LITTLEJOHN

AS THE presenter responsible for the first — and, I believe, only — television appearance of The Half Monty, I have always taken a keen interest in the career prospects of dwarfs.

The Half Monty were a troupe of stripping dwarfs who modelled themselves on The Full Monty, the film about a bunch of redundant steel workers who turned Chippendale to earn some money.

So successful were they that we decided to feature dwarfs in every episode of that particular series. After one show, the chief dwarf came up to me in the bar and apologised that he wouldn’t be available the following week, owing to a prior engagement at a dwarf-tossing championship in Barnsley.

But he said his brother-in-law, who was technically a midget, not a dwarf, would make a splendid stand-in. And so he proved. The long-forgotten series, on Sky One, ended with me and the head dwarf dressed as the Blues Brothers, singing Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour. We were proud to have been able to provide gainful employment for a vulnerable minority. And they were grateful for the work.

So I was intrigued to read at the weekend that planned dwarf-wrestling exhibitions in Leicester and Bournemouth have been cancelled after complaints from protesters.

Gillian Martin, from something called the Restricted Growth Association, said: ‘We remain resolute in our belief that such events are primarily about encouraging audiences to laugh at people with dwarfism and the spectacle of violence against dwarf bodies as entertainment for average height people.’

It’s a point of view, but it has angered the wrestlers themselves, who belong to a Texas-based organisation called ‘The Dwarfanators’.

One wrestler, Michael Stone, said: ‘We’re going out there, working, providing for our families. We’re just trying to have fun and do our jobs.’

Surely if these people have chosen wrestling as a career, they should not be denied the chance to earn an honest living free from political interference.

Happily, two other events, in Cardiff and Swansea, are going ahead. The Welsh obviously have a more enlightened view of dwarf-wrestling.