Do You Fancy a Schvitz?

While sitting naked, flushed and sweating on a marble slab, or being pummelled by a hirsute cab driver in a scalding fog of steam, I occasionally wonder if I am somehow communing with my ancestors, reaching back to recover lost memories of a never-known shtetl. Do I like a schvitz so much because of the Jewish blood that flows from my mother’s ancestry? Or perhaps it’s an unconscious recollection of the old Lime Grove wash house, where generations of Elmses would have soaked away the grime and the blues, when a tin bath in the kitchen wasn’t sufficient. Maybe it’s just the second best fun you can have with no clothes on?

A schvitz is a Yiddish sweat; sitting, lying, lounging naked, letting it all flow out in a hot room. A Turkish bath, a Finnish sauna, a Moroccan hammam, a Russian banya – so many different cultures can lay claim to the tradition of communal perspiration and ablution and you can find every variation here in London. You can find them all at Porchester Hall.

It seems fitting that the first person who ever took me to the baths to open my pores and pour some tea was a second-generation Irish hairdresser and punk rock memorabilia dealer from Clonmel via Finchley, called Ollie O’Donnell. Mr O’Donnell is not notably Jewish. You definitely don’t have to be ‘of the faith’ to go to Porchester Baths; a grand but gloriously decaying Edwardian edifice in Bayswater. But you can’t really immerse yourself in either the ‘frigidarium’, the freezing plunge pool, or the coruscating culture of the place unless you learn a little Yiddish.

Men’s days at the baths are not for the faint hearted, and nor is schmeissing. When you first arrive at the baths, unaware of its complex traditions, elaborate rigmaroles and hierarchies, you are a pisher. Literally a bed-wetter, a know-nothing new boy, and you are probably also a schlump, a schmuck, a shmendrick and a schlemiel. Not to mention a bleedin’ goy, which will become obvious because you are tuchas naked and everyone can see your schlong hasn’t been circumcised. But I wouldn’t worry about all that.

One of the most endearing things about the baths is the rigorous egalitarianism. Half of the week is dedicated to women and I’m sure ladies days have their own arcane rituals. When the guys are in, Jew or gentile, gay or straight, rich or poor, black or white, Tottenham or Arsenal, it makes no odds. You may well find yourself sitting with Terence Stamp, Frank Bruno, Damon Albarn, Wayne Sleep, Ian McShane, a blagger, a plumber and a card counter, a Lord, a judge, a journalist and a bevy of black cab drivers, all naked, and all complete cunts according to Morrie over in the corner.

There used to be scores of Turkish baths around London, especially in the East End where they were a vital part of the social and religious life of the Jewish community. They brought the custom over from Eastern Europe and used the baths to get suitably spruce before going to synagogue. The famous old Russian Vapour Baths at 86 Brick Lane, known as Schewzik’s, after its owner, was for years a Bengali supermarket, but is now a hotel. Therein lies a London tale.

There is still a sign set in the pavement, near my old flat on Russell Square, pointing to a long-gone hammam which stood on Southampton Row. Jermyn Street once had two, including a particularly palatial place, which got bombed in the war, and a smaller one that lasted into the ’70s and was favoured by dandies, politicians, West End actors sweating off post-play hangovers, Lord Boothby and the Kray twins. Another was on Leicester Square but was demolished when the famed Alhambra Theatre went.

These days only a couple of old-school schvitz’s remain, and my favoured one is under threat. There are proposals to make Porchester Hall plusher, in accord with the gentrification of the area it serves. More of a modern ‘spa’ with all the connotations of scented candles, soppy music, serenity and expensive treatments. There is not a lot of holistic ‘omming’ or quinoa at Porchester Hall, but there are plenty of eggs on toast, strong tea and schmeissing.

I am technically a ‘schmeiss ponce’, which means that I enjoy being given ‘a bath’, as it’s always called, but haven’t acquired the skills to give one back in return. Basically, teams of men gang together to take turns lying in the hottest steam room with a wet towel over their heads waiting to be pummelled. The others rub you vigorously with a raffia brush, called a besom, dipped in a big bucket of soap, raising the temperature to diabolical, working your muscles and your soul simultaneously with tough forearms and palms. It is unbelievably hard to give a bath in the pulsing, burning heat, but great to get one. Followed by a dip in the icy plunge pool, it is the perfect end to a sweating session. Then the fun begins.

The word banter has been horribly debased by lads’ mags and Twitter twits. But the first time I ever sat upstairs in the ‘tepidarium’, the cooling-off area, and meekly listened to the verbal volleys ricocheting off the marble pillars, and the often lewd, ludicrous stories being told, I was knocked sideways by the dexterity, the humour, the obscenity and the sheer volume. Loud, rude, crude, cutting, but also clearly, deeply loving. Blimey, that was banter.

Here were big, naked, flabby men, adoring this time they spend together, revelling in their concept of community. To me, sitting in a robe, clean and scrubbed, eating toast, listening to Jimmy Two Baths joust verbally with Harry round the corner, laughing out loud at their rotten jokes, was London life at its very best, and I was hooked.

For a few years I went every Wednesday, got to know some of the characters, maybe even earned a little respect in the cauldron of quick wits. One of the guys I used to see there was a voluble North London cabbie called Mitch. A big, loud, dapper man with his clothes on, prone to a spot of crooning, who was very much part of the inner circle. They all got to know what I do for a living and would occasionally rib me about getting them on the radio. But with Mitch it was different, he wanted me to get his daughter on the radio: ‘She’s a great singer,’ he would say, ‘She’s going to be big. Her name is Amy.’