John Skilling solo album completed

John Skilling posing in chains (Hussar)

 The Gallery article on John Skillings solo appearances for Royale and Hussar is now complete.

The articles on 'Bullies' and 'Caned Sailors' have also been updated to improve linkage between them. You can now read them as though they were one and the same set. The debate about whether they truly are the same set has also been updated. 

'Baby Doll' poses in Royale's images

Article Under Construction

Royale portrayed more than one model in 'baby doll' poses in the early years. It represents an unambiguous departure from the formality of beefcake posing, an attempt to develop a language of male 'glamour' by copying the female formats which had been developed in the 50's.

John Skilling in set JOS-1 mid-1958

Royale even used this one of John Skilling for a catalogue thumbnail. This pose shows a lot of skin, but very little muscle development. Instead, there is a glimpse of backside cleft, enough to hint at sexual interest of the homosexual kind. The 'allure' is dampened somewhat by John's sour expression and incredibly dirty feet, but it's little wonder that none of the beefcake mags ever printed this image.

Royale Studio - Ian Oliver (IOL1-7)?

This Royale image was safer and the editor who printed it (John Barrington) was bolder than the mainstream mags. He provided no model name, only the Studio. I have attributed it to Ian Oliver although the baby-doll pose and seductive smile is quite unlike any other image we have of him. It was printed in John Barrington's 'Man-ifique' (No 8, Winter 1958).

John Barrington had given the manliness of  Don Avard the same treatment much earlier (May '57) and arguably much more explicitly (more detail pending). Substituting a man for a woman still seems incongruous to modern eyes, unmanly if you like, it was shockingly so back then. 

Peter George in set PUN-4 (1959)

This 'baby on the mat' pose by Peter George in set PUN-4 uses an even more provocative camera angle, adding a smile and getting in close. The result is a massive magnification of the inherent eroticism of nudity into what seems like a seductive invitation to 'bed' the model. 

Peter George in set PUN-4 (1961?)

This image, also Peter George, is a nicely crafted composition, but it seeks a more serious emotional response with the model making direct eye contact with the viewer. It is not openly inviting like the 'black' variant above. Instead, Peter's expression suggests we have stumbled in on a private moment and caught him by surprise. Inevitably it brings out all the boyishness in him, but this is clearly a young man not an immature youth.

Ian Oliver solo sets completed

 

Ian Oliver (from the Colville Collection)

The listing of all of Ian Oliver's known, solo photos in the Gallery is complete

and his Profile/Index page has been updated.

The image above, discovered in 2016 is one of a small group that don't fit readily 

into what is known about his best documented appearances.

Visit Ian Oliver's Index Page

Under The Lash

Under The Lash, 1st edn dust jacket 

image courtesy of Riveting Books on ebay

 In November 1952, John Barrington, the celebrated British photographer of Male nudes (including Yves Grangeat and Don Avard link pending)  first became acquainted with Basil Clavering, founder of Royale Studio. They met (according to Barrington's biographer, Source 101, paraphrased here) at a cocktail party given by Clavering at his 'impressive Pimilico flat'. Apparently Clavering showed him his collection of military uniforms (boots, helmets, whips and spurs are specifically mentioned!). He suggested Barrington might help him with a pet project he had been working on for some years, a history of corporal punishment in the Army and Navy. The evening ended with Barrington being given a retainer and a salary of £10 a week for the job. 

This account, based on Barrington's recollections (which weren't always reliable) sounds as if it is describing an acquaintanceship and collaboration which would normally have developed over a rather longer period of time than just one cocktail party, but the project is real enough, 'Under The Lash' was published by Torchstream Books in 1954. According to his biographer again, Barrington "worked on it sporadically through 1953" but it isn't explained exactly what he was doing. 

I have commented elsewhere in this blog that, going by his own photographs and the contents of his extensive list of beefcake publications, Barrington doesn't seem to have had a fetish bone in his body, so his qualifications for writing such a book seem extremely limited. The cover image shown above offers a clarification, because the author is given as Scott Claver which is surely a nom de plume for Basil Arthur Scott Clavering. It appears that Barrington's role was to prepare the manuscript for publication, so the words and writing style we can see in the book are probably more Clavering's than Barrington's*. 

There certainly can't be any doubt that the sentiments expressed in the Preface are Clavering's. In it he acknowledges the barbarity and sometimes unfair application of corporal punishments in years gone by (both explored in great depth and gory detail in the text). But he also asserts that there have always been 'types' of men who reject rules and discipline devised for the general good and some amongst them who are impervious to normal forms of enforcement. That some at least are deterred by corporal punishments and that offenders find a short, sharp shock more instructive than, and preferable to, long, debilitating periods of incarceration. 

