THE CHINA MAIL. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1958.
ANNE SHARPLEY
SARAYE FEATRIEKAFFIC SIGN
I reach the dizzy heights
IKE any other right-
L'
minded, work-shy
citizen I take advantage
WHEN I JOIN MR. COOK IN
LONDON'S HIGHEST CRANE
of the free entertain- ment open to all on road muster Inches works and building sites.
A good demolition job (especially a great swinging boulder called the "heinche pill") has more drama and tension than an X film. and gets rid of those
Cast destructive urges.
Splendid!
But for a
W
parv-mamalek vervo
exhit verme
you have to watch a balling being
Constructi
VIL inch by (nek
$13,000.
entire job. This is a quiet morn- hus, but most days I'm working
l the time," he said.
His record
(worth
"You could tell which par-
Bui Jay ticular job my father was on
from where each of he was born, speed of It was Devonport Dock for my learned, videst brother. Bristol Duck for
WAHIR 1 blessing M Mary lebone.
Its owners (deAlpar) pron ably detected 1350 underlying manin peling my request to Clumber up then ernte tnl they are resigned to being the biggest thig an unguat show business
Ibe Nid a l
aardener parktrigadellest was the foreseeabla DIENT MENT
A welcome
SHOL the recent weather but proven sad out at le choice I was Jessy morning when we started Contbril
It was sti a fogns on when we put to the top
CLEA there the SOIT of
That should
X
"Yes, I watched that mine up to 57" you sits, implying E eould not have got up withakt Vint
w
Mon
A k
+
*
15
Portsmouth or Woolwich Docks for the others."
He waves through the fog that surrounds his cabin in the sky, "Tee a brother on that jou arrose there
14
For a while the crane has been all, the cabl nodding slowly Lke a Bowerbend
A
Now Mr Cool's sharp eyes had emuggle a signal from his urly visible Verkaman”—the controller ut the ground
tape driver and his bankarsZORL it
11 The fa contamente langauge of thea ewn
more important than the 11 erne driver, 1 29 that the uther workers should trust him. Otherwise, with all that stuff swinging over their heads all the time, they'd never feel safe and always be looking up.
Mr Cook has Kunranteed record "Haven't dropped or Bond misjudged a
yel, touch wood," he said hard put to it t ded some wood in that aerial Bulget that is his place of work.
It seemed time to go down, On the way up the for had com- tably moffled the distance. Takes
withi Jus
good nerves to come up here," sald Mr Cook as we said goodbye,
"I'll just slew round, be wants which served me to the point of stepping right off into space. 2000 l those bundles of fitt "
xploited Mir Cook
With a sensation is though 2 ad: the thy piern chath had been threudert through pelet, just ne from top to toe and was THDIN elim
Lame strade humled uit, th and jan pots, and
startrel
KETOVAVIJIJI Closed
the
Having something of the pr prietorial, future-zinchfing Str Tute of a guidery first-titlatek, ki was natural † should try to com up one of those gorgeous CLARES that stand about making see the bukling and putscs over London, soOUT metromer atves, which is 30ft, pick up, this, droje that, slew or later
CFA
about
the ot
1 240
in 1 burst of activity Sendesman indved the ermie to
༄,་་་། ་
And it had to be the biggest A sphonelle,
Kati
e-legasd elgeet as frugteal atal mlade tap. as stucking-ran One humkod
W treg com seul Arut
Ace ven get at dy
14 but trade
wat bredt
round and slow back again. wils precise, elegant work th reminded one of stulpels
It
an i
WOOD
Tal
and pity-six feet out aded glue
PULKOTY
"You know, the way I wak ially governs the speed of the
1 was pest caught in time
ernnes
I
1 next time I watch one of
omperions
Akunt hund winging majestically about shall not think how superior and detached they took [ shalt
hink of Mr Cook
Didn't somebody forget something? Posters ad- vertising the panto Sleeping Beauty list six star names. All men!
London Fryers Service).
A Gift with the right spirit
is always appreciated
PHO
ON DISPLAY
CALD.BECK
MACGREGOR;,
To John
Xmas.
