This Issue > Hot Wax
A Tale of Two Hens
03/07/12
When I got married 26 years ago Hen nights were not like they are today - we didnt have specialist stores like SinSins (fab shop by the way) selling straws that double as willies, ‘bride to be’ banners and horny little devil lace veils - and we certainly didn’t do weekends in Marbella, henning on down in Linekars (more’s the pity).
The 1980s Hen was more likely to be a meet up at the local bar or restaurant and if you were based in London - a trip to Annabels if you were posh, or Stringfellows if you weren’t. I apologise but I don’t know how Hens celebrated in Norwich at that time – I’m not even certain they had nightclubs in the 80s but I may be wrong. My only knowledge of the area pre-7 years ago was when our conveyancing solicitor said “ah yes Norwich, I went there once; it was closed”. So if Norwich was the Hen central of the 1980s, I’m sorry.
So here is an insight into my 1986 hen, which was, at the time in London, something unique. My girlfriends had decorated a pink shirt jacket with naked photos of men, condoms and a very large plastic cock in the centre of the back. I had to wear a false nose in the shape of a cock and a large home made hat. A pair of comedy knickers placed over my dress completed the look. Classy huh!
After rather too many drinks at the Great Eastern Hotel Bar we made our way down to the Tower Bridge Pier where we boarded a boat. After a chicken in a basket meal (all the rage back then), the entertainment started. Two drag queens who looked more like badly made-up heavy weight boxers in dresses told a bunch of smutty jokes before announcing the arrival on stage of the key entertainment for the night - The Boston Dangler.
The whole place erupted, a boat load of pissed up girls all screaming for... well... cock! And he didn’t disappoint. A rather delicious body strip teased us slowly, getting us to take parts of his clothes off with our teeth. To the screams of ‘Get ‘em off, get ‘em off!”, he ripped off his pants and we all gasped at once - he was huge! He swung his manhood around like it was a rope and actively encouraged stroking. At one point he straddled my mum, dropped his knob into her G&T and then said “suck it” - she politely refused saying “I don’t like lollypops”, then adding “I didn’t do it to my Tommy and I wasn’t going to do it to him.” When his act finished he asked me if I wanted to join him in his dressing room for a more up close and personal experience. I too declined - seriously that thing would have damaged my tonsils! I saw one of the other brides accept his invitation and saw her again about a half our later looking thoroughly ‘dangled’. My final memory of the evening was negotiating my way off the boat and Mr Hot Wax sitting me and mum in his car with buckets between our legs in case we were sick on the way home - I don’t remember getting home at all.
This week we held a Hen night for Alex, Waxed Works Office Manager and my daughter. It was all a bit last minute as initially she declined a Hen but I felt she needed a night out so I called the lovely Elise at Bar 11 and managed to invite all of Alex’s friends and Waxed clients who wanted to celebrate with us.
Despite the low-key invites a wedding veil appeared as did willy shaped straws on the bar. And at 10pm, a bloke who I knew hadn’t been invited arrived, dragged Alex to the dance floor and yes - you guessed it - started to strip. Now Alex is much more shy and retiring than me and really didn’t know where to look as he gyrated his nakedness a few inches over her giggling body but this time there was clearly a no touching rule. No more than 20 minutes and £150 later he left as soon as he arrived. How I got home or into my bed is a mystery to me.
So 26 years between Hen nights and we still dress up, we still get trollied, we still hire strippers, and we still forget getting home. The only thing to have changed, it seems - the male stripper market, which seems to have cleaned up its act. Whether that’s a good thing or not probably depends on what you like dangling in your eye line.
Fannie Annie. x