Peter Wildeblood

Peter Wildeblood (19 May 1923 – 14 November 1999) was an Anglo-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and gay rights campaigner. He was one of the first men in the UK to publicly declare his homosexuality.

Quotes

Against the Law (1955)

• Sometimes when a man is dying, he directs that his body shall be given to doctors, so that the causes of his suffering and death may be investigated, and the knowledge used to help others. I cannot give my body yet; only my heart and my mind, trusting that by this gift I can give some hope and courage to other men like myself, and to the rest of the world some understanding.
  • p. 1

• I had seen a great deal of barristers by now. I realized that their profession was closely akin to that of actors, and that insincerity was the stock-in-trade of most of them. But how could they be sincere, alternating as they did between Crown and defence, knowing the tricks of both sides? It would be as unreasonable to expect sincerity from a prostitute. Year in, year out, these men stood, now on one side, now on the other, pleading the cause of the Crown and criminal with equal vehemence. At the end of a long career at the Bar they must have become like stones, washed clean of all sympathy, all hope for humanity, all regard for truth – and it was then, by a singular stroke of irony, that they were made into judges.
  • p. 88