Happy Mary.
Give a beautifully decorated basket containing the finest wines and spirits.
Please order early for Xmas,
CALDBECK, MACGREGOR
20075.
2, CHATER ROAD, H.K. PHONE:
(FAR & MIDDLE:
EAST
www
Eu
BERLIN
"THERE. WE'VE OVERTAKEN HIM. SELWYN !"
1
Girls Beg For Jobs
Strip Dens
In
PROWLING depths London's By
vice, I found myself in a pub in Soho eaves- dropping on two attractive girls seated at the next table.
Eavesdropping? Unrepentantly. My guide had asked me to pay particular attention to the older-looking of the two girls.
She WON A Tenuty. Haven sprung up to supply the nudes haired, lovely, and poised. And vaburet nets.
her clothes couldn't life her They are in uusiness. We are
in trusiness.
assumed that úgure.
when they sent me the girl they were satisiled with her creden
her
VOLCO
TOSE
Suddenly slightly, and with magnificent boredon: she said: "I've got £50 in my pocket, and I don't know what to do with . I suppose 1'11 ist have to go and buy some me clothes.""
1616
#5
My compassion nudged "Do you know where she that sort of dolly" Stripping And other things"
He smirked. "Do you know
how old sit is? FIFTEEN."
Why should this man eine this?
SHOCKED
1
Hecane I had shown myself taive enough to be shocked by a 14-year-old ghi report stripping in a club.
latasy He was it to show row It happens-and tu let me draw any w euaclusions us to why, There are dozens of clubs on and beyond the vice-line London. All of them have some Borl of strip cabaret,
เค
their with
is a when
These girls don't carry birth certificates around them," he went on. "How club proprietor to know they are under age? Could YOU tell that girl was only 157"
This, then, is the really dif- cult task facing London County Council. It is all very well to debate the nuisance of undesir- County able clubs, as London's counelllors have done. But how can offelaldom stop under-age
there when strippers clue that they ARE under age? It is true that one 14-year-old dr has been caught stripping
110
in a tiny club for an audience
of 34 men But what guarantee can there be that the police, as they did in this case. will al- ways catch girls Uke her before worse befalls them?
With the assistance of an- other newspaperman I tracked down the man who ran the club.
He is an ex-publle schoalboy, dapper, charming, suave-and 34. He admits that he bas, la another connection, been called "the most sinister manager of the enli-girl racket in London." SUAVE
now
con of
n
He is also the respected missionary evangelist
And In America
the nephew of a knight. His own inarriage lins broken up, and Jus two children are with their gandparents in Amerlen.
I asked him pointed questions about the 14-year-old girl who until a recent police rald, he bad hired at £0 a week to strip In a room measuring 13 feet by 12 feet.
a room crammed with 34 ogling men,
"Dil you know she was anty 147"
als,""
ERIC SEWELL
part of a stripper's job to ac- Commission? After paying 7 comanodate individuals in her shillings and alxpener member- audience. Who she does in ship at the elab door, I Was that respect is her own affair." systematically fleeced. I know Are you going to open an- I would be. I was fastened on by Shirley Ds soon us I walked other strip joint?"
"Could do tomorrow, old into the Cangy dimly-lit base- found upon round of chap.
Anyone can open a club, Dent. But I'm nished with that par- frult julerat ve shillings a 1 mcan that. glass →→ were pressed unasked ticular me Something else will turn up." on the table at the rale of one
round
two every
minutes. Shirley got half of every £1 I. spent on the itzzy concoction that passed for non-alcoholic ecklali.
FRANK
une point
He swirled the whisky in his glass thoughtfully. "Lock here why should 1 run the risk of engluying a 14-year-old? i know I'll be hammered if in caught. Wouldn't it be more sensible lo Out <rf this considering assume that (R) #10 would the circunstances remarkably KNOWINGLY employ a stripper frank conversation,
In another near-beer joint [ struck me. That teenage girls met Susan (as I will call her): been to an under 187"
were falling over themselves in She la 18 and has droves to
postesses, approved school. The pottern of club followed suit possibly strippers on the fringe
in every respect. She ended up of London's vice life,
by telling me "[ have @ Was this true?
