The Incredible Til- tattooed. (Patreon)

Excerpt from PFIQ Issue 12, 1981, Sailor Sid Interviewing TIL of Cardiff, Wales. 

Sailor Sid- It has been great meeting you in person, for I feel as if I already know you through our correspondence and cassette tapes. When did you first get interested in piercing?

"TIL"- About 1925 or so. 

S/Sid- What was your first piercing and how was it done?

"TIL"- It was nipple piercings and was done with an ordinary pin. Attempts to retain the piercings were made by inserting dried grass in the openings which proved to be quite unsuccessful. 

Prefacing the interview with Til in PFIQ, Sailor Sid Diller- known for an abundant amount of piercings in his penis and scrotum- said he was recording the interview for, "PFI (and posterity) the story of some of the ultimate and most fantastically 'far-out' piercings I have ever run across in my 38 years experience in the piercing field anywhere." 

A bold statement given the folks Sid must have run into in the 38 years before meeting Til on a trip to the United Kingdom. 

The far out piercings Sid was referencing were as much surgery as piercing- the combination of a sub and super incision of the penis with the frenum left intact so that the penis could be folded "inside out" and objects inserted into the enlarged hole. Still shocking in 2020, I can only imagine the reaction of PFIQ readers in the early 80s. 

Other than that initial appearance in PFI (and I think one more reusing the original content for an in memoriam article, though I could be misremembering) not much was seen of TIL until the late 1990s when my spcO site posted a handful of 'new' photos of him taken by Jack Yount a few years prior; and later via restored video on the blog iteration of Sacred Debris.

He's a fascinating character- starting his piercing experiments five years before Fakir Musafar was even born- but one who's story was sadly never fully documented. Its my hope that the cassettes Sid referenced were part of the Leather Archives Sailor Sid collection and that they provide more about Til's life and motivations. 

This photo features Til being tattooed by Alan Oversby- who he credits for influencing him to begin the process of lengthening his scrotum via leather straps- in the late 1970s.  Note that his nipples have been nullified; in the video chat between Jack and Til (which was just that- a chat not a formal interview) he didn't mention that particular modification/the motivation behind it.