Crumpet

Last night I watched ‘Crumpet – a very British sex symbol’ on BBC2 at 9:50pm presented by the much maligned but totally likeable newspaper editor Tony Livesey. The programme was a 60 minute extravaganza that presented a bevy of crumpet from the late 60’s and early 70’s before political correctness reared its ugly head. It took us back to an age where the bloke in the street could go ‘phhwrroorr’ at what was then termed by the media ‘Crumpet’.

Ok, so the word isn’t really used these days, it harkens back to the days of carry on films, On the buses and other bawdy 70’s tv but lets face it, they were golden days! I remember quite a bit of the 70’s, near the end of the decade I was reaching pubescent male hood when Crumpet was all over the telly, I recall fixedly staring at the screen and musing with some fascination all about the bumps on a woman’s chest and why males were so taken with them. With the usual British humour the guy in the films got the merest of glimpses of the ‘crumpet’ and her cleavage or knickers and he very rarely got to bed her but it was all good tongue in cheek fun from a less serious era.

The programme had appearances from Ingrid Pitt, Honor Blackman, Diana Dors, Barbara Windsor, Madeline Smith and one of my personal favourites Valerie Leon. Not only were camp style films represented there were also pieces on Pans People, Hammer horror, Confessions films and popular sitcoms of the time, right up until the days of Benny Hill.

Tony Livesey covered it really well in a frank and often personally indulgent documentary style fashion, never dwelling on a subject for too long to retain the viewer’s interest; it was a magical slice of retro nostalgia induced history. A look back into the days of Sid James infectious dirty laugh, the good old days of slap and tickle He presented it in such a compelling matter of fact way and icons of the era made contributions also, any chance of seeing Lesley Phillips say ‘Ding Dong’ has to be taken! There were also social comments from Germaine Greer who didn’t really verbally assault the era as much as I expected, I think even she saw it as harmless fun far removed from the often exploitive society of today.

Sadly these days we have the likes of surgically enhanced Jordon and the very unremarkable Abi Titmuss adorning the covers of magazines – gone are the days of voluptuous 70’s beauties with natural cleavage and untamed hair

Out has gone the word ‘Crumpet’ and in its place we have words like ‘Totty’ et al.

I think I’m going to make a concerted effort to remain old fashioned and use the word Crumpet whenever possible. OOOhhh Matron !

Below is a a couple of photo's of the very gorgeous Valerie Leon, star of many a 70’s film. Phwwooaarrr !