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Michael Childers Davidson
(1897 - 1976) U. K.

Michael Davidson<

Memoirist and journalist

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Born into an upper middle-class family and educated at Lancing. Davidson went to Cambrifge but enlisted when WWI broke out. He was wounded in 1916 but did not leave the army ubtil 1919. He then became a reporter. A socialist and anti-fascist he sympatized with the Communist Party.

He frequented London swimming baths in pursuit of amorous encounters with adolescents and as a result eventually served a prison sentence in Wormwood Scrubs (1936). Upon his release he took up the role of foreign correspondent, which enabled him to live more securely as a homosexual since he was less likely to be persecuted for his sexual inclinations abroad than in England. He reveals, for example, that when on assignment for the Indonesian government he was provided with young male companions at official expense.

He had a long career as foreign correspondant with major British newspapers. He was able to combine his reporting with an active amorous life, which his autobiography records. He published rwo volumes of memoirs in which he addressed his homosexual life frankly, The World, the Flesh and Myself (1962) and Some Boys (1970).

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Source: excerpts from: Gabriele Griffin, Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay and Writing, Routledge, London, 2002
and from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, from WWII to Present Day, Routledge, London, 2001

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