This is the print-on-demand (POD) version in black and white only. Out of Bounds is the story of the slow emergence of a man, strictly schooled for conformity, frustrated by limits, searching for his place in the world and hunting for variety, fulfilment, adventure and sexual freedom Amidst the privileges and successes of school and Oxford, he agonises about the purpose of life, his worth and his sexual identity. He finds inspiration in the company of young Scottish delinquents in a residential school, reverts to type in his first full-time job as an adult, then changes direction to retrain and work as a probation officer with drug-takers and prostitutes on the streets of Sheffield. His first three decades end in a remote and idyllic farmhouse in deepest Kent, with work in the kitchen of a posh village restaurant, six months as a farm labourer, and a new job, more in line with his qualifications Gifted, sociable and restless, it takes twenty-seven years for Bruce to come to terms with his identity as a gay man during a period when stigma and discrimination were still powerful. He finds liberation and acceptance, but much of his life and work remain an expression of sublimated sexuality, giving him an energy and intensity that might otherwise have been diluted. His struggle to break bounds, to fly from time to time, unique in its detail, is commonplace in its essence for the many, many people who dream of a different life. The book has a lively and dynamic style, a cast of interesting characters, and a vivid account of life for a talented but often unhappy middle-class child in post-war Britain through the turbulent sixties and into the seventies.