SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Behind the Powder Podcast with me, Paulson Victoria. Today we are doing the last chapter of An English Madam, The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne. We are reading the epilogue. No horse was frightened. By the end of April 1980, Cynthia Payne was a national celebrity. For most people in the British Isles, the words luncheon vouchers had now taken on a second meaning. The phrase was so casually used by Cynthia during the raid, was seized upon with delight by newspaper reporters. The occupants of the staircase at Cranmore, the eager clerics, barristers, and businessmen, were portrayed by the majority of the media with some accuracy as Chaucerian figures. Genial old buffers, kindly old reprobates. Cynthia was well served by the British press, most surprisingly by the tabloids that carry titillating pictures of naked girls on one page and high mindedly vindictive editorials about the increase of vice on another. There seemed to be general agreement that Cynthia and her unique establishment were harming no one. Cynthia was soon given the sobriquet Madame Sin, while her hitherto seemingly respectable residence became known as the luncheon voucher brothel. Naughtiness rather than wickedness had been on offer in Sleepy Strepham, and the nation responded to that naughtiness with grateful laughter at a time when its political and economic affairs were in depressing disarray. The sixteen months between the raid and her trial at the inner London Crown Court were troublesome ones for Cynthia. Her resilience was tested to the utmost. For one thing, there was the uncertainty about her future. She was convinced that she would be sent to prison. More important though, and infinitively more worrying, was the state of her health. Throughout 1979 she felt extremely weak and lethargic, and was soon on occasions to unbearable pain. She consulted a specialist eventually, who diagnosed that one of her kidneys was so diseased that its removal was a matter of urgency. Her house was raided again in April of that year while a small party was in progress. Then her father died. She began to believe as she later told a newspaper reporter that she was a marked woman. Her kidney was removed in King's College Hospital. The doctors and staff who attended her were impressed by her cheerfulness and the positive attitude she displayed towards her operation. She entertained the nurses with stories about the brothel. She probably told them about the poor old boy who always took out his teeth before settling down to Connelingus. Such was his excitement one evening that he snatched up a pile of tissues from the bedside table and consigned them to the toilet without realizing that they were wrapped around his dentures. He was lucky he was a bachelor. Just imagine if he had had to explain why they were missing to his wife. Cynthia's trial took place on Monday, April 21, 1980, before Judge David West Russell. She admitted exercising control over free prostitutes and keeping a disorderly house in December 1978. She pleaded not guilty to a further ten charges which were not proceeded with. The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Donald Farquad Harson, informed the court how the brothel was run and what facilities were available to its clients. Some of the prostitutes are described as amateurs because they were only taking part in an exercise to raise money for Christmas. He went on to explain the luncheon voucher system and revealed that certain pornographic films had been seized, along with items for bondage and various sex aids. £560 in cash had been found on the premises. The defending counsel, Mr. Gregory Robertson, began by saying that not one of his clients' neighbours had ever complained about the way in which he was using the house. The bondage equipment, which was the bondage equipment which the prosecution had referred to, was not in use at the party. These items had been brought to Amwelson Avenue by individual customers for their isolated pleasure. Robertson then accounted for the clientele, with descriptions from the police statements of the men who were seen arriving at Cranmore. Man in dark suit between the ages of 45 to 50, bold black blazer, elderly man with trilbilly hat carrying briefcase. Middle aged man, smart appearance, smoking pipe. Cynthia Payne, her lawyer continued, provided assistance, certain facilities, beds, and food and drink. There was no suggestion that she rounded up or recruited women. They were never obligated to have sex and were free to say no to a customer if that was their wish. This was very much an informal arrangement. The prostitutes wanted a safe house where their trade was neither difficult nor dangerous. They preferred to ply their trade in the security of Ambleside Avenue, but Cynthia Payne's earnings were not great. She did not live in great opulence and style. In his plea for leniency, Robert spoke of the difficulties of Cynthia's early life and the circumstances in which she had come to open a brothel. There was no question he assorted, yet asserted, of beardless youngsters being initiated into the flesh pots. The clients who had not been touted for, but mostly recommended by word of mouth, were entertained in reasonable surroundings. The men and women who used her establishment were all responsible for their own actions. The court was shocked when Judge Well Russell sentenced Cynthia to 18 months' imprisonment for keeping a disorderly house. She was also fined £650 for each charge of exercising control