I don't know if you've ever read those things in
Reader's Digest,
that feature they used to have called "My Most Unforgettable Character", they may still run it, I dunno, never read it any more.
Anyway, I thought about it the other day when someone mentioned during conversation when the topic had moved to our favourite subject, "Whatever happened to Pat Wynn?"
Now if you're of my vintage, with more hair around your old fella than on your head, you'll know immediately who I'm talking about, but you young blokes have probably never heard the name. Shoot, have you bastards missed something!
I came across her – OK, awful pun, I know, but truthful – when I was working in Soho in 1979. I was a very successful photographer – yep, you know the type of pictures I'm talking about. Anyway, I was 30, dark brown eyes, which matched my dark brown voice and I had long, jet-black hair which came almost to my shoulders – yeah, I know, we thought it looked good, didn't we?
I was tall – well, still am – and slim. Nothing massive down there, just over seven inches, uncut, and I knew how to handle it. No, sorry, another terrible pun, I mean I knew what to do with it. Luckily, so did Pat, but I'm getting ahead of my story.
This loft I worked in was a typical Soho loft. Over-priced, rent-wise, too cold in winter and too hot in summer, but it was in a terrific location, just off Wardour Street, close to some great restaurants, good strip clubs and filthy book shops. Haven't lived in London or England for that matter for nearly 25 years – it is still the same?
But the place was well equipped for my purposes. High stud to the ceiling, plenty of leather chairs and couches, tables, equipment – a lot of the pictures involved bondage, whips, you get the picture? And I was a very sought after clickster, mainly for the flesh stuff, but also for more "straight" pictures, too.
The name I worked under was Richard Patterson, you've seen loads of my work if you've seen back numbers of
Mayfair
and
Escort
magazine from that period.
Oh, no one calls me Richard by the way, except "She who must be obeyed" when she's really pissed at me. Everyone calls me Rick.
And I know what you're asking – is it true you got to fuck a lot of nubile little totty in your day, Rick? Well, the hypocrites in the business will all say what they've been programmed to say: no, it's strictly business, can't compromise my reputation or the girl's. Stuff like that.
But I won't give you any of that horse hockey. In my day, course we did. If the lady was turning it up, who would be a cad and decline? Couldn't go round hurting their feelings, could you? I mean, I may be a cunt, but I'm not a cad. You with me?
So anyway, here I am sitting in the little kitchenette we called "The Savoy Grill", sucking on a Lucky Strike – shoot, I used to think I was cool smoking those fuckin' awful things – and sipping a bloody awful instant coffee while doing the
Daily Telegraph
cryptic crossword (I was a gun at 'em, still am) when my gofer comes in with the latest pile of magazines from our little newsagent's down Wardour Street.
Jackie, that was his name, see, dumps a pile of skin mags on the table, says "Here's the latest pussy publications, Rick", in his thick Scottish accent – I wouldn't dare try to copy it here – and helps himself to a Coke.
I'll never forget the date – well, the month, to be more accurate. It was May, 1979, and there, in all its pristine glory was the June issue of
Mayfair
magazine. The tart on the cover wasn't too dusty, either, a dark-haired bimbo, with one knee on a couch and a pair of shiny pants which I think they called "tap pants" – still may do, for all I know.
I picked up
Mayfair
first because I did a lot of work for them and they always paid well and promptly. Believe me, in those days the "promptly" was almost as important as the "well". So I glanced at the spread on the dark-haired lovely, and very tasty too.
But then I got past the centrespread, and the very last woman to feature in the mag was indeed that – a WOMAN!
It was Pat Wynn, and it said she was the wife of a Surrey stockbroker, or some such imaginary twaddle, I dunno, I never believed it, did you? Likes hot chocolate, dogs that don't bite and long walks on the moors. Bollocks! We all know what they like, don't we?
Anyway, it said she was 40, I think, and gave her measurements as 40-26-36, although I reckoned then, still do, that her superstructure was more in the 44-inch range. And don't go on about that figure being meaningless and it's all to do with the width of the lady's back, or crap like that. These jugs were HANDFULS!
So I whistled, or something, and Jackie peered over my shoulder and he whistled too, the filthy little pervert. "Fuck," he said, "what would I give you fuck that!"
And I could see his point. This woman was built and beautiful. She had a shock of fairish red hair on her head, nice hair. She had these bloody big bazookas – all right, sorry, it's so 1960s or '70s, but fuck, this WAS 1979, remember?
She also wore black stockings held up by a slim garter belt, and had high heels. That combination always makes me hot!
And she was also shown in silky, slinky black satin, and she had a cheeky smile which sort of said "I know what YOU'RE thinking, you naughty boy!" and a pussy which was rather hairy, but fuck, I wanted to muff dive it there and then.
I guess my thoughts must have been like one of those balloons in cartoons, because Jackie read my thoughts in a shot.
"You wanna shoot it, don't you?" he asked, cheekily. "And I don't mean with the fuckin' Hasselblad!"
Little Glaswegian bastard had me there! What wouldn't I have given for a jump on that lush-breasted, full-buttocked, RIPE-looking woman! Just looking at her made me go wobbly at the knees and hard somewhere else!
So I picked up the phone. Now, while I was a very good photographer of the naked, and sometimes-not-so-naked, female form, I was an absolute fucking genius at working a telephone.
I called my contact at
Mayfair
magazine, a woman who booked most of their models, and even took part in the randy bastards' conferences where they decided which pictures they'd use.
She was a nice lady, not my type, but I took her to lunch at a little Chinese joint once a month and made her laugh with pretty banal, filthy stories, and she looked out for ladies on my behalf.
When Camilla and I had got the niceties out of the way, she snapped into business mode.
"Rick, how can I help you?" she asked.