When Christopher Stephens was a student at Oxford in the early 2000s, a friend asked him a favour: would he visit a man at his home in east Oxford each week and read to him? That man was Roger Butler, who was blind, in his 60s and initially wary of having a stranger come to his house. Before their first meeting, Butler asked their mutual friend whether Stephens was “one of us”, by which he meant gay.
The pair soon established a bond, as Stephens read books by Alan Hollinghurst and Edmund White to Butler over a bottle of red wine. Sometimes Butler would ask him to read excerpts from his own autobiographical essays which told of his life growing up gay in postwar Britain. In 1960, Butler had joined forces with two colleagues from the Homosexual Law Reform Society and written a letter to national newspaper editors outing themselves. Beginning the letter with “Sir, we are homosexuals”, all were risking their freedom at a time when sex between men was illegal.
The Light of Day tells the parallel stories of Stephens’s burgeoning friendship with Butler in his twilight years, and the latter’s life as a pioneer of gay liberation. While Stephens reads the chapters detailing his visits to Butler’s home, Griff Mellhuish narrates the sections about Butler’s early life. The audio version also features delightfully crackly home recordings made by Butler in which he discusses his parents and catches up on his correspondence. In a moving final clip, he notes that he doesn’t regret the blindness that struck in his 30s since it led to “the most miraculous thing”, which was moving to Oxford and meeting Stephens.
• Available via Headline, 9hr 43min
Further listening
The Undisputed King of Selston
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A poignant and funny memoir of life in a coal-mining town in the 1970s. Read by the author.
The Violet Hour
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Andrew Wincott narrates this gripping thriller about duplicity and power struggles in the art world.
