SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Powder Podcast with me, Paul St. Victoria. Today we are reading an English Madam, The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne by Paul Bailey. So Paul Bailey was one of um one of the people who Cynthia actually did want to work with on a book. And if you go back to one of the episodes, it depends when you listen to this episode, but we have covered the life of Cynthia Payne. So if you want to go listen to that, that would be great. And that would fill you in on who exactly Cynthia Payne is. So we're gonna start. I first learned about Cynthia Payne and her extraordinary brothel won dismissal afternoon in the reading room of a university library in Fargo, North Dakota. I remember laughing immoderately to the astonishment of the other readers at their account in an English newspaper of the raid on her disorderly house in the unlikely setting of Streffam. It was the Dickensign aspect of the story that appealed to me. The elderly clients clutching their luncheon vouchers, the madam herself who sounded like a kinder, if no less astrude. Mrs. Todgers. Even as I laughed, I experienced a curious feeling of national pride. Now that I have heard that story of Cynthia, her girls, her clients, her slaves, as well as her relatives and friends, I can vouch for its authenticity. Everything in this book, it's true. Though I have changed most of their participants' names and many of the locations, and grateful to the customers particularly for the frankness with which they discussed what D. H. Lawrence would have called their dirty little secrets. Slave Philip, Slave Rodney, Gregory, Janet, and Agatha all spoke with refreshing candour, as did the women who satisfied the not always ordinary needs of the middle aged and elderly men whom Cynthia once catered for. I can never thank Cynthia sufficiently for choosing me as her biographer. For one thing there was the pleasure of her departure. Even confining to their notebooks the precise time the milkman deposited the customary milk pint on the doorstep and the postman delivered the mail, the diligent officers observed two hundred and forty-nine men and fifty women entered the house, known as Cranmore. In the ten weeks prior to the party, one memorable morning they had sighted a quote female type of a notably masculine disposition, bringing out the refuse. The police were especially interested in the contents of the dustbins, much to the amusement of the householder, Cynthia Payne, who watched their determined scoring from her bedroom window. While they were appropriating used tissues and discarded letters, the evidence they were seeking was consigned to an incinerator in the basement. Cynthia Payne's resourceful stoker ensured that the smell of burning rubber never drifted in the constable's direction. The perceiving policeman informed the chief superintendent that the bins were regularly filled with an extraordinarily large quantity of bottles and beer cans, enough to suggest that a well stocked bar was in constant operation. Sailus and his associates decided they had good reason to suspect the owner of Cranmore was selling liquor without a license, and secured a warrant enabling them to act on their own suspicion they would only pounce though when they felt confident that other, more serious charges could be levelled at the much visited proprietor. The confidence rose on December sixth after fifty-free men and thirteen women were seen entering the house. The inequality of the numbers conceived convinced them that the gathering had been assembled to do something more than celebrate the season. Shortly after four o'clock, the sergeant and one of the constables walked up to the front door and the sergeant rang the bell. Quote, I could hear the sound of voices and music, stated the constable. I saw a movement through the glass in the door of someone wearing green. A voice that I now know to be that of Miss Payne said, Who is it? The sergeant said, I am a police officer. I have a warrant to enter these premises. Open up. The door had started to open, but it was on a security train and was then slammed shut. Together, the sergeant and I forced the door open by using our shoulders. As I entered the hall, I saw a coloured woman who was completely naked running down the stairs. She turned and pushed her way back up the stairs through a number of men who were forming a queue. The next sight that greeted him was another woman, clad only in red bra and panties, rushing out of the lounge. She stopped, registered the fact that the hall was filling up with police, and rushed back again. In what Cynthia Payne has has designated the group sex room, the constable saw a naked couple rising from a copious double bed, the man scurrying into his trousers, the woman clutching her underclothes. Meanwhile, the sergeant, followed by a superintendent and several constables, made his way past the scantily dressed