Stanley Green was a regular fixture in London – everybody knew him. We all saw Stanley pacing the west end with his familiar placard. Yet I had no idea what he stood for – a firm conviction that protein made you a sex mad monster.
Throughout my childhood, I’d see this curious man on Oxford Street walking slowly up and down with a huge placard strapped to his back. Like the Hare Krishna groups chanting round Oxford Circus, this odd chap was a regular fixture you kind of screened out after a while. He was omnipresent on London’s main shopping thoroughfare.
Stanley Green believed that a surfeit of protein caused harmful urges and he’d sell a pamphlet to shoppers explaining the point. Not sure he had many takers. People preferred to avoid than engage with him. His argument was that lust, which made us more miserable, was brought on by a surfeit of meat, fish, poultry, cheese, eggs, peas, beans, nuts, and sitting down too much. His pamphlets were produced on a simple printing press at his council flat in Northolt, annoying neighbours with its rattling noise on print days.
Every day he cycled to Oxford Street until he got a free bus pass and then it was four wheels – before beginning an endless stroll from one end of the road to the other. Drivers would toot their horns at him and he waved back. So, what did he eat? When he died, several newspapers published sympathetic obituaries and reported that his diet consisted of porridge, fruit, steamed vegetables, home-baked bread, and barley water mixed with milk powder. Lunch was eaten out of a box off Oxford Street.
Predictably, the Metropolitan Police arrested him for obstruction on two occasions (instead of pursuing real criminals) and he was forced to wear overalls as some unkind spirits would spit at him. On Saturdays, he swapped Oxford Street for Leicester Square and distributed his pamphlets to cinema queues. He harangued them about the evils of sex, drug taking, and vandalism. Most people regarded Green as a harmless eccentric.
Born in 1915, he was a fixture on the street from 1968 to his death in 1993. Must admit I had no idea what he was going on about and never bought one of his pamphlets. But I did notice when he wasn’t there anymore. It was as if something was suddenly missing on Oxford Street. Other Londoners obviously felt similarly as his distinctive placard is now in the Museum of London.
He died just days before Christmas in 1993 – denied the opportunity to assail the holiday sales crowds with his lectures on the evils of protein.
