ABSTRACT
In Part II I have tried as far as possible to present the eight life stories in the men’s own words but inevitably they are edited versions of the original interviews. As Porter and Weeks say in the Preface to their book of gay men’s life histories, ‘All life stories are reconstructions, attempts to make sense of a complex reality, to provide a narrative structure for oneself as well as for others’ and like them, as editor on behalf of my interviewees, I have ‘inevitably been selective, and therefore have in turn helped shape the material’ but also I believe ‘the individuals whose lives are presented here, offer insights into both their own lives and the milieu in which they lived’ (Porter and Weeks 1991:2).
