Brian McConnell | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 1, 1995

Sex stories told by men in public houses are often suspect. Even when there is some public published record of an extrordinary sexual occurrence, there is a suspicion of embroidery by the story-teller.

My elders always assured me that during the 1920s and 1930s the following two stories were witnessed in courts.

An Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was charged with an act of indecency in Hyde Park. The magistrate found him guilty and had an undoubted duty to inquire into any previous criminality by the prisoner before passing sentence. Even so, the police must have been surprised to hear the beak ask, “Anything previously known about the prisoner?”

Another magistrate died while having sexual intercourse with a prostitute. At a subsequent inquest, the coroner asked the doxy, “When did you first think that there was anything wrong with the deceased?” Through her tears, the lady replied, “Just as I thought he was coming, he was…”, sob, sob, “going”.

Stories about people dying during the sexual act, usually couple with a pay-off line, “What a way to go!” are seldom believed. Nor are stories about couples being inescapably joined in the sexual act and taken together on one stretcher by the ambulance men to the hospital to be separated. Perhaps someone should compile a list of such stories and legends in the hope the veracity can be checked.

Before we dismiss all stories of sexual oddities as fiction, however, I offer the attached story from my journalistic alma mater with the old-fashioned mandatory quotation from a named authority to substantiate the account.

South London Press, 18 February 1994.
FREE WILLY! PERVERT PADLOCKS PRIVATES
EXCLUSIVE by RICHARD ALLEN

A red-faced patient found himself in a bit of a tight spot when he limped into hospital – with a padlock stuck on his private parts. Staff at St Thomas’ Hospital, Waterloo, called in firefighters on Tuesday morning after they failed to find a delicate way of freeing the elderly man’s manhood.

But after a bit of trial and error the Lambeth fire crew found the right key in their spare set.
A fire brigade spokesman said, “He was obviously some kind of masochist who put this thing on and then found he didn’t have the key. “He was lucky it was a standard lock, otherwise we would have had to use the cutting equipment.”

Dr Caroline Bradbeer, of St Thomas’ genito-urinary medicine department, said the case was not unusual. She said, “Sometimes people do it because they are trying to improve their erection – but then they find it wont go down again.” “Bathing it in ice cubes can work, if it hasn’t gone to far.”

Three years ago, Lewisham firefighters were called to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, to free a 55-year-old man who had a steel ring stuck in a similar way.

In a 90-minute operation a medical team managed to cut him free using an air-driven surgical saw while firefighters held the ring with a mole grip and doused the metal with water to keep it cool.