I was an electrician at the time and I'd pulled my back digging a trench. I went to see an osteopath first, and whatever she did to me really hurt, so that put me off going back, and I went looking for a massage therapist instead. I found Mr Knight in the Yellow Pages. When I rang him he sounded very professional, so I booked in.
He took me through to the massage room, asked me to get ready and left the room. I stripped down to my underpants and stood there waiting. When he came back he said, “Right, let's have a look.”
He had me stand up straight with my arms by my sides while he checked my posture. He got me to walk towards him and stop, then turn round and walk away from him. After that I had to put my arms out and turn, until he told me to stop. I didn't know what he was looking for at the time. I do now. You can tell a lot from the way someone walks across a room, whether they're favouring one side or holding themselves crooked to get away from the pain, and I must have been doing exactly that without realising.
“Okay, I can see what's going on,” he said, and pointed at my underwear. “One thing. Those will probably get covered in oil. I can tuck a towel into them, or you can take them off. Totally up to you, whatever you're comfortable with.”
“Well, if you don't mind, I'm happy to take them off,” I said.
That “if you don't mind” came from how I was brought up. We were Catholic, and in our house nudity was a no no. I'd never really understood why, but some of that guilt was still in me, so part of me felt I needed his permission, and I didn't want to offend him. But he was a professional therapist, and I could tell this was how he preferred to work, so I trusted his judgement.
“Okay,” he said. “I'll leave you to finish getting undressed then. When you're ready, lie on the table face down. There's a face hole in it. If you find it uncomfortable I can cover it over and give you a pillow, but it's better as it is because it keeps your back straight. There's a towel there if you want to cover yourself while you're on the table. Carry on and I'll be back in a couple of minutes.” Then he went out and I took the rest off.
It was the first time I'd ever stripped off completely for a massage. When I'd had massages before, I'd always kept something on. One time I was even given paper underwear, which felt ridiculous. So this was just unexpected.
Just standing there for that moment, I felt exposed, and at the same time I felt like I was the one doing the exposing.
I also realised getting on the table is different when you've got nothing on. There's more of you to move about, and you can't just lie down, you have to sort yourself out first.
So I got myself settled, head in the face hole. I didn't bother with a towel. Once I was lying on the table face down, I didn't feel vulnerable any more. So I just lay there waiting for him, and the room was warm anyway.
About five minutes went by and he still hadn't come in. I was just lying there relaxing and my breathing started to settle. I worked out afterwards that he did that on purpose, leaving me a while before he started.
He came in and came over to the table. “Are we ready?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, ready.”
He put one hand on my shoulders and the other on the base of my back, and rocked me gently. I found out years later what that's for. It tells you whether someone is relaxed or stiff as a board, and most of the time they're stiff. They think they're relaxed and they're not. You could pick them up in one piece.
“Let's see where this is then,” he said. His hands went up and down my back, and when he got to my left bum cheek I felt the pain. “Oh, that's it, that's it,” I said.
After that he got going. He started with effleurage, just long movements up and down my back and legs to warm everything up.
He started pushing his thumbs into my bum cheek, and then I felt his hands come round my thigh. One of his hands brushed against my bits as he was moving. Just for a split second I wondered what was going on. But then I realised he was only moving his hands to get the right pressure on the pain. It felt really good. Painful, but good.
I felt my body reacting to the touch. That's when I said, “Oh, can I just move my legs a second?”
He took his hands off me and moved away. “Everything okay?” he said.
“Yes, I just need to readjust a little.”
“Okay, let me know when you're ready.”
I shifted over to one side, readjusted and spread my legs to get comfortable, then said, “Okay, ready.”
He carried on, and once I'd got it into my head that he was just doing his job, I lay there and enjoyed the massage. I learnt a lot that day.
It's something I've carried into my own work over the years. When you're working on someone it isn't about anything intimate. We're human beings, that's all. Somebody touches you in a certain place and sometimes you react. Not every time, but sometimes you do. It's human nature. We're not machines.
