WomenHow did buttoned-up Britain come to embrace an annual celebration of the bottom – and how is it surviving in the #MeToo era? Its creator and several winners explain its successBritain is not a nation renowned for its bottoms. Californian bottoms are neat, clenched things, compacted in the dust of early-morning hikes. British behinds, by contrast, wobble: our national bottom is the builder’s bum, as patriotic as tea or the Queen. It is unusual, then, that every year the British public confers upon a celebrity the award of rear of the year.
Launched by the PR consultant Anthony Edwards in 1976, rear of the year was initially awarded annually to the woman judged by the British public to have the nation’s most significant posterior. Over time, it has modernised, with Michael Barrymore becoming the first person to win the men’s trophy, in 1986 (although usually the press ignores the male recipients, who often don’t even get their own photocalls).
In its own way, the award has become a barometer for how the nation feels about itself. Were we, deep in the lads’ mag era, qualm-free about sexualising children (Charlotte Church was 16 when she won in 2002)? Did the country’s warmth for Princess Diana lead to Princess Alexandra’s daughter, Marina Ogilvy, becoming the only royal to win, in 1999? In 2018, it seems we feel a bit weird about the whole thing. In these post-Weinstein, #MeToo times, it is hard to believe this ritualised objectification of a celebrity’s buttocks still exists. A cloud of uncertainty hangs over the rear of the year, so perhaps it is unsurprising that Edwards declines to meet in person, citing the pressure of his job, an overdue novel and “crucial activity in local green-belt politics” (he is campaigning to block plans to build new homes on a former airfield in Ockham, Surrey, where he lives). He agrees to a telephone interview, in which he talks about his published novels, including 2002’s Wilson Lacigam’s Bentley, a “tale of the coming of the messiah in the 21st century”, which is based on his experience of owning classic cars. Even on the phone, Edwards remains elusive, perhaps because he has not been charred by the fires of public outrage and wants to keep it that way: he will not disclose his age, he refuses to be photographed and he will not reveal when this year’s winner will be announced.
The idea for rear of the year came to Edwards, he says, when he was contracted to promote a denim trade show at the Olympia exhibition centre in London in the 70s. He thought an accolade for the female rear would focus media attention on the back pocket of jeans, offering an opportunity to promote specific brands. Barbara Windsor won the inaugural award, wearing the now defunct denim brand Sloopy.
Winners must be UK residents, in the public eye and, says Edwards, “the proud possessor of a potentially prize-winning gluteus maximus”. Fan clubs often marshall votes for the eventual winner: Edwards credits the wins of Daniel Radcliffe (2015), Carol Smillie (1998) and Denise van Outen (1999) to organised efforts. The winners are a mix of soap actors (John Altman, 2001; Ryan Thomas, 2008), reality TV contestants (Javine Hylton, 2006; Will Young, 2005), pop stars (Natasha Hamilton, 2003; Gary Barlow, 1997) and the odd wildcard (Alex Best, 2004; Tom Hiddleston, 2016).
I was only 20 and not really that comfortable in my own skin. I thought: ‘I don’t know how I feel about this’Natasha HamiltonThe British public is not above intrigue when it comes to picking winners. In 2006, the competition became embroiled in a public love triangle when Lembit Opik, then a Liberal Democrat MP, left his fiancee, the weather presenter Siân Lloyd, for 24-year-old Gabriela Irimia of pop duo the Cheeky Girls, best known for their 2002 hit Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum). Rear of the year voters showed solidarity with Lloyd by awarding her the following year’s trophy.Carol Vorderman is undoubtedly the supreme champion of rear of the year, being its only two-time recipient, with wins in 2011 and 2014. (“I always suspected there were a lot of people out there who were glad to see the back of me. It now appears there were even more than I thought,” Vorderman joked when she collected her second trophy.)
“It would be nice to win it twice,” muses the glam rock musician Suzi Quatro, the winner in 1982, reflecting on Vorderman’s successes. “I’ve been told since I was about eight or nine that I had a nice ass,” she says. “Seriously. I remember staring at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out why people were saying that. It used to be written in critical reviews. People would talk about my backside and my leather suit. So, when I won the award, I was actually quite proud.”