Clavering had a recent experience to warrant these views. In January 1948, the Westminster and Pimlico News reported that two men were accused of demanding money from him, threatening to break his door down and 'do him in' if he didn't give them £20 (an astonishing £900 today). Apparently Basil summoned the Police by phone (a rich man's option back then) and told the investigating officer: "I have already given the tall one three £1 notes with B.C. on them. You will find them in his pocket". This tale of how Basil outwitted two 'thugs' is amusing and shows his coolness during an extremely unpleasant incident. It appears he reluctantly gave one of the men £3 for some reason but the man returned later with an accomplice and demanded more. Reading between the lines, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the incident had something to do with Clavering's gay lifestyle and that the 'menaces' included threats of exposure. Fortunately Clavering had enough standing in the community to shrug that off and was obviously well capable of directing that charge back at the offenders, true or not. I've not found a record of what happened to the two men but you can understand how Clavering might have wished on them a short sharp shock of corporal punishment.

It doesn't really matter whether we agree with Clavering's views on corporal punishment, his arguments in the Preface contain their own contradictions, but that debate is long over. However, all the characteristics he describes are reflected in the storyettes he devised a few years later when Royale Studio was born. Thus in 'TEDS' we have a Teddy Boy 'type', a would-be mugger who thoroughly deserves the caning he receives, arbitrarily, from a wholesome sailor. Likewise 'The Cheat' who betrays the trust of his Army comrades while gambling. 'Unapproved' recounts how two men sent for military punishment (presumably justified) suffer extreme degradation and rebel, only to be punished even more harshly. Airman Gym Spanking depicts corporal punishment being inflicted as an encouragement to achieve excellence, i.e. for no very good reason. 'The Captive' and 'Shanghai'ed Sailor' show men arbitrarily enslaved, as was the case with press-ganged sailors, and punished to prevent dissent. The Recruit comes close to comparing National Service with the Press Gangs of old, with compliance enforced with the cane. There is much arbitrariness and unfairness here, but Basil's preface to 'Under The Lash' tells us that it would be wrong to assume that he necessarily sympathises with the suffering of all these victims. 

There is much of interest in his book to interest those attracted to the subject of punishments and, as can be seen from the cover above, there are illustrations of some quality. The one shown, 'tied to the halberds' seems to inspire one of Royale's celebrated 'Hussar' punishment in tights images. I plan to review the book and it's images in more depth in a further article.

~

*One reviewer has dismissed the book as plagiarism. I'm not qualified to comment on that, but the author does cite 103 sources, including the one specifically cited by the complainant and if you search in google books you will find it included as a reference by many other authors which suggests it is valued as a compendium and easily read account if nothing else.

'The Stolen Motorcycle' storyette is now complete

 

Royale's Original Catalogue Thumbnail

I have finished adding this set to the Archive

View The Stolen Motorcycle index page

Royale Catalogue (May 1958)

The only proper Royale Catalogue the Archive has discovered is the 1960 compilation of the 10 individual quarterly Lists which had been published up to that date. Many of the early sets had been deleted from the catalogue by that time and the first five lists had been condensed into a new List 'A', so information about those early years is incomplete.

However, in May 1958 (about 6 months after Royale's launch) the full page advertisement shown below was printed in 'Adonis' No 4 showing many of the models on their roster at that point.

Royale Advertisment in Adonis No 4 (May 1958)

It says a lot for Clavering's confidence and marketing knowledge that Royale were splashing out on full page ads so early in their existence. The catalogue price was  4 shillings, which is about £4 at today's prices.

There are 19 models named on these two pages as follows:

	Left Hand Sheet				Right Hand Sheet
Top Row	Don Avard	Don Avard		Don Avard	Artur Robin	Michael Bambin		Ricky Alboni
2nd Row	Terry Finch	Mohamed el Zole?		Ian Oliver	Mercer	Sandy MacCrea		Richard Robinson
3rd Row	David Trood		Pat Brooks		Muller		David Wales
4th Row	John Dawe?	Les White		Charles Kassapian(?)	Allan	Charles Kassapian		Lee

I am not confident of models named with a question mark

You can see some of the names more clearly in the original, unenhanced image

The man named 'Mercer' is not known from other sources (sadly), nor is 'Allan', nor 'Muller' (although his ship's wheel appears in a well-known picture of Mike Chisholm).There is another image of 'Lee' but the magazine did not give his full name. 

A separate source, also from May 1958, an advertisement in 'Tomorrow's Man', states that Royale had 30 models on their books at that point, so this ad identifies two thirds of their roster. The missing 11 probably included Tibor Urgay, John Skilling, Fred Collins, Ted Gutteridge, Frank Wheeler and Henri Barjac who are also associated with the early existence of Royale

 

The Curator is on Holiday