Clean-living Stanley Green, aka Protein Man, became a celebrity. Photo / Getty Images
Clean-living Stanley Green, aka Protein Man, became a celebrity. Photo / Getty Images
David Hill writes about a passion to curb Londoners' lust.
The Museum of London holds more than a million objects, tracing 6000 years of the city's past.
There's a Roman bikini and 1970s winkle-pickers; the lavish, gilt interior of a 1930s Selfridges lift and photos of EastEnd kids huddled in rooms where water drips down the inside walls.
There are remedies for the Black Death (apply a live chicken's bottom to the infected part), and a painting of Charles I with his head sewn back on.
And in the 20th-century section, there are the photos, brochures and sandwich boards of one of London's great eccentrics. He's Stanley Green, aka Protein Man.
"LESS PASSION FROM LESS PROTEIN", his sandwich boards begin, before going on to denounce the evils of "MEAT, BIRDS, CHEESE ... NUTS and SITTING". Sitting?
Stanley grew up in London, served in the navy during World War II, and was appalled at his fellow sailors' obsession with sex. Clearly, their hormones were out of control. Less clearly, decided our hero, the cause was too much protein.
Bachelor Stanley, living with Mum and Dad, made sure his own diet protected him against erotic excess, by living on porridge, bread, steamed vegetables, and six apples a day. After his mother died in 1967, he took his crusade to the streets.
Specifically, he took to Oxford St, cycling 18km a day into Central London. A photo in the Museum of London's display shows him pedalling along in suit and tie, sandwich boards across his shoulders.
He was there Monday to Saturday for 25 years, walking up and down, sandwich boards and placards bearing his message, pamphlets ("EIGHT PASSION PROTEINS WITH CARE") ready for sale.
He'd arrive about 10am, take a break at 2.30 to cook lunch over a Bunsen burner in a nearby courtyard, then resume his patrol till 6.30pm, when he'd cycle home again. On Saturday evenings, he'd put in an extra shift among the cinema patrons of Leicester Square. On Sundays, he rested.
Clean-living Stanley Green, aka Protein Man, became a celebrity. Photo / Getty Images
Actually, he rested only from his cycling and walking. Sundays were reserved for editing and printing his pamphlets. He produced them on a hand press in his little flat in Ealing. Neighbours weren't always happy about the weekend clanking and clattering.
But it took more than grumpy neighbours and two arrests for obstruction to deter Protein Man. Tall, thin Stanley with his steel-rimmed glasses and little moustache, was nuts about nuts.
His warnings on the dangers of sex, and especially his urgings that young women must eat a low-protein, no-nuts diet to protect their purity didn't always go down well in swinging London.
Insults — "Weirdo! ... Vegetarian!" — were shouted at him. He took to wearing green overalls and a waterproof cap because of the people (obviously protein addicts) who spat on him.
But most Londoners and tourists liked or at least tolerated him. Locals gave him a lift into town in bad weather. When he turned 65, he was ceremonially presented with a free bus pass by London Transport, and from then on, he and his sandwich boards rode on double-deckers.
Newspaper cartoonists portrayed him; he appeared on TV and postcards. He received letters from five British PMs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Princess Diana, Pope Paul VI — mainly because he'd written to them all, urging them to reduce their protein intake.
By the time he died in 1993, aged 74, he'd become a celebrity. My London friends still remember him, pacing harmlessly up and down. "A gentle, courteous man, always with a smile."
I left the Museum of London and headed for the National Gallery. In the 20 minutes it took me to walk there, I passed a mime with a gold leotard and no head; a woman handing out leaflets urging "PROTECT OUR TORTOISES. JOIN SUNDAY'S SLOW MARCH"; a man in top hat and frock coat, sitting in the lotus position at a crowded corner. Protein Man would have felt right at home.
Checklist
DETAILS The Museum of London is at 150 London Wall, and the nearest Tube stations are Barbican and St Paul's. Free Admission. Open from 10am-6pm, daily.
