Free London Blues by Anthony Frewin

in a riding school.
    Each film lasted about fifteen minutes and was made in black and white. There was no soundtrack. The films were run to music from the radiogram.
    ‘I’ve had a busy day,’ said the woman. Her name was Stella. ‘I have to pay £10 per film per day to the distributors. There are lots of girls organised like me. We get our films from the man who makes them. He is very rich and successful. But I have to be careful. I have nosy neighbours so I never have more than twenty-five men a day here. Would you like any additional services?’
    I made an excuse and left, after I handed over £10.
    Stella is one of many girls caught up in the new ‘blue’ film web run by the Mr Big of ‘Blue’ Films. A man who has sworn to turn England into the ‘blue’ film capital of the world and to make the racket a million pounds a year business .
    You can rest assured that the crime fighters at Scotland Yard are working on his case and that it is only a matter of time before they have him where he belongs – in prison.
    This was virtually all invention. My invention. I particularly liked the fake film titles! The Lords Kilmuir and Denning quotes I dare say, were dug out by some sub on the paper, yet the lad himself takes the money and the glory for doing fuck all.
    I didn’t know it at the time but my fictional venture into blue films presaged a bizarre invitation some weeks later courtesy of French Joe, another Modern Snax regular who’ll soon be appearing on the horizon.

    I’ve only ever seen one blue film and that was down in the docks at Chatham. I suppose there are blue films in Soho but I haven’t noticed them. What we have mainly are small cinemas showing subtitled French ‘X’ films and such. You won’t see much more than the odd naked tit. That’s about it. The Nudist Story opened a little while back. Just about the biggest thing that ever hit these flea-pits. They’re packed out. Nudist films have become big business now.
    Charlie says these pits are really just full of dirty old men giving themselves one off the wrist or paying a streetwalker to do the same. That’s why, he says, the seats are wet and sticky and why there’s tissue paper all over the floor. Fellows go there to play pocket billiards, to have a hand shandy.
     
    If I continue conjugating the depravity hereabouts we next come to the striptease joints (with the emphasis on the tease) and then the medical-goods shops and the bookshops .
    The medical shops sell condoms, contraceptive creams, pessaries, and all kinds of preparations (good word that!) that add to the pleasure of the act of sexual union. They also sell pills and trusses and special underpants for the incontinent. You only ever see old men going in and out of them and the window displays are full of faded products covered in dust and look like they haven’t been changed since 1933.
    A typical window announces:
    DAMAROIDS – THE GREAT BRITISH REJUVENATOR
    HYGEOLENE – THE PERFECT CONTRACEPTIVE
    DUREX – THE NAME YOU CAN TRUST
    And how about this from the Charing Cross Road?
    OTHER RUBBER GOODS
    * * *
    Please ask the MANAGEMENT for Further Details of Your REQUISITES if not on Display.
    Also in the windows you will find several types of book. The marriage stuff with titles like:
    IDEAL MARRIAGE
    IMPOTENCY – ITS CAUSES AND CURE
    MODERN SEXUAL RELATIONS
    PRACTICAL EUGENICS [ Huh !?]
    WEDDING NIGHT ETIQUETTE
    … and then on the other side the ‘art study’ titles:
    BEAUTY’S DAUGHTERS
    CURVES AND CONTRASTS
    OF THE HUMAN FIGURE
    THE FEMALE FORM IN LIGHT AND SHADE
    … wherein too there are always some titles on nudism, or ‘naturism’ as the devotees thereof call it:
    EXERCISING AS NATURE INTENDED
    BEAUTY FROM GERMANY
    SUN WITHOUT SHAME
    … and so on. German naturist books are always popular and they have titles like Körperkultur und Erziehung (I’m quoting from memory) and are full of buxom heavy blonde Bavarian maidens called Lotte who look like they were