If you enjoyed this episode, the easiest way to support the show is to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you can leave a rating or review or share the episode with a friend who loves history. You will find my website and links to everything we discussed in the show notes, along with ways to support the show more directly, whether that's joining the community, supporting financially, or simply helping more listeners to discover the podcast.

And don't forget. The show notes also include a free short story download that introduces readers to bedlam from my soon to be released historical fiction series. Until next time, keep asking questions because history is anything but finished.