Deadline: Kew’s Monkey Club for the discerning Melbourne swinger

Tucked away in the leafy east is one of Melbourne’s top locations for orgy enthusiasts — and there’s a very strict set of rules one must comply with to gain entry.

Even swingers face a world full of rules.

Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

MONKEY BUSINESS RULES IN KEW — OK?

The world is full of rules, even inside clubs for swingers and orgy enthusiasts.

In far Kew, for instance, there is the Monkey Club, nestled cheek-by-jowl against the private school belt where Carey, Genazzano and MLC students are put on the path to becoming lawyers, senior police, politicians, international conmen and the like.

It seems the Monkey Club has seen off the Covid era with panache and pockets of cash, according to an in-depth (20-minute) investigation by an ace Deadline reporter who insists on anonymity.

A tour of its website describes the venue — set in a quiet residential street only blocks from the rich and famous, including Boroondara Police — as being like a five-star hotel.

“Think of a cross between the Savoy London and the Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast,” readers are told.

This column admits no knowledge of any of these venues, especially monkey business in the mean streets of Kew, but can only assume it’s a strong recommendation.

Couples are charged $150 for entry and single girls a mere $80 to frolic in the “play” areas. No single blokes are permitted, which is hardly surprising.

The place apparently has plenty of beds, including the “infamous” 1960s-style Austin Powers affair. Ooh, behave!

Women need to be in the size six to 10 range and are asked to send pictures of themselves.

But before you can frolic like Mike Myers, there are rules to be observed.

Visitors are directed to shower first because “hygiene must be 150 per cent” and reminded that particular attention must be paid to body odour, breath and nether regions.

Fellas, don’t even think about fronting in a pair of el cheapo, battle-worn jocks.

“Old-fashioned underwear and silk boxers are a big turn-off and please remove your socks,” the Monkey Club stipulates.

Ladies are asked to be mindful of monthly cycles before booking.

Don’t sit around in the play areas clothed (too creepy) but, on the other hand, don’t throw clothes on the ground like a lazy teenager because they are, of course, a tripping hazard. Even orgy organisers have occupational health and safety to consider.

There is the kind of tight screening process that might, in other venues, attract the attention of some kind of anti-discrimination authority.

Women need to be in the size six to 10 range and are asked for pictures of themselves in a bikini or undies holding papers proving the date the picture was taken. Furthermore, they must not be breathing in.

Men must not carry excess kilos around the waist or stomach, either, possibly a way to eliminate reporters and police from infiltrating the gatherings.

Any bloke who can make the weight should be wearing “fashionable briefs” for his home photo shoot, further restricting the field of available males.

Apart from that, it’s as easy as ordering lemon chicken from the classic Chinese takeaway menu-by-numbers.

HAVE A GOOD END, MR WALKER

The hard life and many crimes of the old-fashioned “good crook” Peter John Walker, who died last week, has thrown up a few stories, some of which will be recalled by speakers at his funeral at an unspecified eastern suburbs sporting venue any day now.

Walker, of course, was the other half of the pair of most notorious wanted men in this country since the Kelly Gang went off the reservation in 1878.

He was the young prisoner who went over the wall with the hard man Ronald Ryan while Pentridge Prison officers were having their Christmas party in December, 1965.

Peter John Walker in 1966. Picture: Bruce Howard

Tragically, officer George Hodson was shot in the process, almost certainly by Ryan but in circumstances that threw up legal doubts about whether a stray bullet fired from a guard tower had actually caused Hodson’s death.

Ryan and Walker were arrested less than three weeks later. In that time the pair had robbed a bank and Walker had killed a tow truck driver.

They fled to Sydney, where they were captured in intriguing circumstances while trying to buy a secret passage to Brazil.

Ryan became a footnote to history as the last man hanged in Australia, in February 1967. Walker, just 25, did hard time back in Pentridge’s H Division for “intractable” or “punishment” prisoners.

He survived an ordeal that lasted for years before being returned to the mainstream prison population, and was finally released in 1984.

It would be nice to say he’d mellowed and learnt the error of his ways.

But, despite impressing most who knew him as intelligent, a hard worker and a good husband and stepfather, the one-time orphanage boy — who had been shipped out from England at eight years old — was set in his ways.

Peter John Walker in custody after be recaptured. Peter Walker.

A prison officer who met him in Pentridge (“At first, I told him they should have hanged him, too”) and later got to like him at Bendigo Prison has been invited to speak at the funeral.

One story he might tell is about the young Walker, whom he fondly describes as “a cunning, conniving, shifty boy”, doing a favour for the chief officer in his own division by pinching an airconditioner from the industry yards (prison workshops) and calmly bringing it all the way back across Pentridge … in a wheelbarrow.

He then installed it in “the chief’s” office and everyone was happy, except for those left sweating in the industry yards.

Not nearly so amusing, according to Walker’s longtime partner, is the way Australian Border Force harassed the dying man in hospital for months before his death, trying to deport him to a country he had not seen in more than 70 years.

As it happens, Walker’s funeral will be held near where the sporty son of another English-born fugitive trained and played football.

That would be Chris Brent, one-time Fitzroy under-19 and Old Trinity full forward — and son of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Who, unlike Ryan and Walker, did make it to Brazil.

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THE CRIMINAL CLASSES

It seems a couple of businessmen at odds with the law in recent years have a long history of making their own rules.

We’ll simply say they’ve cut some corners in their chosen field, resulting in authorities coming down on them like, say, a grand piano dropped from the third floor.

But their sharp practices appear to go right back to school days where they knew how to make extra pocket money the easy way.

One of their tricks was producing good quality fake IDs, which they would then sell for a tidy profit.

Not entirely unusual — but it is when one of your teachers buys one for $50 so his daughter can go to the pub.

The said young blokes were also proficient at manufacturing counterfeit $50 notes.

They would then take them to a local department store where a less-than-vigilant teenager might be manning the counter.

Their DIY currency would turn into nice new notes for the price of a packet of chewy.

CAKEWALK TO COURT

Echo taskforce charges are more normally associated with old-school names like Mick, Toby and Mark.

So it was a bit of a break from tradition when the name Cake Sunflower Heart turned up on the Magistrates’ Court list recently with an Echo informant.

We’re told Ms Heart is a woman and that it is possible her name may not be the one she had at birth.

ON THE DOG AND BONE

Sometimes a phone conversation can be so important that other things slip your mind.

Like the bloke who forgot to put on any clothes last week while prowling around his Southbank accommodation jabbering into his mobile.

That’s OK if you’re indoors but our man was moving around a private deck outside his room at the Langham Hotel in full view of neighbouring office workers.