Not everyone who kept Britain’s under-the-counter porn economy moving in the 1970s was a full-time smut peddler. For some, it was a side-hustle—an easy way to make a bit of extra cash if you had the right kind of job, a van, and a willingness to look the other way.
‘Mark’, as we will call him, was one of those people. Based in the north of England, he worked in public service—a solid, respectable job that gave him long blocks of time off. He also owned a van, which he normally used for a motorsport hobby. That made him ideal for occasional courier work. The cargo? Hardcore porn—mostly imported Scandinavian 8mm/Super8 film and ‘scans’; slang for magazines.
He was drawn into the trade through a cousin-of-a-friend who introduced him to ‘John’, a middleman operating quietly from a suburban semi in Hull. The materials—smuggled in through the docks, often hidden among timber shipments—were collected by John, boxed up, and handed off to people like Mark for distribution.
The work was routine but not without risk: drive to John’s house, load the boxes (already taped shut), and deliver them to adult shops in Halifax, Manchester, Newcastle and beyond. Mark didn’t deal with money, didn’t open the packages, and didn’t ask questions. “I don’t think ‘it’s for personal use, officer’ would have got me very far,” he said.
He quickly became desensitised to the material. Porn was just cargo—anonymous, repetitive, and dull. But the world he helped supply was anything but.
One shop he delivered to operated from a terraced house just off one of Hull’s main roads, long since demolished. It had the air of a local legend. Men in raincoats would hover outside before slipping inside, where three battered tables held tape-sealed magazines and the air hung heavy with cigarette smoke. The man running the place—large, silent, and intimidating—remained in the shadows. He emerged only to take payment or eject anyone caught peeking under the tape. Hardcore content was for regulars only.
By the early 1980s, another Hull outlet offered something different: 8mm film rental. Customers left deposits in exchange for discreet brown envelopes. It was a pre-video moment—when watching porn required equipment, planning, and a degree of personal risk.
Mark didn’t stick with the trade for long. It was never his livelihood, just a fleeting source of pocket money. The shops disappeared, the customers faded, and he eventually left that world behind. But for a few years, Britain’s hidden porn economy relied on freelancers like him—people on the margins, with just enough time and just enough detachment to move the goods no one wanted to talk about.
