The gay diaries of Mr Lucas

‘Today I was tried before a brigadier and four other officers - a very shattering ordeal, in the latter part of which I felt sick and ill. The prosecution was fair; the judge advocate was fair, and his summing up favourable; my defending officer, though he bungled his job, was at least moderately convincing. Yet the court (swayed, I believe, by the brigadier) found me guilty (which I had expected) and sentenced me to be cashiered and to serve six months’ imprisonment - which I had not expected.’ These words were written exactly seventy-five years ago today by Russell Lucas, a British officer whose private diaries have survived as one of the clearest, most candid records of mid-century gay life. It is thanks to the journalist Hugo Greenhalgh that the diaries have been edited and published.

Lucas was born in the interwar years and spent most of his working life in Whitehall, moving through clerical and administrative posts typical of the postwar civil service. He lived largely alone, with a small and cautious circle of friends, and confronted the long period during which homosexual acts remained criminalised in England. He began keeping a diary in 1949 and continued for decades, chronicling nights in London pubs and clubs, friendships and infatuations, encounters with the law, the rhythms of office life, and the gradual liberalisation of attitudes from the 1950s onwards. He died in relative obscurity, leaving behind a bundle of notebooks that remained with his family until they were passed to Greenhalgh, who edited them for publication as The Diaries of Mr Lucas - Life in 1960s Gay London. Some pages can be previewed at Googlebooks.

Greenhalgh, who grew up in London and studied Modern Languages at Exeter College, Oxford, first came to prominence after leading the campaign that forced the university to recognise same-sex partnerships on equal terms with heterosexual ones. He later built a career in financial and business journalism, including long periods at the Hugo before shifting towards cultural reporting and LGBTQ history. 

Greenhalgh’s editorial work on the Lucas diaries involved reconstructing missing sequences, deciphering coded passages and cross-referencing names, dates and incidents against public records. The result is a vivid portrait of a man navigating a society that permitted him little honesty, and of a gay world stretching from pre-decriminalisation shadows to the beginnings of modern visibility (see The Guardian or The New Humanist for reviews).

What follows are several extracts from Lucas’s diaries (as edited by Greenhalgh) focusing on the events of autumn 1950, when Lucas - having rejoined the army after his National Service - was stationed in Düsseldorf and arrested by the German police after an encounter in a public lavatory. His account of the arrest, the days in custody, the return to barracks and the court martial that ended his military career must be counted among the most sustained personal descriptions of such a case.

18 October 1950

‘At 6 p.m. I was a useful and respected staff officer taking a walk; at 7 p.m. I was under arrest for an alleged indecent assault offence with a young German who reported me. After interrogation by Finnerson [of the Special Investigations Branch of the military police] until after midnight, I was removed to the 1st Norfolk barracks to spend the remainder of the night in a dismal guardroom under escort of a 2nd lieutenant Sanderson - an agreeable, bespectacled subaltern who no doubt found the situation as disagreeable as I did. So my career as an officer comes to an end, sordidly.

Our hapless lieutenant was released the following morning from ‘close arrest at 11 a.m.’, to my relief and, I should fancy, that of poor second lieutenant Sanderson. Lunch at the Rhine Centre was followed by the journey to Bad Oeynhausen, during which I sat with my thoughts, except for a few words with an elderly civilian in my carriage. How I envied him.’

20 October 1950

‘I must say, Major Miller has been wonderfully kind. As I waited for Lt. Col. Alexander this morning, he remarked that ‘no man knows what another man has to bear’, spoke a few consoling words about the comforts of our religion, and shook my hand. The colonel, too, though he said little, was most kind in his manner. Until my re-arrest and court martial, I am carrying on with my normal duties. My colleagues believe I have been recalled for a Court of Inquiry on the traffic accident in which I have recently been involved. What they will say when they learn the truth, I prefer not to think. Meanwhile, work goes on . . .’

21 October 1950

‘On Wednesday evening last, at seven, I was in the hands of the Düsseldorf police, accused of an indecent assault on a young German in a lavatory on the Kleverplatz. In point of fact, the young fellow was one that, coming back and forth to this lavatory several times, had persuaded me he was comme ça. When I perceived him masturbating, I was sure of it, and approached him, whereon he departed and presently two Kriminalpolizei men in plain clothes arrive, arrest me and, after much talk at the police station, hand me over to the military police. [. . .]

Yet in the face of the German’s positive testimony and the absence of any reason why he should lie, no court martial can but find me guilty. I expect three years’ gaol at most, nine months at least; thereafter, God knows. I must be dismissed from the civil service as well as discharged with ignominy from the military.’

His sense of injustice is tempered, perhaps amusingly for us today, by the fact that not only did he not actually do what he was accused of, but his chances of proving that were virtually nil.’

18 November 1950

‘On Monday, after thirty-three days of waiting, is my trial by General Court Martial for gross indecency. I have no doubt of the outcome - I shall be convicted and dismissed from the service, and my career ruined, all because of a moment’s imprudence. The young German who for some sinister motive of his own reported me to the police after acting in the most suggestive manner, and masturbating in front of me, has done more than he expected - though I appreciate my dangerous situation and realize that in no long time I shall, for the first time in my life, have no occupation and no source of income, I cannot yet feel more than a general apprehension. Terror and dismay will no doubt come later; at present regret that this catastrophe should come so soon and that the occasion of my fall should be so mean and sordid are my chief emotions, mixed with anger and contempt for my denouncer and gratitude to my soldier friends for their sympathetic letters. Had I been arrested for sodomy with, say, Gunner McAdam, I’d have been better pleased - the affair would have been on a nobler and more romantic plane.’

20 November 1950

‘Today I was tried before a Brigadier and four other officers (one major and three captains) - a very shattering ordeal, in the latter part of which I felt sick and ill. The prosecution was fair; the judge advocate was fair, and his summing up favourable; my defending officer, though he bungled his job, was at least moderately convincing. Yet the court (swayed, I believe, by the Brigadier) found me guilty (which I had expected) and sentenced me to be cashiered and to serve six months’ imprisonment - which I had not expected. Lieutenant ‘Porky’ Gale, RWK, tried before me, has the same sentence for nine charges of selling stores: and he, I, and our two escorts will occupy the mess until our sentences are confirmed and we are removed to gaol. God be compassionate to all poor souls in prison or awaiting imprisonment.’