over prostitutes and ordered to pay legal costs of £2,000. The judge said that he saw no reason why the public should pay for the lengthy police time involved. Many members of the public, including Cynthia's immediate neighbours, saw no reason why the police had gone to so much bother to raid that harmless household in the first place. Residents of Ambleside Avenue recalled how the street, which is on a bus route, was cordoned off for several hours on December 6, 1978, thus causing considerable traffic problems. They also wondered why quite so many policemen and police women had been assigned to the task of escorting fifty-free middle aged to elderly men and seventeen women to Strepham police station for questioning. It was a case of overkill, said one neighbour. That same public expressed outrage at what Selma James of the English Collector of Prostitutes called a barbaric sentence. The judges' colleagues were the clients, she said. That was made quite clear in court. We are not against the men getting away, but we are against the women not getting away. Four days after the court case, the spectator published an editorial which wittedly and lucidly examined the precise nature of this act of legal barbarism. At one point its writer alluded to the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell's famous observation about homosexuals. I don't care what they do, so as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. The hypocrisy of the law. No doubt the member of the House of Lords, the heir, MP, the vicars, the barristers, the solicitors, the accountants, the businessmen who found their Christmas party in 1978 rudely interrupted by the incursion of a great number of policemen were very worried at the time. They had paid £25 each for tickets to the party in Ambleside Avenue, Strepham, and for their cash they were provided with food, drink and dirty film, a live sex show, and the opportunity of intercourse with one of the party's attendant women. Some of these women were apparently regular prostitutes, others amateurs earning some extra cash for Christmas. The police duly noted the names and addresses of the men, interviewed them, then sent them on their way. They were mainly middle aged and elderly, and had heard of the goings on at the house in Ambleside Avenue by mailing list and word of mouth. It was, by all accounts, the policemen's included, a well run sort of place, as indeed it might be expected to be, given the quality of its clientele, but on account of what was going on in it, it was a disorderly house, a brothel. Mrs. Cynthia Payne this week was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, fined £1,950, and ordered to pay costs not exceeding £2,000 for keeping the house and exercising control over the prostitutes. The prosecuting counsel told the judge that there was no question of coercion or corruption of young people and that the clients knew perfectly well what they were doing. None of the neighbours complained, and so far as I'm known, and so far as is known, no horse was frightened. The judge did not accept that Cynthia Payne was ignorant of the law. She had been before the courts four times previously. She had transgressed the law, and had chosen the whi and had chosen that way of life, he said, before sending her down. Her counsel pleaded that she not be jailed. She alone faced the court. Cynthia Payne recognises that the party is over, he said. And she, and she alone, is picking up the tab. The men who flocked to Amble Side Avenue have gone free. Indeed they have. And they have also gone unnamed, but Cynthia Payne, who catered for their tastes, is now in prison. She pleaded guilty and presumably the judge considers she has received her just desserts just desserts. It is very difficult to discern any justice in this very typical case. The punishment itself is altogether excessive. Nothing is gained in imprisoning Cynthia Payne and her kind unless they have corrupted the young and innocent. The transactions between Mrs. Payne, her male clients and the women in her house were transactions between freely consenting adults. According to the law the men committed no offense, and if the women did, they were not charged with any, only as Cynthia Payne is regarded as legally culpable, even though she, the men, and the women were all engaged in the joint exercise of an improper Christmas party. The law has been enforced, but justice has manifestly not been done. The quite unnecessary severe sentence apart, there remains an outrageous indecency in the law as it stands and is enforced. If prostitution be an offence punishable at law, then the law should be written and enacted to this effect, and if offence it be, then the man and woman clearly sharing the offence should be held should be held to be both of them cultivated. Common sense would go further and say that of the two the men who after all is creating the demand and supplying the cash is the more responsible for their illegal enterprise, the more cultivated and the more appropriate to be punished. But our legislators have not wished prostitution as such to be an offence, precisely in order to avoid the punishment and the publication of the names of the men whose demands create a supply. Not willing, however, to let the matter rest, they have sought to punish the women, and the men who control or live off the women, while leaving the demanding men alone. There are thus punishments for offences, such as soliciting, living off of immoral earnings, and running disorderly houses. The house in Ambleside Avenue was