As a 21-year-old student, I embarked on one of the most intimate experiences I have ever shared with another person. The friendship was an insight into the underground that existed when homosexuality was still a crime
In 2003, I was at a dinner of “the like-minded” (Oxford University code for gay) when an academic leaving for a sabbatical in New York asked a favour: would I take over his slot as a volunteer reader for a gay blind man living alone in east Oxford?
I agreed, and so one evening in October I found myself cycling out of Christ Church to my first appointment. I rounded the turning to Roger Butler’s home and rang the doorbell twice, as instructed, to indicate that I was his expected visitor.
