Patrick and Tom begin a “discreet” relationship, although Tom, as a police constable, must be very careful that his “secret” is never revealed. He is also unabashedly gay, at a time in England when sexual activity between men was still a crime and punishable by confinement in prison. Patrick is worldly and sophisticated he works as a curator in a museum and knows the world of art, music and books. Tom meets a man thirteen years older than himself named Patrick Hazelwood. We can see it’s a marriage that probably isn’t going to be a smashing success. Because marriage is what is expected of every young man and because he must project an image of respectability to the world, Tom marries Marion. She begins to suspect he is gay but believes that she can get him to change, if only he will marry her. Marion falls in love with him, while he remains blasé on the whole matter of courtship and marriage. As a police officer, he is interested in projecting an image of conventionality and respectability. Tom is what might be called a straight-arrow type. He is handsome, blond, athletic and well-built he goes swimming in the sea every morning and he eventually teaches her to swim. She doesn’t understand Tom very well she wonders why he is cool toward her and rather aloof. There is a man she likes named Tom Burgess. Marion Taylor is an unmarried teacher of small children. My Policeman is a deeply heartfelt story of love's passionate endurance, and the devastation wrought by a repressive society.My Policeman, a novel by Bethan Roberts, is set mostly in 1957 in the seaside town of Brighton, England. Forster had with a policeman, Bob Buckingham, and his wife. In this evocative portrait of midcentury England, Bethan Roberts reimagines the real-life relationship the novelist E. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion and meet Patrick in secret. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom's eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty.

A few years later, near the Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the city's famous pier, and Marion is smitten - determined her love alone will be enough for them both.

It is in 1950s Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. “aught and honest.” ( New York Times Book Review ) Now a motion picture starring Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson, an exquisitely told, tragic tale of thwarted love.

My policeman novel