Bunhill: What happened to Victor Lownes?

EVER wondered what happened to Victor Lownes? Well, the former Playboy UK boss who once shared Stocks, his Hertfordshire mansion with 40 bunny girls, is now in his 65th year, happily married to Marilyn Cole (Playmate of the Year, 1973), still living in style in Belgravia and trying to make money from . . . ten-pin bowling alleys.

Lownes is hoping to cash in on the craze by opening a 12-lane complex at Pool, near Redruth in Cornwall. And he wants your help, or rather, your money, via a Business Expansion Scheme.

His company, South West Bowling plc, is trying to raise pounds 750,000 to build the bowling alley on land he bought from the local council for pounds 37,000. The prospectus mentions that Lownes and a fellow director will be investing pounds 77,000 of their own money in the venture. The two will be buying most of their shares at 50p each - unlike outsiders, who are invited to subscribe at pounds 2 a share.

The site will be sold on at cost to the new BES, which plans to spend pounds 245,000 on constructing the alley - to be built in 'brick rendered with grey chippings, surmounted by Plastisol-coated cladding'.

Appropriately enough, the prospectus mentions that Lownes was involved in the backing of the Monty Python film And Now for Something Completely Different.