extremely ordinary. No, orderly. But disorderly in the law it was held to be. And Cynthia Payne goes down for 18 months. The hypocrisy of the law as it stands could not be better illustrated. Legislators, clergymen, and lawyers go unnamed and free. The woman who met their demands goes to jail. The law should be changed so that what passes privately between consenting adults corrupts no minors, creates no public nuisance, disturbs no neighbours, and frightens no horses, is no longer the concern of the law, is no longer a matter for the curiosity of the police, and the prudence of the rest of us. These views were echoed in newspapers as desperat, as the Guardian, the Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, The Times, even the Prudent Press concurred with most of them. Cynthia was sent to Holloway prison, where she witnessed lesbian displays which the ecstasy wasn't stimulated. With her customary cheerfulness, she decided to make her intimate as bearable as possible. She was determined not to give in to self-pity. And anyway, she was fascinated by the women around her. She wrote to Gregory. They've given me the job of kitchen hand. Trusted job. So I will not be cooped up in my dorm all day long, plus the fact I may be able to get better food. There are eight girls to a dorm, and because of shortage of staff, we are shut up all day, though the screws try to get us out at least once. Those days are terrible as they seem so long. My experience of Holloway isn't a bad one. I expected terrible things to happen. I find prison officers firm but kind, some quite motherly. My favourite is a big woman who struts about like a sergeant major. They tell me she is genuinely concerned with the prisoner's welfare. She has a great sense of fun. Another one is a tall, attractive blonde with steel blue eyes. She is very strict and would make a bomb in my house, just holding a whip in her hand. The girls in my room are quite friendly to me, which is a great asset because it can get miserable if they don't like you. Sometimes the girls go mad at night and scream like mad at each other like monkeys because their nerves are bad. Mainly those types are unbalanced anyway. Sometimes girls cry in their sleep for their children. Others make a scene to get attention from the officers. They have no families or friends who visit them, so they feel lonely and rejected. Those types bash everything in their room. Screws take everything out so they can't hurt themselves. They give them a few hours to settle down, and if they don't, they have to have an injection to quiet them. We had a lovely girl of twenty five with long hair, beautifully spoken, had a drug problem, nearly died with it in hospital. Her one for unreleased was to get another fix. She told us she had no confidence without it, and we all tried to make her see sense, but it wasn't going to be any use. There was a little Vietnam woman came on the boats, about forty two, who giggles to herself in bed, and when the lot of us get bored we tend to take the Mickey, but she's good at taking a joke against herself. She's not quite normal, but is cute enough to take all her belongings and food and hide it in the bed with her so no one goes to pinch it. Eats her food in the middle of the night. On Tuesday, April 22nd, the first full day of Cynthia's sentence. Mitchell gave newspaper reporters a conducted tour of Grant of Cranmore. He donned a woman's wig for the occasion and told the assembled journalists that he was a deviant. He showed them the mirror room, the group sex room, and drew their attention to a wooden plaque that hung in the kitchen. My house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy. Cynthia's legal advisers and several old Cramorians were annoyed with Mitchell for behaving so irresponsibly. Yet, in retrospect, Cynthia appreciates the method in the squadron leader's seeming madness. He made a joke of the whole issue. He let the world know that we had a lot of bloody wonderful fun in Ambleside Avenue. Cynthia appealed against her sentence on Thursday, May 15th. The appeal was heard by Lord Justice Lawton, Mr Justice Michael Davies, and Mr. Justice Balcombe. In his judgment, Lord Justice Lawton honoured those present with a short history lesson. The offence of keeping a disorderly house in the form of a brothel has been part of the common law in England for centuries, and from time to time it has been necessary for Parliament to intervene. The first occasion upon which Parliament did was so long ago as in the reign of Henry III. Parliament was offended by the scandal of a number of women setting themselves up in a brothel outside the calmlit Ferry. Just to the south of Fleet Street. After this preamble, his lordship told the appealant that he and fellow justices had decided to reduce her sentence from 18 months to six months imprisonment. The fines were to be left as they were. He then stated with the aid of evidence supplied by Mr. Justice Davis and the prosecuting counsel, Mr. A. Wolken, that no barristers had attended the notorious Christmas party. The two men had checked the names in the police statement with those registered in the bar list. I'm no detective, but I became suspicious when on examining those same statements I saw that Mr Lovejoy and Mr. Bedwell were questioned at Streetham Station. Clearly the barristers, along with the peer of the realm, who could not be traced in who's who had been a suit enough. Even with their pants down to give false names and addresses, they knew perfectly well that the police were more concerned with