clerics, barristers and businessmen on the staircase, with a view to finding out what was going on in the upper rooms. Three more locks had to be broken in the mirror room, which was reserved for people who enjoyed watching themselves perform. A dedicated pair were surprised in what looked like the full prose of passion. They were ordered to stop whatever it was they were doing. Not until I've came, said the man, who an alerted woman constable noticed, had neglected to remove his socks. They were then ordered to stay where they were. Boxes of tissues, packets of contraceptives, bottles of baby oil, and tins of cream, Cynthia Pain scissors, creme the theatrical makeup remover, a perfect lubricant, were placed beside every bed. Some lemps of rope and a variety of leather straps for the kinky bondage fellows were in a plastic bag in the downstairs bathroom, and there were whips in the bedroom cupboards. A lone vibrator was held up for inspection by a curious constable. Quote, and what is this? he asked, since Fia Payne, who replied, You're a man. You know what that it is. He shook his head. She told him what it was. Another constable discovered a box filled with vouchers, to the values of ten P and 15P. What are these? he asked her. They she answered Are my luncheon vouchers. The policeman looked astonished. They are for my gentlemen to satisfy their appetites. Films with titles like Hot Pussies and Dear Land Flicker were in a black shopping bag in the larder. Bizarre tastes, naughty girl guides, and secret spanking colt were among those hidden in a suitcase. A further five had been hastily deposited in the garden, while a bistow tin in the kitchen was large enough to accommodate no less than nine, including the comparatively Eseric, the way to Valhalla and Castanova and the nuns. These and similar items were the kind of things the officer from the obscene publications department of New Scotland Yard had expected to find. What intrigued him and indeed all other fellow officers present were the little slips of paper that had appeared to have been distributed to the majority of the male guests? Why should such obviously successful men be in possession of the type of voucher similar to those their employees would use in calves and pubs as part payment for lunch? Why were some of these men who were absented from their jackets and trousers and consequently their wallets and checkbooks carrying a token for this minuscule amount? An Indian gentleman told the police that the voucher entitled him, quote, to have a sex affair. Not all the partygoers were as honest. One supposed that it could be exchanged for his hat and coat when the time came to leave. Another that it allowed him, quote, to see the pictures. Yet another thought it was a raffle ticket for a prize, and certainly not for sex. I'm a bit past it now. Many said that it was for food and drink, and even more remarked that they had no idea what possible use it could be put to. The police inquiries revealed that nearly all the male guests had paid Cynthia Payne £25 on entering Cranmore. This sum guaranteed them as much food and drink as they required, a film show, a lesbian display, and the services of a girl of their choice. But with the proviso that the girl herself was happy to oblige. One of the older clients explained why he was charged less. I only pay £15 because I don't go with a girl, because I'm impotent. On receipt of the entrance fee, Cynthia Payne had handed over a luncheon voucher, which in turn was passed on to the customer's chosen woman. If a man wanted to go upstairs, the pain emphasism for sexual intercourse a second, third or fourth time, then he would have to purchase a fresh voucher for each trip. At the end of an uninterrupted party, the obliging woman would return the vouchers to Cynthia Payne and be given the appropriate payment for their work. Just before the arrival of the police, the Merrymakers had been shown a film and had witnessed two girls writhing on the floor of the lounge in simulated ecstasy. But that was not all. They had been given additional and unexpected entertainment that afternoon thanks to a distinguished theologian, an acknowledged authority on monophocytism, and his versatile girlfriend. This brilliant man hadn't travelled to Strepham in order to lecture on the teachings of Jacobus Bodesus as the astonished audience who relished his every thrust in the passageways at Amvil Side Avenue soon discovered. Outside the college, Casper is a determined and tireless exhibitionist who has found in Beryl the ideal partner. The little local difficulties that prevent most of us from gratifying our desires on a momentary whim are the very things that spare them on to their greatest gymnastic achievements. Cramped conditions feed their united imagination. One summer evening when Caspar's car was stuck in a jam at Hyde Park Corner, Beryl simulated him orally, while the occupants of the lower deck of a bus watched in fascinated