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In an effort to kickstart something worth reading (been a bit bland lately don't you think?) I thought I'd pose a few questions about the eighties and the British porn that was around then. If you are under 22 then don't bother to read on since you no doubt think it was a time of dodgy wigs, unshaven women and lots of blokes with 'taches. Well, the early eighties was I suppose but I digress.

Anyway, one thing I've noticed in the likes of places like here and Yahoo groups (i.e. where the punters decide the content) is that there seems to be a big demand for what you might call the Playbirds/Bounce kind of gals and a lot less for the Mayfair/Page three girls of the era. I often used to think I must just be odd when all my mates at college fancied Sam Fox and I fancied girls whose names changed every issue but put themselves in very rude positions and looked like they might actually be up for it. Don't feel so odd now.

So I'd like to raise a few questions to those who actually worked in the industry then (I know there are a few of you here). These are really just questions to stimulate a few dusty memory banks and perhaps even start a few seperate threads . In no particular order:-

1. Was the divide between the 'cheeky' and the 'filthy' mags led by diversity in public demand or was it more down to publishers. I didn't give a damn back then who published the stuff I liked but now I've looked back at it it would seem that the Paul Raymond camp was the Nik Kershaw of the porn world to Sullivan's Alice Cooper. (It was alright for yer dad to grin about Sam Fox at the dinner table but he had to go to a stag do to see HC Private films full of british girls and didn't admit to it.) Did both camps purposely push themselves in their respective directions?

2. What are the best books about the period (particularly british)? You here people mention biographys now and again but which would you say give the best insight into the era?

3. Many of the models were doing hardcore at the same time. Most of us only realised this years later. It wasn't like it is now where models start a 'going to do hardcore' rumour in the dailys and no one really bats an eyelid. We would have had a heart attack if we'd known what was being shown of our 'cheeky' girls in european mags like Private and Color Climax. Did models try hard to keep this work under wraps? Was there any danger of the much stricter 'powers that be' intervening?

4. I love it when guys from that era relay tales of 'how it was then'. Anyone got any funny tales of run ins with the much stricter law or ways they used to have to shoot homegrown hardcore? (lets keep models names out of it - most of them have kids now and probably prefer to stay annonymous)

5. Finally and somewhat off topic, has anyone ever been in a house where they had Color Climax Wallpaper? Where the f**k did they get that stuff? All CC or Private vids and sets have the most outrageous wallpaper which even my Nan didn't have!! Anyone doing a retro style shoot would be hard pushed to recreate that!!

Lets hear some banter and get some info from you old timers. Lets use the forum to tell a few Tap Room Tales of 'how it was in the old days'.

Now this is the kind of topic that should be encouraged.

Great thread, just the thing to get the zimmer frames of some of the older contributors here rattling...

Books on the era: Porn Gold by David Hebditch and Nick Anning is a seminal (ahem) read about the UK industry in the eighties. Out of print but copies can still be found via the web.

Can't agree more with JHseeker about the Mayfair vs Playbirds divide....fond memories of those "girls whose names changed every issue" but left nothing...unstretched.

BTW, apropos of nothing (except stretching, maybe) ain't it strange how certain well-known titles can take on a whole new identity on the web?

http://www.rustler.co.uk/index1.html

Hi there, youngsters - Hyram T Zimmer-Frame here.

I think can explain point 1 about the different ?strengths? of pictures easily enough.

In the early 1980s all the mags were gradually ?pushing back the envelope? (charming expression) and the police decided the only way to call a halt to all this was to target the distributors.

Now the likes of WH Smith (who are very big-time distributors as well as owning bookshops) didn?t like the idea of getting busted, so the ?industry? decided to ?police? itself.

So the Club/Men Only/Knave/Fiesta/Mayfair axis got softer ? as explained below.

The other lot were run by O?Sullivan and the Gold Brothers. They were rivals to begin with but decided to bury the hatchet, get together and buy Birmingham City Football Club. But that?s another story.

Since they succeeded so spectacularly, I can only assume they said ?bollocks? to WH Smith et al and sorted out their own distribution.

Meanwhile, back at the softer end, the publishers and distributors came up with a list of dos and don?ts.

One was a complete ban on anything to do with homosexuality ? by which they meant no girl/girl pictures unless they weren?t actually touching.

For years soft, two-girl sets had been a staple diet among top-shelf mags then, over night, no more. Wierd.

A friend of mine worked on one of these mags and he told me one picture was banned because his boss decided girl A?s hand was clearly moving *up* gilr B?s leg. We are talking still pictures, here ? also, in the case of his boss, bollocks.

The best story has to be about an assistant editor who discovered a loophole in these laws. They had overlooked urolagnia. So he invented a pissing letter and slipped it into the mag - he knew the editor didn?t take much notice of the letters.

By return of post came dozens of missives from golden showers fans, which the assistant editor once again smuggled on to the letters page.

It was several issues before the editor leapt to his feet one day and shouted: ?What are all these pissing letters doing in my magazine??

But the assistant editor had long since left to get a *proper* job in journalism.

This story is true, dear friends, I was that editor.

Here endeth the lesson (for now).

Nice one ) I don't suppose it would be prudent of you to name the magazine...I have quite a lot of stuff from the 80s and very early 90s and would be curious to find out. If you don't feel you can post the name of the magazine, and roughly the time period this happened, please e-mail me.

Not quite what I expected to see, Matt!!

I agree with Caractacus ? fair brings tears to me eyes?

The 80's were THE decade for porn. Debee, Heather Chittendon, Jay Aston from Bucks Fizz in a leather leotard and fishnet pantyhose. I could go on forever.