The Leather Boys

Librarian note: First published in 1961 by author Eliot George, a pseudonym for Gillian Freeman, all later editions use her real name From the First Edition dustjacket: The leather boys are the boys on the bikes, the boys who do a ton on the by-pass. For their expensive machines, they need expensive leather jackets. They are an aimless, lawless, cowardly and vain lot with a peacock quality to their clothes and hair style. The problem of these working-class boys with big wage packets and nothing to do is the background to The Leather Boys which is the story of two of them, Dick who lives with his widowed grandmother and Reggie who married Dot when he was 17. After a row with his wife Reggie goes to stay with Dick in his grandmother's house; their friendship develops into love and they break away from their gang to rob a local cinema together. The author of The Leather Boys does not treat homosexuality as a personal or social problem but takes for granted that the love between these two inarticulate young men could exist between two human beings at any time at any place. The climax of the story is impelled by the forces of the times and the place in which they move—the psychological pressures and the transient, indefinite air of the South London suburbs.