Arthur Clifford Baynes was an English teacher and comedian from the steel-making city ofSheffield, Yorkshire, who performed under the stage name Stainless Stephen. During World War One, he served in the Sheffield City Battalion. Never quite in the front rank of British music hall comedians, he would appear dressed in a smart tuxedo, a bowler hat with a steel band around it, a rotating bow tie, and a stainless steel vest. Perhaps third on the bill, this may explain why he did not give up his day job at Crookes Endowed School, which he joined in 1922 after his demobilisation. That is until 1935, when he moved to London to be nearer the BBC. His first stage appearance was at the Palace, Luton, in 1921. His speciality was that during his intoned monologue, he would interrupt the flow by supplying the punctuation, thus:
This is Stainless aimless brainless Stephen, semi-colon, broadcasting semi-conscious at the microphone semi-frantic.
And so, countrymen, semi-colon, all shoulders to the wheel, semi-quaver, we'll carry on till we get the Axis semi-circle, and Hitler asks us for a full stop!
He is said to have based the idea during a radio course he took while on military service. Stainless Stephen appeared in Radio Parade, a film of current music hall acts. He supported Will Hay at the Victoria Palace in 1944, and appeared on the bill at the London Palladium's Royal Command Performance in 1945. As a postscript to his career Stainless Stephen appeared as a guest on Frost on Saturday on ITV on 15 November 1969. This edition was dedicated to the history of British Broadcasting to mark the first evening of colour transmissions on ITV. In the show the comedian gave the television audience a sample of his somewhat unusual comedy routine. This programme survives intact in the ITV archives and is available on DVD. In his younger days, Baynes was a racing cyclist and continued to have an interest in cycling throughout his life. His cycle racing medals are soon to be on public display in Sheffield Museum He died in Chiddingstone, Kent in 1971.
