EVENT: Join C20 and @Grindrod for Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains. 🗓️ Wed 27 May 2026, 6.30pm 📍 The Gallery, Cowcross St, London + Online 🎟️ Book tickets: secure.c20society.org.uk/Def… Best-selling author of Concretopia (2013), Iconicon (2017) and Outskirts (2022), John Grindrod presents his latest book Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains, published by @faberbooks Throughout LGBTQ+ history, suburbia has been seen as somewhere to escape from: a place where heterosexuality rules; where differences will not be tolerated; where you’ll never find a soulmate. But for many, those streets of twitching curtains and pebble-dashed semis were – or still are – a place to call home. From Addlestone to Wilmslow, Tales of the Suburbs explores the relatively untold twentieth century tale of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people in small towns and suburbia. Through remarkable archive material and original interviews, social historian John Grindrod reveals stories that are messy and moving, dark and funny, uplifting and extraordinary. John Grindrod will be in conversation with the former Historic England architectural investigator Matthew Whitfield, author of England’s Suburbs 1820-2020 (2025), to discuss the past and future of the suburban life. John Grindrod is an award winning author, social historian and a friend of C20 Society. He hosts the podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour, about loving the places other people hate.