Eamonn O'Keeffe is a young Oxford Researcher in the midst of a PhD. He stopped off in Wakefield Library to look at a journal Yorkshire farmer Matthew Tomlinson to see if the author had any opinions on the subject of his research: military music. Tomlinson did not. However what O'Keeffe found in the diary proved of infinitely greater interest to the general public than a passion for marching bands. In an entry for 1810 Tomlinson argues that homosexuality is natural. He therefore questioned the death penalty’s application for homosexual activity and sodomy. How can man punish what God has ordained? The announcement of the discovery went viral and I had to get him on the podcast. By chance I am also a big fan of 18th and early 19th Century military music so I got two for the price of one.
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