Kiss and tell tales of the past

PAV’S PATCH: DON’T ask me why, but I recently found myself thinking about kissograms.

Around 25 years ago they were massively popular and now, in 2010, I can’t remember the last time I heard of one. Do they still exist?

I think they were originally meant to be funny — a woman might get Tarzan coming to sing her a song, or somebody dressed as a bee.

But as time went on, I suppose they just got tackier and tackier and usually involved a girl in suspenders causing maximum embarrassment for the victim.

There was a very amply endowed woman who used to do the rounds in Tameside pretending to be a policewoman. It wasn’t so much that you didn’t get many of those to the pound, you didn’t get many to the ton.

One Catholic priest was so appalled by her that he asked her to leave his church hall which had been booked for a party.

I, of course, shared in Father Rip-rap’s horror to the extent that I booked her for my friend’s stag party.

I still shiver when I think of that night at (the now closed) Yates’s Wine Lodge, Ashton. Not because of the wobbling woman, but because my mate will be celebrating his silver wedding this August.

Just before that, I had booked a St Trinian’s schoolgirl for a journalist mate of mine, a hack called David Jones.

He was tucking into sausage and chips in the Crown pub, Hyde, his back to the door, when she entered. As she tapped him on the shoulder, he slammed down his knife and fork and turned round growling “what now?”

If you could have seen his face when he saw a shapely girl in stockings, suspenders and straw boater and holding lots of balloons.

I have rarely laughed so much but once again I shiver. The Crown has shut, Jonesey is now approaching 67 and my so-called mates never chipped in to help me with the bill as they promised.

As you might imagine, the time came when I was the victim of a kissogram.

Of course, I didn’t get a sexy woman in suspenders. For my 30th birthday, my work colleagues tried to get a fat-o-gram but couldn’t raise the £30 or however much was needed.

The story goes that the man on the phone responded to this by saying: “The sister-in-law’s 13 stone. You could have her for half-price.”

So I ended up with a somewhat overweight-o-gram pretending to be a French maid.

Pictures were taken, but I have no idea what happened to them.