Personal Services Personal Services Personal Services is a 1987 British comedy film directed by Terry Jones and written by David Leland. It is the story of the rise of a madam of a suburban brothel which caters to older men. The story is inspired by the real experiences of Cynthia Payne, the legendary "House of Cyn" madam. Christine Painter (Julie Walters) is a sexually naive waitress and single-mother who pays for her teenage son's tuition by renting flats to local call girls. She later becomes a call girl herself – joining her friend Shirley (Shirley Stelfox) and their "maid" Dolly (Danny Schiller)
Robert Payne (author) Robert Payne (author) Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1911 – 1983) was an English-born author, known principally for works of biography and history, although he also wrote novels, poetry, magazine articles and many other works. After working in Singapore and China, he moved to the United States in 1946 and became a professor of English literature. From 1954 onwards he lived as a writer in New York. A prolific author, Payne is best known for his biographies of prominent historical figures, such as Leonardo, Hitler, Stalin, Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong and Gandhi, several of which were selected for Book of the