He Removed His Cow from Her Field

Stories of Older Lesbians and Gay Men from Rural Britain

Cows gently grazing at one of the locations of the Rufus Stone shoot. © 2012 KiPjONES

I am pleased to announce that the on line research journal Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS) has published an article reporting on our project on LGBT ageing and rurality at Bournemouth University supported by Research Councils UK. The open access and pioneering journal FQS  affords us the luxury of telling four of the participants' life stores in full in the article.The four-year Gay and Pleasant Land? ... study built upon foundational Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) interviews to then create the script for the short film, Rufus Stone.

The article is now published at: 
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1919

"Collecting Older Lesbians' and Gay Men's Stories of Rural Life in South West England and Wales: 'We Were Obviously Gay Girls ... (So) He Removed His Cow From Our Field'". Kip Jones, Lee-Ann Fenge, Rosie Read & Marilyn Cash, authors


 My thanks to my co-authors, the research team and the citizen advisors who contributed at every step along the way in making this possible. 

I am particularly proud of the fact that my writing has evolved through the processes of both writing for this blog and creative writing for the film's back story and treatment. These influences are particularly  evident in how I tell the stories in this article.

More than ever, I remain convinced that we as researchers are conduits for the life stories that our narrators give us and must honour that bond to the best of our ability. This spirit continued in writing and producing the film as well.

I hope that you will enjoy the article and have a chance to see the film if you haven't already.