Beyond the Frame

When Mattei Radev escaped Communist Bulgaria and stowed away on a ship to Scotland in 1950, he brought with him five lemons, a bar of chocolate, a roll of toilet paper and a business card carrying the name of his eventual destination: London. Penniless and alone in a new city, he spent his days working as a hospital porter and his nights between hostels in Camden Town, picking up English from the down-and-out men he met along the way. A chance meeting with Patrick Trevor-Roper - a world-class eye surgeon and later a pioneering gay rights activist - changed his life forever. Through Patrick, he was thrust into a new, queer world of experimenters, artists and aristocrats: he holidayed in Dorset with Eddy Sackville-West; began an intimate friendship with E. M. Forster; cut suits with Hardy Amies; and started life as a picture framer and art collector under the mentorship of Robert Medley. Intimate and tender, this is the reconstruction of his extraordinary life by his partner Norman Coates, and a spellbinding portrait of London's mid-century bohemia. In 1950, Mattei came to Bloomsbury in search of a way to live - and found kinship, community and a calling.