Clubs in fiction: The Marine Commando Club, Paddington, from 'Round the Horne'

Julian and Sandy's club

Aug 02, 2025

L-R: Hugh Paddick (Julian) and Kenneth Williams (Sandy), with fellow Round the Horne cast members Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden and Douglas Smith. (Photo credit: BBC website.)

Julian and Sandy were the gregarious, polari-spouting camp actors in the BBC radio comedy Round the Horne (1965-8), played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams.

Each episode would see the deadpan Kenneth Horne blundering into some surreal “bona” [“good”] business that is being temporarily run by Julian and Sandy, “just filling in between jobs”, with an innuendo-laden conversation. The series was - and remains - tremendously popular (it was only cut short by Horne’s premature death in 1969); and as co-writer Barry Took later told Paul Baker, the Paddick-Williams double act was often the highlight of each episode.

Polari

The Julian and Sandy segments on Round the Horne were responsible for first introducing a mass audience to Polari - the gay slang which was found in Britain by the mid-20th century, which evolved from 19th century Parlyaree slang among actors, sailors and prostitutes, with strong Gyspsy influences. (“How bona to vada your dolly old eek! What brings you trollin’ in here then?” = “How lovely to see your face again! What brings you here?”) This was considered highly bold, at a time when male homosexuality was still a criminal offence in the UK. Much of their dialogue served as gay double entendres. (When running their own law firm, “Bona Law”, Sandy declares “We’ve got a criminal practice which takes up most of our time.”)

And the references to their club should be heard in this context - with the repeated implication that the fictional Marine Commando Club was a place for Julian and Sandy to pick up other gay men.

Julian and Sandy’s club

There are several memorable allusions to Julian and Sandy’s club, and it became something of a running gag.

It is first mentioned in their second appearance, Bona Butch ( in series 1, episode 5, ‘The Clissold Saga, Part 5’), when they are running Butch, a men’s boutique in Chelsea, and Horne is searching for a new outfit:

Kenneth Horne: What I had in mind was a suit; something fairly conservative; something I could wear when I go to my club.
Sandy: How about this Lurex seersucker, with a polka-dot motif?
Kenneth Horne: Ho ho, I couldn’t wear that at my club!
Julian: Well, that’s what we wear when we go to our club.
Kenneth Horne: What club is that?
Sandy: The Marine Commando Club in Paddington.
Kenneth Horne: Yes, alright. But it’s hardly the same as the Athenæum.

The Marine Commando Club goes on to be a running gag. Its last mention is in Keep Britain Bona (series 4, episode 10, ‘Apache Story’), when Julian and Sandy have set up their own political party, and this exchange follows:

Sandy: You’ve got your election address?
Julian: Yes, care of the Marine Commando Club in Paddington.
Sandy: No, no, not that, you silly prospective member! Your speech, you know, your polari, with which you’re going to sweep the hustings! I can’t bear an unswept hustings.

In Body Bona (series 3, episode 20, ‘The Head of the BBC Who Came in from the Cold’), where Julian and Sandy are running a body-building agency, Julian tells us:

“I was Mr. Marine Commando Club 1966.”

In Bona Private Detective Agency (series 4, episode 12, ‘I Showed Them in Fleet Street’), Julian and Sandy are keen to convince Kenneth Horne of their credentials:

Kenneth Horne: Look, are you sure you’re qualified?
Julian: Oh yes, of course. We’ve got certificates from the Home Office.
Sandy: I’ve got a double-0 number.
Kenneth Horne: Have you?
Sandy: Mmmmm.
Kenneth Horne: Licence to kill, like James Bond? 007?
Julian: No, 007-1. That’s the phone number of the Marine Commando Club, in Paddington. They’ll take a message anytime!
Sandy: They’re very obliging.
Julian: Oh, very.

Julian and Sandy also operate a clandestine business from the Club in Bona TV (series 3, episode 18, ‘The Muffplaster Saga, Part 3: The Bullfighter):

Kenneth Horne: All over the country, would-be TV companies plan for the day when they might get a licence to operate. Now the one that most interested me was called Bona TV Limited. And to find out more about them, I paid a visit to their headquarters…which is actually the cloakroom of the Marine Commando Club, Paddington. Hello, anybody there?
Julian: Oh hello, I’m Julian, this is my friend Sandy!
Sandy: Oh hello, Mr. Horne!
Julian: Sands, rinse the basin out, quick, it’s Mr. Horne!
Sandy: These are the registered offices of Bona Television.
Kenneth Horne: That’s you, too, is it?
Sandy: Yes, we’re like your Grades. I’m your Leslie, and he’s your Lew.
Kenneth Horne: Well, it’s an odd place to run a TV company.
Sandy: We haven’t the money for bigger premises! We’re hoping to save enough out of tips.

Julian and Sandy describe their choice of programming, including Bat-Homee, a proposed Polari version of Batman.

Sandy: Each week will find us in an exotic new locale, battling with the underworld.
Kenneth Horne: You mean like Tangier, and Shanghai, and places like that?
Sandy: Yes, eventually: Bat-Homee and Robin in Hamburg, Bat-Homee and Robin in Marseille…
Julian: But we’ve got to start in a small way first, so the first episode will be entitled, ‘Bat-Homee and Robin in the Cloakroom of the Marine Commando Club, Paddington’.