Victorious rumps change with the times, Edwards says. “Rear of the year is an excellent monitor of fashions in body shape. In 2018, the trend is towards a shapely, well-toned and, above all, proportionate rear.” Our fitness-focused paradigm was reflected in last year’s joint winner, Idris Elba, who has “a well-toned, firm rear”, Edwards explains. In the 40s and 50s, rear fashions were quite different. “If there had been a rear of the year award back then, it would have gone to Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe.”
Rear of the year has become famous mostly for its trashy-fabulous photocalls, which are a sort of visual metaphor for why Britain no longer occupies a position of prestige on the international stage. Typically, the recipient poses, back to camera, hands on hips, while a bank of photographers snap them. Photocalls appear to have been phased out in recent years, though, with the last person to attend being the soap actor Jennifer Metcalfe in 2016 (she thanked her mother for giving her a “small waist and big bum”). Does Edwards struggle to get winners to attend the photocalls? He claims not. There was no photocall last year, he says, because he had “other things to do”.
The tabloids would not be happy to see the back of the competition: editors love the photocalls, Edwards says, because they get to print pictures of obliging women in tight outfits. “As one national photographer said to me recently: ‘You can rely on the rear of the year award. It delivers every time.’”Lloyd describes her shoot as “probably the weirdest photocall I’ve attended in my life”. “It was unbelievable. I felt like I was attending the Cannes film festival. The photographers were literally six-deep. I’m used to my face being photographed, but they want the back of you for the photo. Everything about it was really odd.”
A talented extrovert may subvert these conventions, with joyous results. The Doctor Who actor John Barrowman’s high-camp photocall in 2012 was more naff than a Christmas panto, yet strangely, gloriously erotic. “Barrowman jumped in a fountain,” Edwards says. “Immediately, people were in the fountain with him, taking photographs, and there was this surge of interest – until the wind began to blow and he got a bit chilly and had to go change.”
But not everyone thinks it is a bit of cheeky fun. The Atomic Kitten singer Natasha Hamilton was initially flattered to be named rear of the year, but that soon changed. “The title felt a bit tongue in cheek,” she says. “But when the reality kicked in, that I had to stand and have my picture taken, it felt uncomfortable. There was a wall of paparazzi taking my picture and I was only 20 and not really that comfortable in my own skin. I thought: ‘I don’t know how I feel about this.’” She “put on a mask and went along with it”. However, when the images appeared in the press, she was unhappy. “I just didn’t like it. It seemed a little bit crass and seedy. Maybe it was an age thing,” she says diplomatically. “I was just a bit too young for it.”
Still, she never took her award out of its box. “I was given a plaque and I did have it for many years in a box on a shelf, in a back room. I never put it up.”
Like their prize-winning backsides, the rear of the year award tends to follow its winners around. “Every time I’m hosting an awards ceremony and get introduced, they mention it. It’s always [Lloyd mimics an announcer’s voice]: ‘And proud winner of rear of the year Sian Lloyd!’” Olly Murs, a winner in 2014, agrees. “Let’s just say that it’s something I will always be asked about. It’s definitely a good conversation starter.”
Although Fiona Bruce, one of the 2010 winners, has publicly disavowed the trophy, describing her decision to accept it as “the most hypocritical, ridiculous, ludicrous thing I’ve ever done”, most of the winners I speak to regard rear of the year with a mixture of bafflement and good humour. “It’s one of the most democratic of all the awards,” Lloyd argues. “It’s not just your gorgeous-looking reality TV stars who win, but Carol Vorderman, who won at a ripe old age. Why should 21- or 22-year-olds always win these things?”
How can we account for the continued popularity of the competition after so many years? Nearly 11,000 public votes were cast for 2017’s joint winners (Rachel Riley and Idris Elba). “I think that the British public – while supposedly a revolutionary lot – like continuity. When something has been going on a long time, it becomes endearing, like an elderly aunt,” Edwards says.
Despite this, it is difficult to see a path forward for the competition. Although not without its charm, rear of the year feels to me like a product of a different era and one that is incongruous in these more feminist times. Edwards senses my mixed feelings and emails me a characteristically eccentric survey following our interview (“Now you’ve filed your copy, would you say it was: pro-ROTY, anti-ROTY, complimentary, scathing, humorous, serious, for framing on the office wall, food for the shredder, or a step-by-step guide to winning the 2019 trophy?”).
Quatro, for one, would be disappointed if it ended. “It’s a one-off thing, isn’t it? It’s unique.” And much like Quatro’s bum (“It’s still good,” she says), it is possible that, despite all the challenges, there is life yet in rear of the year.
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