One sweltering summer many moons ago, I spent a deliriously drunken day on Brighton Pier with my new, young, posh friend down from London for the weekend. I woke up the next morning, stretched happily at the thought of another day of doing nothing much in the sun – and shrieked in horror as I saw my friend’s name tattooed in what looked like – to add insult to injury – Comic Sans font across my knuckles.
My shriek brought my mate rushing in – and we were now united in woe, as it appeared that she had done the same with my name. We went out to my swimming pool to wash away our sorrows – and were delighted when, on drying off, the ‘tattoos’ faded to barely nothing. They were temporary! We were so relieved that we promptly went out and got drunk at noon all over again to celebrate.
Reading the recent Spectator piece by Mark Mason I recognised many of the prejudices I used to have and which thankfully I have no longer, due to prolonged interaction with our tattooed brethren. Specifically, with nurses – contradicting the title of yet another Spectator piece last year by Flora Watkins called ‘Nurses shouldn’t have tattoos’.
I beg to differ. A friend working in healthcare says the same; ‘I don’t generally like tattoos – but I do at work. Tattoos are huge in the NHS in general – particularly full sleeves for women. Thing is, you’re in uniform the whole time, so it’s the only way to express yourself. No jewellery, no fancy hair, most places even insist on black socks! There are so many rules, there have been days where I’ve considered getting one myself.’
Since I became disabled at the end of 2024, I’d say that a good three quarters of the nurses and therapists – hospital and community – who have looked after me with what has been with very few exceptions overwhelming efficiency and gentleness have been tattooed. According to YouGov, 29 per cent of women in the UK have at least one tattoo while 22 per cent of men follow suit. In the face of this, it would be folly to keep on believing that an inking signifies a person who is thick and useless; most nurses are a good deal more worthy of respect than even the most waspish of Spectator hacks – including myself.
The Emperor Constantine – in line with Biblical strictures – banned tattooing of the face around AD 330, and it is with this kind of marking that most of us have an issue. My most beautiful (and most heavily inked) friend, a Chinese-Australian ex-model, has a full neck tattoo – and met me one day utterly indignant that her husband had come home with a discreet face tattoo. ‘It’s TOTALLY different!’ she protested when I wondered why she minded, being copiously illustrated as she was.
Whereas many women are keen on men with a discreet tat, more men are likely to say they dislike them on women; at the least, this looks like being a curtain-twitching sticky-beak, at the worst the presumptuousness can be so comical as to verge on the tragic. I once read a very unattractive male journalist bemoaning the fact that the beauteous young Cheryl Cole had ‘spoilt’ her body by having roses tattooed all over her bum; one imagined the radiant, rich Miss Cole reading the words of this tuber-like hack and bewailing in that gorgeous Geordie accent ‘O no – X thinks I’ve spoilt my body with tattoos – he no longer finds me do-able! Quick, pet, book us in at the laser clinic!’ I don’t generally care for the word ‘agency’ unless referring to a business which finds one work, but a big tattoo on a pretty woman often seems pleasingly like a ‘screw you’ to censorious men.
David Dimbleby got a scorpion on his back at 75
As late as 1939, Yip Harburg wrote the lovely lyric to ‘Lydia, the Tattooed Lady’ for Groucho Marx to sing, a tribute to a girl who boasted images of the Battle of Waterloo, Buffalo Bill and Alcatraz. Still, there remains a feeling that, to keep it classy, less is more; compare Jordan to Sam Cam. In the book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth’s etching almost consumes her entire back; on the posters for the film, it graces her left shoulder.
Indeed, so accepted are tattoos now that even ‘National Treasures’ have them – David Dimbleby got a scorpion on his back at 75 (‘I have always wanted a tattoo…it’s a dream come true for me’) and Judi Dench (‘Carpe Diem…good, isn’t it?’) at 81. I won’t be having one anytime soon – as I’ve had enough pain to last me nine lifetimes – but I won’t be judging anyone else for having one, either. Especially since seeing tattoos as a sign the decline of the modern world does not explain ‘Otzi’, who was found in an Alpine Glacier, dating back to 3250 BC and had a whopping 61, or indeed the many ancient civilisations which couldn’t get enough of them.
So 20 years on, if I woke up with a hangover and a temporary tattoo bearing the name of someone dear to me on my knuckles, I’m inclined to think I wouldn’t be in the least upset but would find it rather adorable. Indeed, thinking of the example of the wonderful nurses who have shown me such kindness over the past couple of years, I might even have suggested that we go out and get a proper one, sober.
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