We also hear a development in Bona Tax Consultants (series 3, episode 11, ‘The Phantom of Bogmouth Hip’), when Julian and Sandy are advising Horne on his tax return, only to reveal that they know that he, too, is discreetly an MCC member, using the Club to conduct a clandestine affair:

Julian: Tax man's going to be very hot on this. We'll have to bump your claims up.
Sandy: Yes, let’s think about your claims. What about subscriptions? Aren’t you a member of the Marine Commando Club, Paddington?
Kenneth Horne: [Pause] How do you know that?
Sandy: Mmmmmm, seen you up there, haven’t we, Jules?
Julian: Oh, what? Yes…There with that swarthy polone [woman]!
Sandy: That’s right, her with the gold tooth, and the plastic flower in her riah [hair]?
Julian: Yes! That’s not all.
Sandy: That’s not all in her riah either, yes!
Kenneth Horne: Now, if you’re referring to Miss Fifi La Bootstrap…
Julian: Yes, we are.
Kenneth Horne: …she’s a talented cabaret artiste.
Sandy: Ooooooh!
Kenneth Horne: Yes, I was helping her with her career.
Sandy: Oooooooh! Helping her? It’s alright, ducky, we’ve all got your number. Now, what can we put her down as?
Kenneth Horne: A momentary lapse.
Sandy: No, I mean tax-wise, heart-face!
Julian: Now then, stop it, you two!
Sandy: No, no, come on.
Julian: Now look, did she buy you a drink, Mr. Horne?
Kenneth Horne: Yes, why?
Julian: Well, we’ll claim her as a foreign buyer.

The Club’s very existence was clearly a punchline, and a running gag. But could something like the Marine Commando Club have existed, and in Paddington?

Military clubs

London had a profusion of military-themed clubs in the 19th and 20th centuries. Alongside the major cross-service clubs such as the “Senior” (United Service Club), “Junior” (Junior United Service Club), “Rag” (Army & Navy) and “In & Out” (Naval & Military), there were a number of extremely specialised clubs based around particular services or even military units. These were particularly numerous in the aftermath of World War II, and ranged from the Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve Club, to the Voluntary Aid Detachment Ladies’ Club.

In that context, a dedicated club for Marine Commandos would have been all too plausible.

Yet the aftermath of World War II also saw a steep rise in the closure of ailing clubs, exacerbated by factors ranging from inflation to social change. And large-scale cuts to the post-war British military narrowed the number of eligible members for the military clubs, creating an ageing membership. And those clubs which limped on often did so in straitened circumstances in the 1960s, loosening their restrictions in a bid to elect more members and generate more revenue.

Accordingly, it was not unusual for struggling military clubs to water down their membership requirements, embracing civilian members who often joined for business reasons. Therefore the idea of tax-deductible business meetings with “foreign buyers” in a faded military club would not have been at all unusual by 1967.

Military clubs were also associated in certain circles with homosexuality - this was primarily the legacy of common stereotypes around certain sections of the armed forces, from Guards officers to sailors. And it was not unknown for gay men to regard their clubs as a discreet way for meeting other men - not so much as a place for hosting liaisons (this was rare, but not unknown), as a place for first meeting and being introduced to other possible partners.

That said, the Julian and Sandy scripts make much of the potential of club cloakrooms as a place of assignation - after all, the cloakroom was one of the prime spots where you could see all the members pass through (especially in an all-male club), and many club cloakrooms used to (and still do) combine in one area the functions of both a cloakroom for leaving coats, and a lavatory with private cubicles.

Paddington clubs

Paddington was not considered a particularly salubrious area in the 1960s. A faded area overshadowed by the titular train station, in pop culture portrayals of the era, it was associated with vice.

It was also an improbable place for a club. While nearby Tyburnia - a far more upmarket neighbourhood - had a smattering of clubs, there were very few clubs ever based in Paddington. The implication of a club based in the district was therefore that it was a somewhat down-on-its luck institution, probably on its last legs, with seedy connotations of vice.

Most of Julian and Sandy’s short-lived business ventures are in Chelsea, often on the King’s Road - a trendy area in ‘Swinging Sixties’ London. The suggestion of their spending time in Paddington (or indeed other haunts mentioned, like the “St. Pancras Public Baths”) is that they might go there in search of “rough trade”. (“Trade’s been very rough lately”, once sniffed Sandy.)

Kenneth Horne’s clubs

Kenneth Horne played his comic alter ego throughout the series, very much the “straight man” (in every sense) to Julian and Sandy. As quoted above, in Bona Butch he mentions that “my club” is the Athenæum.

It may well be his principal club, of which he is proudest - but it is not his only club. As noted, he discreetly maintains a parallel membership of the Marine Commando Club, for conducting an illicit affair.

He also has at least a third club. In Bona Antiques (series 3, episode 4, ‘Lipharvest of the River’), when offered a vintage fireman’s uniform to wear (“Very butch, comes complete with 14 yards of hosepipe, and a dinky little chopper”), he remarks:

“I can’t see myself wearing that to the Junior Carlton Club. Unless, of course, it was on fire.”

Both the Athenæum and the Junior Carlton were seen as quite pompous, portentious establishments in the 1960s, making for a stronger comic punchline.

(In real life, Kenneth Horne was a member of the Royal Automobile Club - Horne, a suburban company director, was every inch the archetypal RAC member.)