13 Facts About Stanley Green

For 25 years, from 1968 until 1993, Stanley Green patrolled Oxford Street with a placard recommending "protein wisdom", a low-protein diet that he said would dampen the libido and make people kinder.

Stanley Green's 14-page self-published pamphlet, Eight Passion Proteins with Care, went through 84 editions and sold 87,000 copies over 20 years.

Stanley Green's "campaigning for the suppression of desire", as one writer described it, was not always popular, but Londoners developed an affection for him.

Stanley Green lived with his parents until they died, his father in 1966 and his mother the following year, after which he was given a council flat in Haydock Green, Northolt, West London.

Stanley Green began his mission in June 1968, at the age of 53, initially in Harrow on Saturdays, becoming a full-time human billboard six months later on Oxford Street.

Stanley Green cycled there from Northolt with a sandwich board attached to his bicycle, a journey that could take up to two hours.

Stanley Green rose early, and after porridge for breakfast made bread that would rise while he was on patrol, ready for his evening meal.

Peter Ackroyd wrote in London: The Biography that Stanley Green was for the most part ignored, becoming "a poignant symbol of the city's incuriosity and forgetfulness".

Stanley Green was arrested for public obstruction twice, in 1980 and 1985.

Stanley Green carried copies of it in his satchel, selling 20 on weekdays and up to 50 on Saturdays, for 10 pence in 1980 and later 12 pence.

Stanley Green sent it to public figures, including five British prime ministers, Prince Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Paul VI.

Years after his death Stanley Green was still remembered by writers and bloggers.

Stanley Green was the subject of an eponymous biographical song on the Melancholy Thug's album A Trip to the Sewers of Paris.