amazement. People still talk of the performance the couple sustained against the wash brazen in the upstairs bathroom at Cranmore, when he, in a more than usually abandoned gesture, almost wrenched the basin from the wall. They remember too what feats he did that day, when, with Beryl's unbrindled assistance, he dazzled them as they waited on the staircase with a series of stunning twists and turns. The police were unlucky in their timing, for they burst in only minutes after Beryl and Casper had brought their act to a literally breathtaking climax. Eliciting spontaneous applause. The pair were already dressed, he in black underpants, she in a red brasier with matching knickers, when Chief Superintendent Sirless commanded his officers to enter the house. As soon as she had re as soon as she had recovered from the shock, oh my god, you had to raid me today? Why today? Oh my god. Cynthia Payne assumed complete responsibility for everything that had taken place. She advised her friends to stay calm and to be careful what they told their interrogators. Even so, at least two of the girls broke down under questioning despite their employer's repeated assurance that she alone was culpable. Only one of the women faced the ordeal with total a plum. Her constantly reiterated no comment succeeded in reducing her questioner to a state bordering on the murderers. Each man was asked how he had been invited to the party. To judge by the replies, the hostess had seriously neglected her duty and forgotten to issue invitations. She had favoured rather the unconventional method of telling people she didn't want to attend, to inform those she did. Thus it was that one client after another just happened to bump into an old chum or a casual acquaintance, or most frequently a perfect stranger who just happened to know that on the following afternoon a lady called either Cindy or Judith would be presiding over a sex party. From 1.30 onwards. These necessarily brief encounters, the message conveyed so to vos were staged in a large assortment of saloon bars. One gets the impression that on the evening of Tuesday, December 5, 1978, there was scarcely a pub in the south of England which did not contain a whispering informer anxious to pass on the glad tidings about the forthcoming frolics. A quote Paddy working on the M11 at Cambridge was also possessed of the information, though he seems to have been isolated in his knowledge. Exactly how he communicated with his contact has not been revealed. A man who was nearly caught in flagrament del Tico, he was sockless, but his bedmate wasn't, shared with the waylaid motorist the distinction of not having chanced upon a saloon bar intelligencer the night before. Quote, I heard about it from a friend in Bangkok, he told a constable. In the police statement, the capital city of Thailand appears Bangkok, An error that strikes one as peculiarly apt under the circumstances. BANCOCK The young officer then inquired of the naked recipient of good news from the Far East, who was standing next to a not quite naked coloured woman. If his voucher had entitled him to the services of a prostitute, quote, you should know you smashed in the door. End quote. He had. The policeman continued. Indulged in sexual intercourse? Halfway? Another customer answered the same question by confessing that he hadn't yet, but was on the point of doing so. Quote, you got here too soon, he said sadly. Very few of the middle-aged and elderly men who were transported by Van to Strepham Police Station for further questioning could be accounted. Pinky bondage fellows. It was a rule of Cranmore that those requiring humiliation should be catered for in private, In an atmosphere conductive to their uncommon needs, a party was no occasion for wounds, however tastefully inflicted. According to one of the girls, all that was on offer was straight sex or hand relief. There was, in fact, a heavy demand for the latter, principally because of the advanced age of certain of the clientele, for whom even the missionary position was difficult to maintain. When she was charged at 10 o'clock that evening with quote running a brothel and keeping a disorderly house, Cynthia Payne repeated her statement that she accepted complete responsibility. At the station, the quote female type who had been observed carrying out the garbage from Cranmore was identified as Robert Mitchell Smith, a former squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. So that right there is part one of an English Madam. We shall continue on to the next part next week. I hope you enjoyed this little snippet. I'm probably gonna try and keep the episodes to be about a half an hour long, maybe less. But we shall see. I hope you enjoyed. And if you liked Behind the Powder podcast, I would appreciate it if you left a review. If you want me to read something else or talk about a certain topic, then please email in. Thank you very much for listening and bye.