Hat round the corner....
Susan li doesn't know I
newspaperman. She understandably annoyed when I walked out.
"Even assuming that la 30. d't you lurve any spark of leei- ing about the possibility of lead- ing teenagers into vice?
became
I rammaged through Soho,
In and out of clubs and near.
the
WILY
WIS
He burst out laughing. It was real merrinient. "My good chip.“ he said. "I was the rat man an Lolot to operate a strip club, beer julals. I spoke to dozena And my Rudings? 25 1 Know all about Toading of garis teenagers fute viev, as you put Take Shirley (as I will call her. though that t not her mal name): Good bore, good schoal, But she was restless good job. for the bright lights. She came M London ogninst her parents in the space of half an hour. I had been virtually "robbed" Her mother of private secre-
it.
"Don't be fooled by the talk of evil met: persuading these girls It may happen 4- casionally that girls are persund- ed to beconte postitutes, but teenagers need no per- suasion to become strippers.
2141
act.
IN DROVES
wishes and started an advanced secretarial course. thinks she fary.
"ROBBED"
In these two clubs along,
cartz £10. Frankly-
although this was just another
newspaper investigation — I took this job at nights to drove out of the vicë area in a pay my way," she shrugged, curious personni fury. Not club-owners. Not
"They are falling over them- "But the mency la so easy and against the
until the early against the teenagers caught up selves in itroves to get in on the I'm on duty
SCCM worth in the club racket. But against I don't seek them. They hours. It didn't
the thousends of men who They know it's easy while to get up tired at 8 a.m. 2.
my nightly patronise these places they and study, so I thaney, and that 's what
commission here."
and keep them in business. want.
Easy money!"
"But they don't start as strip- pers?"
do. "Sometimes they
There for agencies are schools and strippers. It a girl is good, she con graduate straight trom there to the clubs.
"But most start as hostesses. They come to me and beg for u Job. Maybe they've run away
from home. Maybe they just can't be bothered earning money the hard way. And I take them
Once they see the easy life short of the strippers, it's a
to the seven step from hostess veils."
cn.
"Do many prostitutes?"
strippers become
"I don't know," he said. "But weak- that for some I think willed giris the temptation does exist,"
"You laughed when I asked If you didn't feel any personal responsiblity towards these girls, Yet you have admited, step by step, that you might be playing a part in the road to prostitution?"
He thought for moment. "How can I answer you fairly?" "I ran $ he said at Jength. strip club, That's how I made my money, Am I really to be Tri- held responsible for the clinations of some of thesɑ girls? "Wouldn't it be more true to condemn their parents? After
all.
remuit of their home background that most of them come to London, thirating absolutely tireting, old clay
Immaculate in camei-luis evercoat, he spread his hands in horror, "Certainly not. Don't-after easy money."
"But you say you ran a coli- taka my word for it that she Inoked 20. Ask any of the pea- giri myndicate?"
"That's a different thing en- ple who watched her dance."
And that's over and "How do you hire the services firely.
done with. You were talking of euch'n child?"
"Through an agency," was the of teenage strippers."
"I was also talking of strippera frank reply. "There are dozens
I said. of cluba round London using turning prostitutes," strippers. It is becuing nucl "No, I won't be caught Ilke "it Lan't big business that agencies have that," be relected,
live on
THE 'BLEEP BLEEP' PINT
COMES TO BRITAIN
Brituln.
The first radio-controlled
pubile house
the of оте Sputnik
has come to Just before Christ- mas the staff of 18 at The Buckles Inn, between Tad- caster and York, will be given midget rodlo receivers - about the size of a small pen-type torch.
These will sound "bleep
bleep" when service is needed in other parts of the house.
"It's going to make an enormous diforence to the efficiency and control of s public house of this size," said Mr. Cecil Redhead. the ilcensee. "The system will enable us to awitch star ITUM one part of the premises to another without delay."
And this is how JAK sees it.
"You and your indigestion. That's the eighth time you're ordered tripla Napoleon Brandios."
London Kaprzed zerston,