The Milkman's On His Way
The Milkman's On His Way
The MilkMan’s On His Way by David Rees
Published 1 June 2024
Sir Ian McKellen
“For some, this honest tale of young love was an affront to their prejudices. To some of us it was a sign we were not alone. It remains as touching and relevant as ever – a gay classic.
David Rees (1936-1993) was the author of over thirty works, the majority being young adult novels. He was also part of the burgeoning gay journalism scene of the late 1970s, and regularly wrote reviews and articles for magazines and newspapers, including Gay News and Gay Times.
In the late 1960s Rees moved to Exeter. Many of his stories are set in Devon and Cornwall, including his Carnegie Medal winning historical fiction, The Exeter Blitz (1978).
Between 1968-1984 he worked as a Lecturer in Education at the University of Exeter, and the educational dimension of young adult fiction inspired his writing, especially themes of identity and sexuality. Quintin’s Man (1976) and In the Tent (1979) featured gay protagonists but The Milkman’s on His Way (1982) was his boldest attempt to foreground the experience of gay teenagers in his stories. Other novels like The Hunger (1986), a gay historical romance set during the 1840 Great Famine, were inspired by Rees’ Irish family background.
From 1985 David Rees was living with AIDS, an experience explored in his adult novel The Wrong Apple (1987). He continued to write until his death in 1993 from AIDS-related illness.
“It was good to be Ewan, I said to myself, and good to be here doing this. I’m no longer a muddled kid: this is man’s estate.”
Ewan Macrae is gay. At the turn of the 1980s, being queer in a Cornish seaside town seems impossible.
The teenage world he lives in is obsessed with girls, jobs and surfing, yet the handsome Leslie - his ripped surfing buddy - preoccupies Ewan's thoughts.
Unsure if his parents will ever accept his sexuality, Ewan knows that in his claustrophobic hometown he’ll never fully be himself. Perhaps in a bustling and far-away city like London there is a whole new world waiting…
Published by the ground breaking Gay Men’s Press in 1982, The Milkman’s on His Way was one of the first explicitly queer young adult novels to appear in the UK. For many gay teenagers of the early 1980s, it was a rare chance to read life-affirming stories that put their experiences at the centre.
The book was celebrated on publication, but scandal and controversy followed later. Published just before the AIDS pandemic took hold, The Milkman’s on His Way was hated by the Daily Mail and later suppressed under Section 28 due to public outcry about its “obscene,” sexually explicit contents.
Chase of the Wild Goose
Mary Gordon
The story of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, known as the Ladies of Llangollen
“Gordon’s spirited, romantic account of the lives of the Ladies of Llangollen is a fascinating piece of queer literary history in its own right. A claiming of kinship, across time, with two remarkable women, it’s a deeply feminist work, a celebration of courage and nonconformity. It’s also endearingly odd! Part biography, part novel, part spiritual memoir, it’s wholly bold and eccentric and I’m delighted to see it reprinted.”
“They made a noise in the world which has never since died out, and which we, their spiritual descendants, continue to echo.”
Late 18th century Ireland.
Two women from noble families – Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby – meet and form an intense romantic friendship.
Against the will of their families – and overcoming the many obstacles placed before them – they leave Ireland and finally settle at Plas Newydd, North Wales.
It is here they achieve fame and notoriety; it is here they become the Ladies of Llangollen.
Chase of the Wild Goose is the forgotten queer novel of the interwar era – an amiable companion to Woolf’s time-travelling Orlando and joyful antidote to the misery of The Well of Loneliness.
A historical fiction dedicated to the Ladies of Llangollen, first published by the Hogarth Press in 1936, Gordon’s Chase celebrates the search – and psychic need – for queer foremothers, and delights in finding them.
With a new afterword by Nicola Wilson.
Mary Louisa Gordon, photographed in 1920
Mary Louisa Gordon (1861-1941) lived a pioneering late nineteenth century feminist life.
Part of the first generation of doctors to be trained at the London School of Medicine for Women, she became a prison inspector in 1908, the first ever woman to do so.
Always sympathetic to feminist causes, her work with women prisoners informed her second book Penal Discipline (1922), which advocated for prison reform.
Chase of the Wild Goose (1936) is inspired, in part, by Gordon’s experience of studying analytical psychology with Carl and Emma Jung.
“Chase of the Wild Goose is an exquisite reimagining of the life shared between two women, beloved to one another. It is a tale told with such tenderness; that affirms although we may be haunted by queer trauma, but we can also be haunted by queer joy.”
Sarah-Joy Ford, artist and creator of Beloved: Crafting Intimacies with the Ladies of Llangollen Beloved: Crafting Intimacies with the Ladies of Llangollen.
“Sharp, witty, and utterly compelling, Mary Gordon’s story of two women who chose each other, and a life of freedom will conquer every heart. The Ladies of Llangollen are witnesses to women’s long struggle against familial oppression and tyranny. They survived, victorious. Their house in Wales became their sanctuary and is now a place of pilgrimage for other sexual insurgents and rebels against a world that threatens our existence. What have the Ladies to say to us now? Refuse to be bullied or coerced. Defend your freedom. Believe in yourselves.”
Patricia Duncker, author of Hallucinating Foucault and many other outstanding literary works.
“The Ladies of Llangollen have become the stuff of legend. Their image began to appear on popular prints, plates, and other souvenirs even during their lifetime. But who were Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, and how can we relate to them? In Chase of the Wild Goose, Mary Gordon, a pioneering physician with a keen interest in psychology, presents a highly original and deeply moving account of the life and home the Ladies built together. The book honours the Ladies as queer feminist ancestors whose unequivocal commitment to freedom and bold defiance of social expectations continues to resonate across the ages. A remarkable example of queer feminist modernist writing, Chase of the Wild Goose playfully undermines readerly expectations and allows us to encounter the Ladies again.”
Jana Funke, author of Sexological Modernism: Queer Feminism and Sexual Science; Sexperts: A History of Sexology, Sex, Gender and Time in Fiction and Culture and other vital works of literary-historical criticism.