WHILE I WAS WORKING AT ST GEORGE'S HOSPITAL IN SOUTH LONDON I encountered the TOOTING FLASHER. Yet again he had been brought to the Casualty Department... this
was over thirty years ago and I doubt that he is still following his chosen career.
As you'd expect he was dressed in a grubby brown raincoat but he
also wore a collar and tie, shirt and grey flannel trousers -- or did he? Only the cuffs of a shirt were attached to the cuffs of his raincoat, the collar and tie with just a rim of shirt were sewn into the collar of the raincoat and attached to the bottom
of the raincoat was a pair of trouser legs, through which were thrust his legs.
HE PERFORMED, i.e. FLASHED, by grasping each side of his raincoat and with a pantomime leer,
thrust the coat open, to the delight of passers-by on Tooting Broadway. Invariably the entertainment ended when a bunch of yobs beat him up, but I guess that gave him a touch of masochistic pleasure and also enabled him to bow out in style when the ambulance
was called.
Ah me! Our pleasures in that bygone era were simple and inexpensive.