The Tennis Girl Poster

The now famous Tennis Girl poster.

When, in 1981, I first visited the Englishman in the terraced house he rented with some of his navy pals in Southsea, I was shocked by the stuff which adorned his walls. (I was so young and naive then!) I didn't have a brother and was, I guess, sheltered from what boys get up to. Although judging by my friends' siblings in Finland, posters of naked women on their walls weren't the norm! But here, in the Englishman's small bedroom I found not only the suggestive Tennis Girl poster but also a Pirelli calendar. Still, nothing would have made me love him less….

An image from Pirelli circa 1974.

‘I’ve put Kaisa in the blue room.’ The Englishman's mother lifted her eyes towards her son. ‘And you can sleep in the yellow one.’

It was like a scene from Jane Austen. Kaisa didn’t dare look at the Englishman. She thought about his bedroom back in Southsea. On his wall he had a large poster of a girl playing tennis, showing her bare bottom. He also had a Pirelli calendar with scantily-clad women on every page. What would his mother say if she saw them?