“It was good to be Ewan, I said to myself, and good to be here doing this. I’m no longer a muddled kid: this is man’s estate.”
Ewan Macrae is gay. At the turn of the 1980s, being queer in a Cornish seaside town seems impossible.
The teenage world he lives in is obsessed with girls, jobs and surfing, yet the handsome Leslie - his ripped surfing buddy - preoccupies Ewan's thoughts.
Unsure if his parents will ever accept his sexuality, Ewan knows that in his claustrophobic hometown he’ll never fully be himself. Perhaps in a bustling and far-away city like London there is a whole new world waiting…
Published by the ground breaking Gay Men’s Press in 1982, The Milkman’s on His Way was one of the first explicitly queer young adult novels to appear in the UK. For many gay teenagers of the early 1980s, it was a rare chance to read life-affirming stories that put their experiences at the centre.
The book was celebrated on publication, but scandal and controversy followed later. Published just before the AIDS pandemic took hold, The Milkman’s on His Way was hated by the Daily Mail and later suppressed under Section 28 due to public outcry about its “obscene,” sexually explicit contents.
The David Rees collection is held at Special Collections, University of Exeter
“For some, this honest tale of young love was an affront to their prejudices. To some of us it was a sign we were not alone. It remains as touching and relevant as ever – a gay classic.”
“The book glorifies homosexuality and encourages youngsters to believe that it is better than any other sexual way of life.”
“Our children are being corrupted and depraved by it. ”
David Rees (1936-1993) was the author of over thirty works, the majority being young adult novels. He was also part of the burgeoning gay journalism scene of the late 1970s, and regularly wrote reviews and articles for magazines and newspapers, including Gay News and Gay Times.
In the late 1960s Rees moved to Exeter. Many of his stories are set in Devon and Cornwall, including his Carnegie Medal winning historical fiction, The Exeter Blitz (1978).
Between 1968-1984 he worked as a Lecturer in Education at the University of Exeter, and the educational dimension of young adult fiction inspired his writing, especially themes of identity and sexuality. Quintin’s Man (1976) and In the Tent (1979) featured gay protagonists but The Milkman’s on His Way (1982) was his boldest attempt to foreground the experience of gay teenagers in his stories. Other novels like The Hunger (1986), a gay historical romance set during the 1840 Great Famine, were inspired by Rees’ Irish family background.
From 1985 David Rees was living with AIDS, an experience explored in his adult novel The Wrong Apple (1987). He continued to write until his death in 1993 from AIDS-related illness.