He kept coming back to my left bum cheek and working pressure into it. He'd push his thumbs in, slowly, until it was almost too much, and hold it there. The pain would flare up for a second and then start to go. Then he'd come off it for a moment and go in a bit deeper.
But every now and again he'd break off and do long strokes all over, down my leg and up my back. He never stayed on one spot for too long, so my mind didn't either. It was warm, and his hands felt good.
He kept that up for a good 10 or 15 minutes, then did the same on the other side of my back for about as long. By then the pain that had been running down my leg had gone to a dull ache, and the whole leg felt heavy on the table.
Then came one of the bits I liked most, and it's something I still do in my own massages now. He went to the bottom of the table, and I felt both his hands go up my legs, all the way up to my bum. Then he pushed in with what felt like both knuckles, pushing in and through. It felt really, really good. I'd never had anything like it before.
After that he did long effleurage strokes over my whole back, from the bottom up to my shoulder blades and then all the way down to my feet. That was great. I switched off completely, zonked out basically. He worked on my glutes quite a lot too, which was nice. They felt tender, because no one had ever worked on them before. All in all he spent about half an hour on my back. I'd put myself completely in his hands. The only other time I've felt like that was during my own training years later.
The funny thing is, by this point I'd forgotten I was nude. He'd had his hands all over me and I wasn't hiding anything, but it just felt natural. Lying on that table, I think I got my answer about all that guilt. To me, there didn't seem to be a good reason for it. We all hide behind something, and I don't think we need to.
By the time it came to turning over, I was in the moment. It's hard to explain unless you've been there. The nakedness had gone.
When he'd finished my back he said, “When you're ready, we'll turn you over.” He held the table steady while I turned. Everything moved about a bit as I went, and then my bits just flopped onto my stomach and stayed there. For a moment I was aware I was naked again. But what can you do? It was there, and that was that.
He started the same way as before, one hand on my shoulder and the other down by my leg, rocking me gently. Then he oiled his hands and worked on my legs, all the way up, mostly effleurage. As he worked, I felt him just move me out of the way with his hand and carry on. He did some work on my stomach too, which was nice, with one hand pressing down.
It was all very professional. He'd been doing this for 60 years and it showed. So I just enjoyed the rhythm of his hands. The next half hour was wonderful as well.
At the end of the hour I slid off the table feeling warm and content, in a way I haven't had with anyone else since. A lot of that was down to the way he went about things. Nothing was rushed and nothing was made into a big deal. He asked if I wanted a shower and I said no, I should be okay, so he gave me some sheets from the couch roll to wipe the excess oil off. He didn't hurry me to get dressed and I didn't hurry myself. I just stood there rubbing myself down with the paper while he tidied up, and we got talking. He told me a bit about how he'd got into this line of work in the first place.
I was only 21 or 22 at the time and he was 84, older than my granddad, and I'd never stood about naked in front of anyone like that in my life. But there I was, chatting away to him, and I just felt comfortable. If I'm honest, I liked the way it felt. I liked the freedom of it. It made me think, and after that I started looking into naturist clubs and naturist beaches, because it interested me. In the end it became my lifestyle, and it's the way I work now. My massages are naturist.
I went back to him for a couple of years. Then one day he told me he couldn't work anymore because of his health. I respected him for telling me why, and it was a real shame. I said I was sorry to hear it, and that I'd really enjoyed the last couple of years. I thanked him very much and told him to look after himself.
Becoming a massage therapist came a long time later. When I did my own training and set up on my own, that first hour on his table was the thing I kept coming back to. I wanted people to get off my table feeling the way I'd got off his. After a while I started bringing the naturist side into the massage, because by then it felt like the natural way for me to work. If someone's not comfortable being naked the first time, nobody forces them. They go as far as they're happy with and that's fine. I work with nothing on as well.
What happened with Mr Knight all those years ago stuck with me. I've never forgotten it. Over the years a lot of people have come through my door and found that out for themselves. He passed it on to me. I've been passing it on ever since.
I'd walked in that first day thinking the hard part would be getting undressed. Turns out that was the easy bit. The hard part was getting dressed again and going home.