Guest Suggestion - Tom Robinson

[junkman]

Hi everyone, first time poster here, long time listener.

I just signed up to suggest as a guest Tom Robinson, the British broadcaster and musician. It's probably a long shot due to travel requirements, but if there's any way to get him he has an amazing story.

He grew up gay before homosexuality was legalized in the UK, and in 1966, after a spell in a mental institution, was sent to live in a residential community for troubled boys. This was run by an ingeniously empathetic man who'd spotted an epidemic of arrested emotional development among young men, and was by all accounts unusually gifted at re-nurturing these troubled youths.

(His account of this is very much worth a read - http://www.finchden.com/mrlyward/times.htm)

Robinson then went on to have a brief pop career but then, having weathered the storm of disapproval from being a celebrity figurehead of gay culture in the 70's an 80's, ended up falling love with and marrying a woman. This caused him to both suffer yet another backlash from the mainstream media AND be shunned by the gay community that had sheltered and supported him until then.

I heard him tell a version of his story on another podcast, but the presenter kept cutting him off in the middle of anecdotes to share his own views. I'd love to hear him allowed to properly tell his story.