I have recently been preparing some early editions of Mentor and Janus, and was surprised to note how many familiar faces there were. In its early days, Janus Publications was obviously a buyer of pictures from ToCo.
Most, I think, are quite familiar, but can you put names to faces?
Janus Volume 1 No 6 - 1972
It's always lovely in Yorkshire, actually. It's got grandeur.
It's got dishy girls.
It's got MICHELLE DOLAN.
Michelle lives in Bradford, she's nineteen and her vitalistics for the mathematically-minded-add up to 37"-21 "-34".
In case you live in Dorset and are thinking of writing to Michelle and asking her to leave Yorkshire to live in a Dorset cottage with you, don't bother. Michelle is quite happy, thank you. Move your cottage to the Yorkshire Moors and propose to her up there, and then she might be so impressed by your burning devotion that she'll think about it.
You can't expect to win the loveliest things in Yorkshire without making some sacrifices.
Span No 191 - July 1970
There's all this terrible talk about getting housewives out of the kitchen and sending them down the mines. It's going to be catastrophic if when you get home in the evening your gorgeous, better half is just on her way to the night shift. It means the hot stove is all yours.
While there's still time the hubby of Scots girl JOAN RUSSELL is making the most of her kitchen flair. And Joan doesn't really want to go down a mine, anyway. She likes her hot stove. She sings over it.
"And after all," she says, "if it's that hot you don't have to keep your overcoat on, you can just wear something cool and comfy."
How lovely.
Spick and Span Extra No 55 - Summer 1975
We're delighted to bring you more pics of RUTH CAVENDISH in this issue. Ruth has so many fans that if you laid them head to feet all the way from here northwards, they'd reach as far as Edinburgh High School, and they wouldn't half get in the way of the traffic.
Ruth is in the money.
She's cashier in a Glasgow store. She handles so much that it's a wonder it doesn't go to her head.
She says it would if it were all hers.
Ruth is really rather delicious, as well as delightfully curvy. She likes disco dancing and holidays on the French Riviera.
Beautiful Britons No 188 - July 1971
Not far from Park Lane the traffic came to a grinding stop, and one or two radiators almost blew up.
Right in the middle of the road and bathed illuminatingly by the sun was model STEFANIE MARRIAN.
What was on? Nothing very much, you might think.
Actually, a collection of new fun undies was being shown and Stefanie was modelling a black satin bra, chiffon G-string pants and a left-legged garter.
It didn't half stop the wheels of London.
Spick No 260 - July 1975
This could have only ever happed in the 1970’s. What a great decade that was.
One day Johnny's dad took him to see a pantomime and it was full of hilarious larks like the villain being shot up out of a trapdoor and the dame doing cartwheels.
That's not even kids' stuff these days. These days all the Johnnies want to go to discotheques to see dollies, and the last person they want with them is dad.
It's hardly surprising-except to elephants. Elephants are just plain old-fashioned. The rest of us can easily understand that when London Town is so full of dollies like SAMANTHA LEE that you can't turn round without blissfully bumping into one, who wants to go and see villains being shot out of trapdoors?
Samantha is nineteen, a dancer and an eyeful. She likes omelettes, so if you ever have the ecstasy of taking her out for high tea, you'll know what to order.
Spick No 204 - November 1970
It's not all minimum brevity with some girls. All right, so most of them don't wear even half as much as their mothers did and still do, but there are some who still like lots of frills.
One gorgeous friller is SUSAN ASHFORD, Scots girl from Ayrshire.
Since there are always readers asking whatever happened to lingerie and the half-baked idiots who made it obsolete, we feel from time to time that we should illustrate the fact that it's not universally obsolete.
The dodo may be dead beyond all recall, but not frillies.
Well, enjoy yourselves, those of you who suffer from nostalgia, and have some hot toast for tea while you're about it.
Spick No 231 - February 1973
Would you believe it?
This lovely young lady is a weightlifter.
It's not for real, of course. That is, she doesn't do it for a living, only to keep her body beautiful. Weightlifting of the right kind doesn't give a girl whacking great biceps and muscles like knotted oak, you know. Knotted oak is for the real grafters and groaners. It's not for ANGIE GRAHAM, a shorthand-typist from the County of Yorkshire.
