The
Saucy One's Apprentice
By
Dominic Horton
I
continued the decorating work at Codger Mansions this week and the
dining room was next on the list. Not that I dine in the room anymore
as my dear son Kenteke has commandeered the room as a games room for
his snooker table, so the dining table is in storage in the loft.
That means that at meal times Kenteke and I sit in the living room in
front of the television, goggle eyed like Jim Royale and Lurcio from
the BBC sitcom The Royale Family. Genteel folk might
comment that it is common to dine on the sofa in front of the TV but
to that I say, “my arse.”
 |
Graham Gough's fantastic photograph of Andy Wade performing at the
Saltwells Inn, Brierley Hill, in 1974
|
When
I am alone at mealtimes I usually read instead of watching the box
but this poses a problem as I need one hand free to hold the book.
This is one of the many reasons why I eat a lot of soup. The other
reasons are that soup is easy to make, it's nutritious, cheap and it
makes you feel like you have had a decent meal even though you have
not consumed many calories, so it keeps you in trim. The downside is
that as I am concentrating on my book I tend to spill the soup down
my clothes and the sofa.
The
sofa is leather so I can easily wipe the soup off but I have not
taken to wearing leather clothes as I don't want to look like Alvin
Stardust. Or Miss Whiplash for that matter. As devilish and erotic
as Miss Whiplash may be it must cost her a fortune in dubbin and take
up all of her time rubbing the stuff into her leather outfits. Mind
you, as apprenticeships are making a comeback she might have an
underling who undertakes the task for her. Maybe she's called the
Saucy One's Apprentice. I might have the wrong end of the stick
completely as Miss Whiplash might not be a dominatrix at
all but rather she may have gained her nickname after being in a
series of minor car accidents.
 |
| Beryl Cook's painting Ladies' Night |
Continuing
the theme of erotic (or supposedly erotic) persons and back to the
decorating - I was in the process of laying out newspaper on the
games room floor to protect it from paint and the publication in
question happened to be an April edition of The Halesowen
Chronicle, which I rarely read as I prefer the better
quality The Halesowen News. But all of a sudden in
the face of doing boring decorating the articles in
the Chronicle seemed absolutely fascinating and I
found myself wasting valuable decorating time reading them.
One
story caught my eye, with a headline that read, “Tribute paid to
male stripper who inspired art.” The article was about the passing
on of Andy Wade from Northfield, Birmingham, who is believed to be
Britain's first male stripper. The article included a wonderfully
evocative photograph by Graham Gough of The Express &
Star newspaper of Wade in action, performing at the
Saltwells Inn, Brierley Hill in 1974 in a room packed full of curious
and excited women. Gough's fabulous photograph is one of those
pictures of a moment in time that draws you in and makes you feel
that you are actually in the room, so you can almost feel the
atmosphere, hear the laughter and cries of the onlooking women, smell
the tobacco, the barley wine and the sweat and hear the sassy music
driving Wade on in his strip tease act.
You
can just imagine the anarchy that evening in the Saltwells Inn.
Black Country women tend to be lively and fun loving, when they have
the chance, at the worst of times so being presented with a male
stripper, a brand new phenomenon, it would have been pure
pandemonium. Can you picture the uproar. Gough explained in
the Chronicle article that he and Wade were the only
two men in the room and the women in the audience were getting
increasingly frisky, so he was relieved in the end to escape with all
his clothes on. Let us remember that the 1970's were an altogether
more innocent time than today and also the pastimes of men and women
were more separated that they are now. I can just picture
the women who were at the Saltwell's show telling their workmates or
other mothers on the school playground the following day about Wade's
naked histrionics, to the utter disbelief of the listening ears: “he
actually took his clothes …....... off!!!! In the Saltwells!!
Crikey Brenda!! Did he have much to look at?!”
Graham
Gough's photograph of the infamous evening in the Saltwells Inn
caught the attention of the late artist Beryl Cook and she bought a
large print of it. The photograph inspired Cook to paint a picture
based on Gough's image and she entitled it Ladies' Night and
the painting quickly became well known to the public. I do like
Cook's work as her paintings are mostly a record of ordinary working
class life that show people in pubs, dance halls, cafeterias, car
boot sales and the like. Cook died in 2008 and none other than the
multi-talented Victoria Wood described her as “Rubens with jokes.”
The photographer Graham Gough is now 74 years old and he is alive
and well in Kinver.
 |
| Raif Badawi, by request of Toby In-Tents. |
Somewhere
along the line the old fashioned social club stripper was usurped by
the increasing popularity of ghastly lap dancing
clubs, which I have to say I have never been a fan of. They do not
have real ale on and sell you an unappetising bottle of lager for an
extortionate price, so together with the entrance fee punters are
massively out of pocket before they have even seen any flesh. And
lap dancing clubs are a case of you can look but you can't have, like
window shopping but worse as you can't even try the wares on. And
all of that is before I even get into arguments about
the degradation and objectification of women.
The
only stripping I have been doing this week is stripping flaky paint
off the games room skirting boards, a task only made bearable by
pausing now and again to read the newspaper articles on the
floor. Another article that made me stop in my tracks was from
Monday's Guardian and concerned the case of Raif
Badawi, a blogger from Saudi Arabia. The piece was of interest to me
for very different reasons for those that made the Andy Wade
stripping article fascinating.
Badawi
is founder of the Free Saudi Liberals blog, which he used to voice
dissent against the state's influential clerics who follow a strict
interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism. It has been widely
reported that since the 2011 Arab spring uprisings there has been a
crackdown on freedom of speech and criticism of the authorities in
Saudi Arabia and as part of this action Badawi was arrested in
mid-2012 and has been detained ever since.
 |
| Alvin Stardust |
Last
May Badawi, a father of three, was convicted of insulting Islam and
was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, 1,000 lashes
and he was fined the equivalent of £266,600. On the Friday before
last Badawi received the first 50 of his 1,000 lashes in a public
square in the city of Jeddah in front of hundreds of spectators who
had just finished attending Friday prayers. The barbaric flogging
lasted fifteen minutes. Amnesty International called the flogging a
“vicious act of cruelty” and stated that Badawi's “only 'crime'
was to exercise his right to freedom of expression by setting up a
website for public discussion.” You can sign an e-petition to
protest against Badawi's case by
visiting https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/saudi-arabia-free-raif-badawi-flogged-blogger –
it only takes a minute of your time. Badawi was due to receive fifty
more lashes this week but it was was postponed as his injuries from
the first fifty lashes were so appalling that a medic stated that he
would not be able to withstand any more punishment at this time.
The
Badawi case struck such a sickening and shocking chord with me being
a fellow writer and blogger. I routinely write what I want in these
pages and I often criticise the authorities and the government and I
never give it a second thought. British society and the way that it
is governed is far from perfect but we do at least have the right to
exercise our freedom of speech without generally having any fear of
reprisal and for that at least we should all be grateful. After
all, if would be no fun at all for me to be dragged out of the Flagon
& Gorses and taken to Somer's Square in Halesowen town
centre to be given fifty lashes in front of an assembled crowd fresh
from Pick's pub and the Wetherspoons who would shout, “give the
**** another fifty!!!” And imagine having to choose one's words
carefully while drinking in the Flagon & Gorses for fear of
arrest by the secret police. The Pirate would have to be muzzled –
but then again given the nonsense that he spouts forth
that might not be such a bad idea.
©
Dominic Horton, January 2015.
*
Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late
Jonathan Rendall
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