My birthday gift to myself was to audition at the Burke and Hare, a strip club in an area known as the 'pubic triangle' in Edinburgh. More experienced dancers told me it was where the money was, and if there was one thing I was in dire need of at that time, it was cash. I left the previous club I'd worked at, took a two-month sabbatical until I could dance legally, and auditioned for the Burke and Hare on my 18th birthday.
For those not in the know, the Burke, as it is informally called, sits as one amongst three strip clubs on the crossroad between Bread Street, Lauriston Street, and West Port. I worked there for two years between the ages of 18 to 20 before being sacked and moving on to the now-defunct Fantasy Palace on Shandwick Place. My memories of the Burke are forever ingrained in the hot, sweaty atmosphere of weekend nights, weaving my way through an impossible crowd, the smell of beer breath, cheap perfume, and farts. The repetition of introductions and asking for dances, rinse service repeat. Before it was deemed a health and safety risk, our stag shows consisted of setting the customers ass crack on fire with sambuca. Come on Eileen played in the background. I mounted and counted and dreamt of a future free from financial worries.
In 2019, a former colleague reached out to let me know that the Burke was under new management. She said she knows I'm now at art school, and they needed photographs. I will do them, I immediately replied.
With thanks to Aurora Winterborn, Keira, Vixen and Megan. I am also forever grateful to all the women who looked after me when I was working there as a teenager.
digital photographs
edinburgh, 2019
