On show in the Queer the Pier exhibition (2020 - 2022) at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Excerpt from 'Brighton Head and Freak' magazine (Issue 3, published 1968/9). Cover features a printed illustration by John Upton. Inside back cover features a poem about cottaging by Bill Butler. Ref: Royal Pavilion & Museums BH703003 Daren Kay, Community Curator: Before the internet, bookshops provided spaces where LGBTIQ+ people could meet and find out about people like themselves. One such queer friendly space was Unicorn Bookshop at 51 Gloucester Road, Brighton that was open from 1966 to 1973. It was owned by openly gay poet and writer, Bill Butler (1937-1977). A poet in his own right, Butler often published homoerotic poems in the shop’s publications such as this one, which is probably about ‘cottaging’– the practise of men looking for sex with other men in public toilets.     John Upton, who designed the cover of this issue of the 'Brighton Head and Freak' magazine, also painted the original mural on the outside of the Unicorn Bookshop.

"Interview with John Rosewarn for Queer in Brighton Oral History Project (28 May 2013), interviewed by ??. Oral history interview collected as part of the Queer in Brighton project 2013-2014. Life history from Taunton to Brighton DOB 1944 circa - leaves home at 18 (gets thrown out by father after being caught in bed with dad’s best mate) goes to London -sex worker from 18 to 24 years of age 1961 to 1967 - moves to Brighton 1969. Trains as a nurse - lives in Brighton- work students in Hayward’s Heath. Moves to Spain from 1991-1999. Talks about sex work, cottaging and it’s demise in the early 1980s, celebrities, work as a nurse, homophobia, bars in Brighton, his relationship with older man - open relationship- promiscuity, first Pride, estrangement from parents, drag persona. "