Cynthia Payne came to lunch with me on a sunny May afternoon in 1984, when I interviewed her for a Sunday newspaper. I was living at the time just outside Brighton, and she was due to appear at the city’s festival that evening, to talk about her colourful life. From the moment I fetched her in my car, she talked virtually non-stop, garrulous and eager to reminisce about her parties, with their famous luncheon voucher system that bought clients a package of sex, booze, a blue film or two and poached eggs on toast.
Although she admitted revelling in her notoriety and liked to shock, she seemed genuinely fascinated to know why people chose a particular sexual kink. She was interested in the psychology of it all, wanting to find out about their childhood. And she spoke a lot about her time in Holloway prison, where she spent four months for keeping a disorderly house: “Prison didn’t get me down. I said to myself, ‘I will look on this as an experience.’”
She wrote to me later, thanking me for the article, and inviting me to her Christmas party: “Please try and make it … I’m sure you will feel at home even if you’re not going upstairs.”
