Stanley Green
| Stanley Green | |
|---|---|
Stanley Green in Oxford Street, 1977
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| Born |
22 February 1915 Harringay, London |
| Died | 4 December 1993 (aged 78) Northolt, London |
| Known for | Dietary reform |
| Parent(s) |
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| Military career | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1938–1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Stanley Owen Green (22 February 1915 – 4 December 1993), known as the Protein Man, was a human billboard who became a well-known figure in central London in the latter half of the 20th century.
Green patrolled Oxford Street in the West End for 25 years, from 1968 until 1993, with a placard recommending "protein wisdom", a low-protein diet that he said would dampen the libido and make people kinder. His 14-page pamphlet, Eight Passion Proteins with Care, sold 87,000 copies over 20 years.
Green's campaign to suppress desire, as one commentator called it, was not always popular, but he became one of London's much-loved eccentrics. The Sunday Times interviewed him in 1985, and his "less passion from less protein" slogan was used by the fashion house Red or Dead.
When he died at the age of 78, the Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Times published his obituary, and the Museum of London added his pamphlets and placards to their collection. In 2006 his biography was included in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Green was born in Harringay, north London, the youngest of four sons of Richard Green, a clerk for a bottle stopper manufacturer, and his wife, May. He attended Wood Green School before joining the Royal Navy in 1938.
Philip Carter writes in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that Green's time with the Navy affected him deeply. He was shocked by the obsession with sex. "I was astonished when things were said quite openly – what a husband would say to his wife when home on leave", he told the Sunday Times "A Life in the Day" column in 1985. "I've always been a moral sort of person."
After leaving the Navy in September 1945, Green worked for the Fine Art Society. In March 1946, Carter writes, he failed the entrance exam for the University of London, then worked for Selfridges and the civil service, and as a storeman for Ealing Borough Council. He said that he had lost jobs twice because he had refused to be dishonest. In 1962 he held a job with the post office, then worked as a self-employed gardener until 1968 when he began his anti-protein campaign. He lived with his parents until they died, his father in 1966 and his mother the following year, after which he was given a council flat in Haydock Green, Northolt, north London.
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