Stanley Green
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Stanley Owen Green (1915–1993), known as Protein Man, became a well-known figure in central London, England, during the latter half of the 20th century.
Every day for 25 years, from 1968 until his death, Green paraded up and down Oxford Street in the central shopping district, carrying a placard that famously recommended "Less Passion from Less Protein: Less Fish Meat Bird Cheese Egg; Peas Beans; Nuts and Sitting."
Green also sold passers-by copies of his self-published 14-page pamphlet about the dangers of protein and lust for 12 pence. Entitled Eight Passion Proteins With Care, the front cover observed that, "This booklet would benefit more, if it were read occasionally." [1][2]
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[edit] His mission
Green lived in Haydock Green, Northolt, cycling 15 miles (24 km) into Oxford Street every day until he was 65, after which he used the free public transport he was eligible for.
A former civil servant, he believed that the sex drive was dangerously heightened by the intake of too much protein. His own diet consisted of porridge, home-made bread, and barley water mixed with powdered milk.[3]
| “ | LESS PASSION FROM LESS PROTEIN: LESS FISH MEAT BIRD CHEESE EGG; PEAS BEANS, NUTS and SITTING — Stanley Green's placard[1] | ” |
Green often lectured queues of people waiting outside cinemas, warning young women that they would not be able to pretend on their wedding nights that they were virgins, and recommending a low-protein diet to make the deception unnecessary.[3] It was this kind of activity that led to several arrests for causing a nuisance, and on occasion the need to wear green overalls to protect himself from spit, directed at him — he believed — because people mistook him for a religious proselytizer.
His tenacity earned him a place in popular culture. A character based on Green appears during a Walkers crisps advertisement featuring Gary Lineker, he was given a walk-on part in Ben Elton's novel, Gridlock, and The Sunday Times interviewed him for its A Life in a Day column. When he died, he attracted an obituary in the Daily Telegraph, the Museum of London took possession of his placards and pamphlets,[4] and he made it into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Peter Ackroyd writes of Green in London, The Biography that he was "commonly ignored by the great tide of people who washed around him, and thus became a poignant symbol of the city's incuriosity and forgetfulness."[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Ackroyd, Peter. London, The Biography. Vintage, 2001. p. 198 and image between pp. 664 and 665.
- ^ McNally Joe. "Another Green World", flaneur.co.uk, retrieved December 18, 2007.
- ^ a b Brewers' Rogues, Villians & Eccentrics.
- ^ "Londoners", Museum of London.
- ^ Ackroyd, Peter. London, The Biography. Vintage, 2001. Caption of an image of Stanley Green between pp. 664 and 665.
[edit] External links
- Green, Stanley. Eight Passion Proteins With Care, courtesy of Joe McNally at flaneur.co.uk.
- The pamphlet in full on Flickr.
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