Former madam reveals what REALLY goes on inside a brothel (and there’s even a DUNGEON with a fake electric chair)
Vivien Walden, 67, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, worked as a hostess at the Toucan Club in Manchester
A FORMER madam has lifted the lid on what it’s REALLY like to run a brothel.
Vivien Walden, 67, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, worked as a hostess at the Toucan Club in Manchester for three decades before it was shut down by cops in 2009.
The ex-stripper said the atmosphere was “light-hearted and humorous”, and her days would involve managing the club and chatting to clients.
Vivien’s business catered for every possible sexual fetish or fantasy, with dressing up rooms, an area for disabled clients and even a dungeon – complete with whips, masks and a mock-up electric chair.
“Whatever they wanted was provided for them. I don’t think brothels could do that nowadays,” she told .
“A man’s appetite for sex controls his whole body once they get that feeling.
"You also have people with different sexual tastes that we had to provide a service for.”
During its heyday, Toucan was so popular that clients would often visit more than twice a week.
Vivien said many high-flying businessmen charged the brothel services to their expense accounts, and visitors would include actors and industry types working at the nearby Granada Studios.
Vivien’s ‘girls’ kept every penny of the money they earned, which could be a “few hundred pounds” a day, but they would tip her.
She told : “If you're in a brothel, the price works by sexual acts and there are prices for it, but if you're a hostess or an escort there's a set price for your time, no matter what you do.
“There were prices on a menu that the guys could choose to have but that's the girl's personal business when she went into the room.
“The girls paid the rent for being in there but what they actually earned was none of my business as long as they paid the rent every shift they were on, which was probably hundreds a day.
“It could go from £50 to up to a few hundred pounds.
Vivien insisted that the workers had regular sexual health checks and she enforced a strict no drugs policy.
“We always had a pretty happy atmosphere and we had a reputation for having a top-class clientèle,” she told MEN.
“I treated the women as equals and that’s how I gained their respect. It was a mothering situation. It was like a family.
“There were lots of things I had to sort out for them to feel protected. They knew they were in safe hands.
“I had years of experience in the business and there was no better madam than me. It was one happy family.”
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Toucan, which welcomed 100 clients through its doors daily, was closed down by the police in 2009.
After pleading guilty to running a brothel Vivien was given community service and a six-month suspended prison sentence.
“I was hugely angry at the time because it was one of the best-run brothels in the country. But you move on and life moves on,” she said.
Vivien recently penned a tell-all autobiography Eating From The Cherry Tree, which has been picked up by an American scriptwriter and is due to be turned into a film.
