The Merch’ was a place of freedom for these men, who were able to escape the oppressive atmosphere back home.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s more than a few gay men joined the Merchant Navy to serve as waiters or stewards and there was a strong sense of community among them. Another popular place to have heard it would be in the cabins of the crew of glamorous cruise liners (latties on water). Backstage, dancers were called wallopers and singers were voches. An older form of it called Parlyaree was used in the 19th century by travelling entertainers and fairground people, and from there it found its way into the music halls and then the theatres. Polari was popular in theatres around the UK and many actors still know a few words. Some of them get quite cross with the “Polari” spelling, which was used by the lexicographer Eric Partridge back in the 1950s and seems to have stuck. There are no standardised spellings incidentally, and many of the older speakers knew Polari as Palare, Parlary or Palari.
Some words were spoken as if they were spelled backwards, like ecafe (face), although to make it more complicated, ecafe was shortened to eke or eek. Polari is a bit of a magpie – borrowing terms from Italian, Cockney Rhyming Slang and Yiddish, as well as incorporating slang words from the gay subculture of the time. Kenneth Williams by Godfrey Argent © National Portrait Gallery, London