‘Gentleman Jack’ Fans Can Follow LGBTQ History in Edinburgh
Fan of the award-winning BBC series, Gentlemen Jack can visit Scotland and follow in the footsteps of the TV show’s main character, Ann Lister, also known as Gentleman Jack in real life. She was a landowner, industrialist, prolific writer, and lesbian icon.
Tour guide Stef Lauer was able to start her Edinburgh walking tours with help from EDI, a quarterly LGBTQ+ magazine, and a £10,000 ($13,500) grant from the National Lottery. The tour through Edinburgh provides fans with a unique perspective on the Scottish and it also follows Lister’s life through her diary entries.
Lauer, 41, said the walking tour project has been a labor of love that started long before the TV show, but ultimately it combines her interest in Anne Lister, lesbian icon’s dairies with her skill as a tour guide.
In fact, part of Lister’s life where she visited Scotland in 1828 for the Grand Tour was only recently transcribed in 2020 for everyone to read in plain English, according to Lauer.
“Her handwriting is almost impossible to read, so it takes a long time to transcribe! And she wrote about one-sixth of her diaries in a secret code,” said Lauer. “So, her time in Scotland was only unearthed relatively recently. For me, it was very much about marrying my passion for all things Anne Lister and my passion for Scotland.
Lister’s diaries and life stories are fundamental to the LGBT+ history in Scotland. Lauer told the Edinburgh News, “Usually history is written by white, male, straight people, so to have a story like Anne’s 200 years after she lived is pretty amazing.”
The diaries reveal what was once the hidden part of lesbian history, and believe it or not, a lot of these Lister’s diaries are still being transcribed, offering a vivid perspective of such a unique lesbian life.
“We’ve always been around, and this wasn’t hiding away in the archives – it has been put into the spotlight,” said Lauer. “The courage she [Lister] had to be herself is really important and I think we can all take a lot from that ourselves.”
Gentlemen Jack premiered in 2019, and it’s expected to return for its second season in late 2022 with actress Suranne Jones reprising her role as Anne Lister.
The show’s creator and director, Sally Wainwright introduced viewers to a world of Lister’s coded diaries, which cover the period between 1817 and the 1820s.
