The Log Books

The UK’s best LGBTQ+ history podcast is BACK. After three groundbreaking seasons from 2019-22, featuring the unique archives at Switchboard, winning a string of awards, we’re returning with a new season.

We are Adam Zmith and Tash Walker, hosts and producers, and your guides into queer memories and countless, essential stories.

The all-new season of The Log Books will feature intimate interviews we’ve done as research for our book, which will be published by Faber on January 29th 2026.

We thought: we can’t fit everything into the book, so let’s bring back the podcast!

THE LOG BOOKS season 4 is produced by Aunt Nell. 

New episodes from January 1st. Hit follow or subscribe so you don’t miss them!

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The Quilt: Living memories of queer Britain & Northern Ireland 

An audio exhibition open to anyone, anywhere, at any time of day, produced and hosted by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith. 

Born from a collaboration between the producers of the award-winning podcast The Log Books and the UK’s first and only LGBTQ+ museum Queer Britain, challenges who and what makes queer history. 

The series takes the listener on a journey across the UK, collecting queer memories, from queer people. The Quilt weaves together all these stories and histories, into a beautiful documentary patchwork series. 

The Quilt is an audio archive for the future.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

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We'd love to introduce you to this new podcast we've been working Queer Roots and Routes!

Queer Roots and Routes is made by a collective. 

We are queer. We are migrants or descended from migrants. And we want to tell our stories. Stories of where we’ve come from and how we move in the world today.

We don’t have a boss or a Beyoncé. So each episode of this six-part first series of Queer Roots and Routes has a different host and a different set of voices from our group. Our promise to you is that our podcast is GORGEOUS, FIERCE, SUPERGAY and... REVOLUTIONARY! 

We all met through the MAUREEN project by The Love Tank, a not-for-profit community interest company that promotes health and wellbeing of under-served communities through education, capacity building and research.

An Aunt Nell Production

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

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We'd love to introduce you to this new podcast Black and Gay, Back in the Day which brings to life a photo archive of Black LGBTQIA+ life in Britain, from the 1970s through to the early 2000s. 

Each episode is an intergenerational journey focusing on a key photograph from the archive - joining stories of the past, with those of today. Marc Thompson is the gentle, inquisitive and warm guide to the archive, helping a rotation of younger Black LGBTQIA+ co-hosts navigate these often untold stories. Each episode covers a different theme drawn out of a single photograph from the collection, submerging you into Black LGBTQIA+ history.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

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In this bonus episode made for Nothing Concrete, the podcast of London's Barbican, Tash and Adam riffle through many more items from LGBTQ+ history. The Bishopsgate Institute doesn't just look after the amazing Switchboard log books — they also hold gay badges, protest placards, intimate photo albums and historical trackie tops. Forty of these items are being displayed in the free exhibition Out and About! at the Barbican in London from February 28th to March 21st. To mark the occasion, Adam and Tash made this special episode for Nothing Concrete, featuring archivist Stef Dickers and recorded on location at the Barbican and in the bowels of Bishopsgate.

Transcript here.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

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This is it! After three seasons covering 1974 to 2003, Tash and Adam reach the final page in the log books in Switchboard’s archive. In this closing episode of The Log Books, Adam and Tash reflect on all the stories they’ve heard across the three years making this podcast. They also bring to light one type of log book entry that has not yet been covered in the podcast, and listen to young people who are living our queer futures.

Thank YOU, our amazing listeners, for joining us on this moving, empowering and joyous journey!

Content warning: biphobia, suicide and archaic language about transgender identities

Transcript here.

The Log Books — stories from Britain’s LGBTQI+ history and conversations about being queer today. Produced by Shivani Dave, Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, in partnership with Switchboard - the LGBT+ helpline. With thanks to the Bishopsgate Institute. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Artwork by Natalie Doto

https://www.thelogbooks.org

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rubber? Feet? Piss? Flogging? Role play? What’s your kink? In this episode Tash and Adam listen to dozens of dirty stories from the LGBTQI+ community in the 90s. From the publicly funded multi-gender kink night at the London Lesbian and Gay Centre to people wearing nappies and S&M dykes — this episode is raw, sexy, hilarious... and you’ll never be the same again. We also speak to Alex (the DJ Kiwi) from Crossbreed and Matt Skully about running kinky events and club nights today.

Content warning: extreme sex practices and state homophobia

Transcript here.

The Log Books — stories from Britain’s LGBTQI+ history and conversations about being queer today. Produced by Shivani Dave, Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, in partnership with Switchboard - the LGBT+ helpline. With thanks to the Bishopsgate Institute. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Artwork by Natalie Doto

https://www.thelogbooks.org

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the 90s more and more lesbians called Switchboard to ask where they could get hold of sperm. All sorts of LGBTQI+ people in the period sought to make families outside of conventional methods and constraints. In this episode, Tash and Adam hear stories from the people who pioneered queer family-making. We also catch-up with some folks who have their own experiences and opinions on what queer family means to them today.

Content warning: homophobia

Transcript here.

The Log Books — stories from Britain’s LGBTQI+ history and conversations about being queer today. Produced by Shivani Dave, Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, in partnership with Switchboard - the LGBT+ helpline. With thanks to the Bishopsgate Institute. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

For more information about the themes in this episode, take a look at:

NHS info: having a baby if you’re LGBT+ 

Stonewall: parenting rights

COTS: Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy

PACT: Parents and Children Together

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Artwork by Natalie Doto

https://www.thelogbooks.org

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is still so much work to be done in making sure LGBTQI+ people with disabilities have what they need, but the 90s saw a definite shift in the right direction. Legal change, growing awareness, and a place at the front of the Pride march. In this episode, Tash and Adam hear from queer disability rights campaigners and, of course, Switchboard volunteers about handling calls about intersecting identities. They also catch up with Erin Ekins about the experience of being queer and neurodivergent today.

Content warning: archaic language around disability.

Transcript here.

The Log Books — stories from Britain’s LGBTQI+ history and conversations about being queer today. Produced by Shivani Dave, Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, in partnership with Switchboard - the LGBT+ helpline. With thanks to the Bishopsgate Institute. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

For more information about the themes in this episode, take a look at:

Para Pride: Pride. In. Everyone.

Regard: Supporting Disabled LGBTQ people

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Artwork by Natalie Doto

https://www.thelogbooks.org

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Understanding and awareness of various gender identities grew from 1992 to 2003, and more and more trans people called Switchboard for support. This episode offers a fascinating insight into how the LGBTQI+ community evolved over the period, and how trans people grew stronger in asserting their identities. Essential listening for anyone interested in the recent history of gender and queer identity. Tash and Adam also hear from Steph Fuller, the general manager of Switchboard, about the nature of calls about gender identity today.

Content warning: archaic language around transgender identities, transphobia, and stories of negative medical experiences.

Transcript here.

The Log Books — stories from Britain’s LGBTQI+ history and conversations about being queer today. Produced by Shivani Dave, Tash Walker and Adam Zmith, in partnership with Switchboard - the LGBT+ helpline. With thanks to the Bishopsgate Institute. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

For more information about the themes in this episode, take a look at:

Mermaids

London Friend

Gendered Intelligence 

Music by Tom Foskett-Barnes

Artwork by Natalie Doto

https://www.thelogbooks.org

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelogbooks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.