Angie uses a much more subtle weight-lifting technique. It keeps her trim and fighting fit. It keeps her shapely. And if measurements of 37-23-36 aren't shapely, fill us in with an alternative formula.
Beautiful Britons No 205 - December 1972
Her fans keep on asking what's happened to her.
Who?
None other than SUSAN DOUGLAS.
Known to all her fans as a scintillating stunner. Susan has modelled for fashion houses, appeared on TV shows and in TV commercials, and now and again models as a pin-up girl for us.
Susan is willowy, bubbly, laughing and lovely.
She lives in Kent, drives her car up and down to town, and looks all leggy and lively in a Kentish meadow on a summer Saturday. There's a touch of deep auburn in her hair this summer.
Beautiful Britons No 188 - July 1971
Selection of models all taken from Janus Volume 1 No 10 - 1972.
We can all spot Dawn Grayson in the bath referred to here as Janet, but can you spot and name any others.
Janus Volume 1 No 10 - Janus Publications 1972
Betty Jameson - Span 218 - October 1972
“I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three ...”
That was how they started to bring the good news from Aix to Ghent, although the author of the poem never told us what the good news was or why they had to get to Ghent in such a hurry.
But it all sounded desperate and romantic.
It was Ferdie who brought the good news of ANNETTE FRENCH. He came whizzing in on his bicycle, and almost knocked Kitty sideways. "Here, watch it," said Kitty, who was taking the coffee round, "either ride that thing like a gentleman or else ring your bell."
"I'm all impetuous this morning," said Ferdie as he dismounted and took off his clips. Then he presented us with a file of lovely photographs, and they were all of Annette, one of the most gorgeous girls born north of the border. We thought she'd emigrated, but she hadn't, and we gave Ferdie a piece of chamois leather for bringing the good news.
"What's that for?" he asked.
"For cleaning your bike,' we said, "it's filthy."
Beautiful Britons No 188 - July 1971
"Well, look here, I don't know," said the maddened Mr. Hubboard, panicking around the local electricity headquarters, "I've got an account here for thirty-five million quid and sixty-two pence. Am I being done for life or what?"
"Come into the office, do," said the cool velvet voice of JENNIFER WILLIAMS, the accounts clerk.
He looked into her blue eyes and followed her in. Somehow thirty-five million quid didn't seem important anymore. Jennifer works for the Electricity Board and has the most charming way of making hurt clients feel that someone cares.
"I think it must be the computer,' she said, "let's put your account through again, sir.
So, he inserted it into the gaping maw of the computer but being in a bit of a trance he forgot to let go and went through himself. The computer didn't half get ratty. All its lights went berserk, and it ejected Mr. Hubboard with lightning playing all round him and stamped 'Inadmissible Interloper.' His account followed with the sixty- two pence knocked off.
"Oh dear," said Jennifer, "you still seem to owe us an awful lot, sir. "What's money?" said Mr. Hubboard, all over supercharged voltage.
Spick No 231 - February 1973
No, Scottish dolly DIANE McCALL isn't a Bunny.
She's just trying out her costume for the local Curling Club's fancy dress ball, and it's all her own work, so there.
Diane is a shorthand-typist and a lover of dancing. She also likes London, Paris and Brussels, and wouldn't mind flying her own plane to and from these cities when the weekend at home is rainy.
No, she doesn't have a plane, not yet. And she hasn't learnt to fly one, not yet. But looking at today's trends, want to bet it won't happen in a year or two?
Beautiful Britons No 227 - October 1974
It was a blushing ex-pupil who went back to her alma mater in the spring. Lovely CHRISTINA FRANCES of Manchester had forgotten how many beans make five and what the French was for, "I'm sorry, but I am otherwise engaged, m'sieu."
Christina travels extensively on modelling assignments, and in a month takes in such places as Tunisia, Spain, Majorca, Corfu and Paris. It's in Paris that confusion sometimes sets in, when an admiring and gallant Frenchman asks for the enchantment of her company to dinner and Christine can't think of quite the right words to tactfully discourage him.
So, when she had a moment or two in the spring, she went back to her college to brush up her French. Having grown into a very shapely lady since she left, she found her old school uniform didn't quite fit. The new sports master was quite delightfully agog, and Christina blushed rosier, especially when he said, "Never mind the French, come and try the parallel bars in our new gym."
Spick No 260 - July 1975
