Friday 8 July 2011

Was this the News of the World's best headline?

'Nudist Welfare Man’s Model Wife Fell For The Chinese Hypnotist From The Co-op Bacon Factory'


I can't let the News of the World go without a tribute to one of its greatest - and longest - headlines.

Ex-News of the World reporter Roy Stockdill on Gentlemen Ranters told the story behind the headline and revealed it could have been even more bizarre.

He recalled: "The 15-word, four-deck header, sprawling right across a five-column broadsheet page, appeared above a story written by Ron Mount, one of the paper's veteran foot-in-the-door men. It had all the elements of a Whitehall farce and starred the welfare services chief of a large London borough who was a practising naturist and walked round his home in the buff.

"His wife, a part-time model, had had an extra-marital relationship with a gentleman of Oriental extraction who did indeed work in a Co-op bacon factory and was an amateur hypnotist and therapist in his spare time.

"The nudist welfare chief had actually encouraged his wife's friendship with her Chinese paramour in the belief that he was treating her for problems in their marriage – until, that is, one day he climbed into the loft, drilled a hole in the bedroom ceiling and observed his good lady and the hypnotist indulging in some practical therapy on the bed below."

Stockdill also revealed: "The one fact the otherwise admirable headline omitted was that the welfare chief had managed to get up into his loft despite having two artificial legs, so he was actually a legless nudist welfare man… Unfortunately, the sub later admitted, he couldn't work the word ‘legless’ into the headline for lack of space."

Let's see: "Legless Nudist Welfare Man’s Model Wife Fell For The Chinese Hypnotist From The Co-op Bacon Factory".

2 comments:

Lucian Camp said...

Just blogged on the same great headline - http://bit.ly/dRFqDL.

Anonymous said...

Love it! As an Imperial College student in the seventies - whilst claiming for rent outside term-time - I stole a form that was being filled in during a dole interview about who shared with whom in our grotty Bayswater flat. It ended up (via more politically active friends) with the wonderful - and alas no more - NoW and the next Sunday I was proud to see (on the front page no less):

*Social Security in Sex Snoop Rumpus*

IMO, everybody should take part in at least one sex snoop rumpus in their lifetime. I think I may have peaked too soon.