charging the madam than bothering to check their identities. Cynthia returned to Holloway. Cynthia returned to Holloway, secure in the knowledge that if she behaved herself she would be granted remission and released in August. In a letter addressed to Roger Mitchell Gregory, Slave Rodney, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, she wrote, The reporters were all surprised that I stopped the car to allow my photo to be taken. As I could have put a coat over my head, but as I thought the press had been so good to me, plus the fact that they had waited for four hours for a glimpse, I thought I'd make their wait worthwhile. They all cheered when I posed for them blowing kisses. Cynthia was greeted outside Holloway prison on August 20th by a client in his Rolls Royce, Selma James with a bunch of red roses and a swarm of journalists. She gave her audience the V sign, V for victory, and V for voucher. A postcard arrived at Cranmore while Cynthia was in prison. It was from a hopeful Mohammed who had been told by friends in Tagera Tenure of his former sweetheart's sudden rise to fame. He probably realizes now I could be a rich woman because of it, the crafty bugger. She wrote to her relative. For Cynthia, Cranmore is a shadow of itself these days, particularly since Mitchell's unexpected death in the summer of 1981. I attended his funeral and the subsequent party and was granted a brief insight into her method of entertaining. Her joyful cry, let fucking commence, was the cue for decorus invitations from the gentleman to the ladies to go upstairs. The only wildness I witnessed that day was provided by the stripper Rowanna, who performed with a dildo, which she ever so often pressed into an eager, outstretched, liver spotted hand. I like to believe that Cynthia been a madam a century ago, the priggish swin born who loved the lashing would have been among her clients. This small perky woman with her hardened knowledge of the sadness and the absurdity, as well as the briefly radiant happiness of the sexual life is a philanthropist of sorts. She will never forget the pleasure she provided for a man who was withered from the waist down. I built a party around him. We had the exhibition right in front of him. After that he chose a lovely half cast girl. We knew he couldn't go upstairs, so all the men trooped out to the kitchen and had poached eggs on toast, and we closed the lounge doors. The girl told me afterwards that she managed to make him come. Peter, that was his name, sent me some bloody money sent me some money by post, but I wouldn't accept it. I was just so bloody overjoyed that I'd been able to give him a little happiness before he died. Cynthia sits in the lounge at Cranmore and longs for the freedom to give her parties again. Gregory and Ampia are in attendance. Slave Philip calls twice a week to clean the house in his own special fashion, and slave Rodney, who wept copiously the night before she entered hospital for her kidney operation, tends the garden every Saturday, and in the wings wait Agatha, Rowanna, Randolph, Tilly, the Knickerman, Magda, who has learned alas that she has leukemia, Desmond, the bank manager, Mavis, Benny, the barristers, the accountants, the clerics, the armpit fixated diplomats, the whippers and the whipped, old Cremorians, licensed jesters, harmless people, all of them, who would be horrified to learn that they had frightened the horses. Cynthia's mind has been active during her enforced idleness. I have this bloody wonderful dream. I want to widen my horizons, you see. It's my ambition to open a home for the elderly, men and women. I'd be a matron. There would be special wards for the disabled. If people wanted sex, they could charge it to the national health. The ones who can't afford it, I mean I'd have slaves to do the cleaning and mistresses to see that they don't cut corners. I'm surprised that no one's ever thought of it before. Well, that was an English madam, the life and worker Cynthia Payne. It was absolutely ridiculous how extreme the sentencing was and the fines, and they were all consenting adults. I don't think anybody should have been outed, if I'm completely honest. Clients and workers. If the Nordic model came into play where the clients would be criminalized, it's shown numerous times in numerous reports that it's not good. It's not a good idea at all. But this has been by Hangovella Podcast, Remove Halls and Victoria. This is where we fight for the decriminalization of sex work. We don't want anybody in trouble, especially when we come together for safety, sex workers. I myself am a professional dominatrix, as well as the escort, as well as anything else you want to pay me for. I consent to this job, and I know many other people who do. I think one thing which this book didn't hit on at the end was that this all should be down to the fault of poverty. The amateurs who are prostituting themselves for money just for Christmas, that should be down to poverty. People shouldn't have to go into sex work to make ends meet, but it happens. And a lot of sex workers come into sex work due to financial reasons and financial worries. At the end of the day, it is a job, but we shouldn't have to worry about paying our bills and have to do certain things which we wouldn't have thought about doing. Alright. I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye. If you liked, then please leave a follow, like, share. Yeah. And you're more than welcome to give me a message with anything you want to discuss in the future or any takeaways. Alright. Bye.