The Log Books
Hosts Tash Walker and Adam Zmith speak to LGBTQ+ elders and peers about life in Britain, inspired by volunteers' log books from the helpline Switchboard since 1974. Each episode features an intimate conversation with an LGBTQ+ person, as they reflect with Adam and Tash on community, family, volunteering for Switchboard, going out for the night, and the huge shift in LGBTQ+ politics and culture since 1974. Season 4 starts on January 1st 2026 with all-new weekly episodes, marking the release of Tash and Adam's book, The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened, published by Faber & Faber. WINNER of several awards including Best New Podcast (Gold) at the British Podcast Awards 2020. An Aunt Nell Production. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Tash and Adam hear from Monty Moncrieff, who took calls for Switchboard for years and now runs London Friend.
Monty remembers what it was like to take difficult calls from LGBTQ+ people, and also to be listened to himself, when he gave his first interview in season 3 of The Log Books podcast.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hosted and produced ...
Adam and Tash hear from Clare Truscott, a riotous femme punk who tirelessly serves her community and always has an abundance of stories to tell.
Clare reflects on being a part of the podcast and being a lesbian in the 80s and 90s, and how more recently she’s been campaigning to end homophobia in care homes for older people.
You can find out more about Clare’s work on Not Going In The Care Closet here.
Tash and Adam listen to Catherine Lee, who qualified as a teacher in the late 80s at a time when it was impossible for lesbians like her to be open at work.
Catherine reflects candidly on the impact of sharing her story on the original Log Books podcast, and how her life has transformed from shame to pride.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hoste...
Tash and Adam hear from Richard Desmond, aka Switchboard’s once resident leather queen.
Richard reflects on a life in the LGBTQ+ community, as a leatherman, a volunteer, a friend and lover. We love you, Richard.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith
The voice of the log books: Serena James
Assistant pro...
Tash and Adam listen to Graham McKerrow, who was editor of the newspaper Capital Gay in the 80s.
Graham reflects on his gay adolescence in the 70s, and how he and his partner transformed a South London house into a communal queer home.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith
The voice of the log books: S...
Adam and Tash hear from Andy Piccos, whose memories of Switchboard stretch back to 1977.
Andy remembers the queer family he met through volunteering and living the gay life, and what it was like to come out to his biological, Greek Cypriot family.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith
The voice o...
Tash and Adam catch-up with Femi Otitoju, one of the original contributors of The Log Books podcast, and one of Switchboard’s most valuable volunteers.
Femi reflects on what it meant to have her memories recorded, and how she and others made sure that Switchboard served Black people and women.
You can also listen to Femi speaking on the podcast Black And Gay, Back In The Day on Apple and Spotify.
Our book is published TODAY! In this special episode, Tash and Adam read an exclusive excerpt from The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened, published by Faber & Faber.
This is a huge milestone for The Log Books project, which started when Tash found the log books over ten years ago. If you listened to our first three seasons, we thank you for sticking with us. If you’re a newcomer: welcome to yo...
Tash and Adam hear from Anson Mackay, who left a tiny, remote town in Scotland to embrace a gay identity, and then later another queer identity altogether.
Anson reflects with trusting candour on their experiences through the 80s and 90s, and how people feel compelled to explore their gender even before the right words have arrived.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpli...
Adam and Tash are joined in this episode by Diana James, who discovered herself as a dyke in the 80s and joined Switchboard as its first trans volunteer.
Diana discusses what she learnt as she handled phone calls from distressed queer people, and how the older and younger generations need to support each other.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened...
Tash and Adam hear from Ruth Turner, who qualified as a teacher in the 1980s at the height of a destructive public debate over gay and lesbian rights.
Ruth recalls the chilling effect of Section 28, the law that forbade her from supporting queer students, and helps Tash to reckon with their own experience in school.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Lis...
Adam and Tash’s first guest is John Lindsay, one of the founders of Switchboard, the national LGBTQIA+ helpline.
John takes us back to the first night in the phoneroom in 1974, when a ragtag gang of queers listened out for that first phone call.
Buy our book or see our events listings: The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened.
Hosted and produced by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith
The voice of ...
The UK’s best LGBTQ+ history podcast is BACK. After three groundbreaking seasons from 2019-22, featuring the unique archives at Switchboard, winning a string of awards, we’re returning with a new season.
We are Adam Zmith and Tash Walker, hosts and producers, and your guides into queer memories and countless, essential stories.
The all-new season of The Log Books will feature intimate interviews we’ve done as research for our...
The Quilt: Living memories of queer Britain & Northern Ireland
An audio exhibition open to anyone, anywhere, at any time of day, produced and hosted by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith.
Born from a collaboration between the producers of the award-winning podcast The Log Books and the UK’s first and only LGBTQ+ museum Queer Britain, challenges who and what makes queer history.
The series takes the listener o...
We'd love to introduce you to this new podcast we've been working Queer Roots and Routes!
Queer Roots and Routes is made by a collective.
We are queer. We are migrants or descended from migrants. And we want to tell our stories. Stories of where we’ve come from and how we move in the world today.
We don’t have a boss or a Beyoncé. So each episode of this six-part first series of Queer Roots and Routes has a different...
We'd love to introduce you to this new podcast Black and Gay, Back in the Day which brings to life a photo archive of Black LGBTQIA+ life in Britain, from the 1970s through to the early 2000s.
Each episode is an intergenerational journey focusing on a key photograph from the archive - joining stories of the past, with those of today. Marc Thompson is the gentle, inquisitive and warm guide to the archive, helping ...
In this bonus episode made for Nothing Concrete, the podcast of London's Barbican, Tash and Adam riffle through many more items from LGBTQ+ history. The Bishopsgate Institute doesn't just look after the amazing Switchboard log books — they also hold gay badges, protest placards, intimate photo albums and historical trackie tops. Forty of these items are being displayed in the free exhibition Out and About! at the Bar...
This is it! After three seasons covering 1974 to 2003, Tash and Adam reach the final page in the log books in Switchboard’s archive. In this closing episode of The Log Books, Adam and Tash reflect on all the stories they’ve heard across the three years making this podcast. They also bring to light one type of log book entry that has not yet been covered in the podcast, and listen to young people who are living our queer futures.
Rubber? Feet? Piss? Flogging? Role play? What’s your kink? In this episode Tash and Adam listen to dozens of dirty stories from the LGBTQI+ community in the 90s. From the publicly funded multi-gender kink night at the London Lesbian and Gay Centre to people wearing nappies and S&M dykes — this episode is raw, sexy, hilarious... and you’ll never be the same again. We also speak to Alex (the DJ Kiwi) from Crossbreed and Matt Skul...
In the 90s more and more lesbians called Switchboard to ask where they could get hold of sperm. All sorts of LGBTQI+ people in the period sought to make families outside of conventional methods and constraints. In this episode, Tash and Adam hear stories from the people who pioneered queer family-making. We also catch-up with some folks who have their own experiences and opinions on what queer family means to them today.
Content...
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