Mrs World fiasco
AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS
Banshee screams of angry recrimination, the slow dissevering rip of sweat-rotted corsets and the monotonous splash of fat women falling into
the chlorinated blue waters of the Dalston Municipal Baths—that, writes our Beauty Con- test Correspondent, Alf Whipple, was the grisly
backcloth this afternoon to the final heat of the Mrs World 1968 All-Comers Monster Trophy.
A damp, torrid heat that wilted the chubby Mums of both hemispheres, and was finally to explode into open violence. Having seen the Hungarian people's delegate, Mrs Ottokar Benesch, thrown to the floor, jumped on, and used as a resilient spring-board for a disgrace- ful double somersault and free-style plunge by Mrs Rasputin of the Soviet Union, I can only say this. It was a sorry tale in the saga of woman's inhumanity to woman.
Violence, let us face it, has dogged the high- .4 heeled footsteps of these tubby international lovelies from the outset. Specially hand-picked detachments of the Women's Land Army began it, when they made an unexpected swoop on the paths last night, flushing out a party of Students of 'the Female Form gathered for a Protest Peep-In at the Lear of the cubicles, and putting them to flight with merciless blasts of luke-warm water from their improvised meter-anon. They had, it was generally agreed, over-reaclea. The Students returned in their rubber macin- toshes and punishment hats, bearing banners and placards which demanded among other things a greater degree of participation in the running of the contest's affairs. Over-reacting to the provocative slogans and invitations dis- played, the Women's Land Army then cast aside any remaining restraint. In the violent scuffles that followed, many of the gallant Lassies in Brown lost their heads, not to mention their underwear. Tempers became frayed. And that was not all.
Despite the public demonstrations still taking place outside the baths, many of them of a frenzied and violent nature, the traditional open- ing ceremony appeared at first to go without a hitch. The panel of judges, dressed as always in grey full-bottomed spencers and chartreuse accessories, took their seats beside the pool, there was a liquid fanfare on the musettes, and the plumb, bulging Ladies of the World swayed on. Poised and moving with a slow, majestic grace, vermilion lips smiling discreetly but pro- vocatively in white powdered faces, dusky lashes a-flutter behind horn-rimmed pebble spectacles, and short, business-like oriental legs bringing up the rear, they drew a warm thunder of applause from the uninvited audience, including the win- ner of last year's Peruvian Mrs Universe Contest, 'Dotty' Caramba.
Then it happened. Mrs South Africa, ageing, dropsical Mrs Joost Verkiks gave a shrill shriek, clapped both hands to the seat of her diamantE see-thru siren-suit, and assumed an expression of squinting malaise. Mrs Ethiopia, the legendary Hippopotamus of Judah, standing immediately behind her, at first remained im- passive. But the lightning-swift upward move- ment of her pale blue winkle-picker had not gone undetected, and as the objection flags went up the bulky chocolate-coloured matron emitted a scream of condemnation, denouncing Mrs Verkiks as 'morally repulsive,' and criticising her varicose veins. Mrs Verkiks, never one to take things lying down, then swung her crocodile-skin handbag in a wide arc and brought it down with a ringing crack on Mrs Ethiopia's averted occiput.
Only swift and decisive action by the con- test's burly lady stewardesses prevented the inci- dent from escalating. After informal discussions and the lodging of a protest by Mrs Joost Verkiks, the walk-down continued, and apart from a brief moment of tension. when Mrs Pakistan accused the Indian delegate of attempt- ing to unravel her sari, the ceremony ended according to plan. Then came the opening heats of the competition, in which the chubby lovelies vie with one another for preeminence in the fields of charm, diplomatic finesse, economic well-being, personal freshness and aggressive capacity. In recent years the latter category has become all-important, and there was a sense-of expectancy mingled with barely concealed im- patience as these portly matriarchs from all corners of the globe moved through the earlier rounds, -showing their teeth in perfectly con- trolled diplomatic smiles, allowing their eyes ) to bulge in vivacious interest, stepping un- steadily on to the scales to send the needle climbing up over the twenty-five-stone mark on economic well-being, and submitting to ex- amination of their constitutional acceptability.
Of the few eliminated at this stage, Mn Jr Verkiks and Mrs Vasca da Gawa st ?ortugal fell hardest, both attenling to assault the judges, and bolt: being led off screaming and ittftrialliig to the laughter of the other competi- tors and to the general applause of the predominantly liberal audience. Then came the part of the competition most eagerly awaited by the television cameras: the contest for the most awe-inspiring aggressive capacity. Accord- ing to the rules, contestants are required to parade before the judges, drawing after them on a decorated trolley their artificial aids to self-assertion. Traditionally, these consist of stiletto heels, hatpins, weighted handbags, socks full of sand and steel finger-nails. In recent years, however, more sophisticated aids have been in- troduced, such as water-pistols filled with sul- phuric acid, nerve gas and flesh-burning jellies.
What triggered off the appalling outburst of violence still, I may say, raging in the Baths as I write, remains a matter for conjecture. Some attribute it to the provocative effect on the poorer contestants of seeing Mrs United States, thirty-eight-stone Belle Armpit, attempting to strangle various other contestants and becom- ing active at an early stage with the flesh-burning jellies: others attribute it to the presence of the television cameras: others again simply to the strain on the competitors of seeing so much aggressive weaponry towed round by Mrs Arm- pit and Mrs Rasputin, unused but constantly flaunted. Whatever the outcome, I can say this. The Mrs World 1968 All-Corners Monster Trophy will never be the same again, and nor will the Dalston Municipal Baths. And nor for that matter will Councillor Sidney Lurcher, MBE, this year's chairman of the judges. But that is another story.
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