The Letters of Lytton Strachey, which I have just been reading, are a mixed joy. Odd that a writer supposedly so fastidious in the use of words should have produced effusions in the 1920s using ‘divine’ or ‘divinely’ half a dozen times in a single letter, just like a Bright Young Person from Vile Bodies. On the other hand, they provide nuggets of discreditable facts, chiefly about the sexual tastes of the Great and the Good, such as the Labour Lord Chancellor, Jowett. He also relates how he himself was pleasurably crucified by the young Roger Senhouse, an elaborate business which involved making a blasphemous ‘cut’ in his side. More interesting, really, is the fact (new to me) that when, during the reign of moral terror set up by Sir William Joynson-Hicks in the 1920s, the police raided an art gallery showing D.H. Lawrence’s ‘obscene’ paintings, they also seized a drawing of Adam and Eve by William Blake. The woman owner of the gallery protested and the police gave it back to her. Strachey complained that this was bad tactics: if she had let the police take it away, and then announced the fact publicly, the authorities would have been covered in ridicule.
All very well, but how were policemen supposed to know what particular marks on paper or canvas would be judged obscene by the courts? I recall, in the late 1950s, a senior police officer telling me: ‘What we tell our lads is, look out for pubic hair. If it’s there, you can be pretty sure the courts will convict. If it’s not there, best leave it alone.’ Was this the reason, about this time, that the police acquired the nickname of ‘the fuzz’? Possibly, but there may be quite a different etymology.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in