Shirley Epps

Coming Out?

SHIRLEY EPPS doesn’t need an awful lot of coaxing to come out, but she does need some tactful type to remind her that skirts, though short this season, are still being worn!

“I know that, stupid,” said Shirley, “and I’m not budging from here until mine turns up.” Shirley was, in fact, only hanging around the back door waiting for the dry cleaners to deliver the skirt.

At her New Year party she fell into the apple bucket.

Then the guy next door (who never misses a thing) popped his eyes over the fence. Shirley saw through that, however, and turned her back on him.

And when she finally get out it in a floral dress the skirt came shrunk.

Anyway, the floral frock was real springlike—and so, in the sunshine, was Shirley, as she gambolled over the grass.

Span Extra - Spring 1959

Dawn Grayson

Do You Collect Orchids?

If you do, then please keep them in a perfect condition until you have a hundred exotic blooms. Then present them to your wife’s mother. This will convince both your wife and her mother that you have gone off your nut, and they will humour you and coddle you for the rest of your days.

If however, you don’t collect orchids and don’t know the joys of having such fragrant beauty for your very own, console yourself by cutting out these pictures of DAWN GRAYSON and pasting them in your album. Your friends will all be delighted to let you show them your album from then on.

Dawn is a Luton girl who loves gardening and landscape-painting.

Spick No 132 - August 1965

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 12

Janette Goodman

You, Too ?

Yes, indeed, It’s JANETTE GOODMAN, too, who has fallen for the current old-fashioned look, which only goes to show that fashion is something a bright girl can’t afford not to be seen in.

This seems to indicate that yesterday’s long look can be today’s top look, but there you are—what’s new is new even if it’s old.

Janette should know. As a fashion model she has to be up with the leaders, never mind what they’re wearing in a Persian market.

This “how-do-I-look” smile from Janette is kind of rhetorical—for she’s sure she looks good. Let’s face it, she’s in the fashion.

Angela Frances

Coming Ma’am

Holding down her current job as a cute maid is ANGELA FRANCES. She’s only just about holding it down because ma'am is a highly demanding mistress with her finger perpetually on the buzzer. Poor Angela gets into a regular tizzy, and the house is always echoing to her plaintive calls of “Coming, ma'am—coming!"

On this occasion the buzzer buzzed peremptorily for more tea. Well, there was no trouble in pouring it out. That’s a fairly simple operation for the dumbest maid, and our Angela may be cute but certainly not dumb.

Anyone rushing to serve ma’am with tea is liable to slip up with the tray. Even Angela. But not everyone takes a dive as attractively as she does.

Well, with the tea all over the floor, what can a girl do now except wait for ma’am to fire her? “I think,” said Angela, “that I’ll go back to being a secretary.”

Sally Fairfax

So You're Miss Fairfax?

SALLY FAIRFAX please, and yes, you've caught me in my stole.

Barbara Archer

Hello Again

And a big hallo it is for BARBARA ARCHER, the girl we're always pleased to see again and again. On this occasion Babs was showing us how she looked on her Spanish holiday, and we said, yes, my word, we like you in those black nylons, Babs. To which Babs replied, with a rather whimsical look in her eyes, that it was the hat, man, the hat. And we said good grief, just the hat?

"Whit,” said Barbara crisply, "are you implying?" (Barbara is a Fleet Street secretary and uses phrases like that).

We said we thought she meant she went around Spain in just the hat. and Babs said not only was that quite absurd but she could prove it by her suntan, which wasn’t all over.

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 10

Vicki Campbell and Janet Neill

Skirts Are Shorter!

How high can a hemline soar? VICKI CAMPBELL and JANET NEILL give us a preview of their reply to the Parisian designers. Any poll you care to take will show 99% in favour of the Campbell-Neill line.

The 1% ! That’ll be our office boy—he thinks Vicki and Janet could have lopped off another couple of inches. That boy’s too old for his years.

Aleisha Phillips

Oriental Look

The look is oriental, and you might expect the name to be, too. But it's not Little - Flower - That Flutters - In - The - Wind or Blossom - With - The - Cherry - Red - Petals it's ALEISHA PHILLIPS. The Christian name may have an almond flavour to it but don’t be fooled - Aleisha is a Beautiful Briton. Nevertheless, drape her in a kimono, place her unobtrusively in a Tokyo bus queue, and the nearest the Nips will get to classing her as a foreigner will be Shanghai. Is it the delicate slant to those beautiful brown eyes?

No, but listen. Aleisha’s never been to Tokyo or to Shanghai. We don’t think she’s even been in a bus queue.

She rides in taxis and she’s strictly a no chop-suey type. That alluring, exotic Eastern look just developed along with her slim and shapely legs, and any mysterious Oriental characteristics she’s acquired are really quite Occidental.

Now fashion modelling in London, Aleisha shows that black lingerie tailored around her trim 35 - 25 - 35 figure looks good from all angles, and she models it with the sweet assurance of a Tokyo counterpart who's left her kimono on the hook.

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 8

Lavinia Grant

Lavinia Drops In

IT was a rainy day wet, too, as so often happens in this country and the daffodils hadn't yet started to bloom, and the man from the collecting office had already been round twice to ask for the rent. Then luscious-looking LAVINIA GRANT dropped in - actually, it was only to get out of the rain—and we said why not come into the parlour. So, she did and the next thing she knew there was a camera keeping her company at very close range.

Well, it's not often someone as bright as Lavinia drops in on a rainy day. so why not - we said - record the fact? So, we did

This might mean that Lavinia has met too many sailors or not enough airmen. Anyway, she slings her hammock in Kensington now and is shipshape at 37 - 22 - 38.

Tessa King

Farm Favourite

Down on her farm in Sussex, TESSA KING is a great favourite - and not just because she’s kind to the animals. Tessa is a farmer's wife and just about as cute as they come.

It was a little too wet and muddy on this occasion to show you Tessa shepherding the gentle cows through the gate and across the road, but we're able at least to show you she's definitely one of the most photogenic farmers’ wives south of the Highlands.

Up in the morning early is Tessa, and if you thought a farmer's wife dressed herself in the rural equivalent of a boiler suit to face the day's chores, then here’s the exception which proves you shouldn't generalise.

This is the age of glamour - and the age that takes in farm favourites like Tessa. That side look out of the window was not made to project charm alone - a couple of hen turkeys had skipped away from the main throng (is throng of turkeys strictly correct?) to wing a lift on the tractor. Turkeys on tractors being taboo, Tessa was weighing up the necessity of rushing out to rescue them before they fell under the wheels. But not in this outfit !

Patricia McGregor

How Delightful

It would indeed be delightful to have a maid-of-all-work like PATRICIA McGREGOR around the house. But unfortunately, Pat’s not registered with any domestic agency. The chores she does are strictly for her own benefit career wise she’s a fashion model and drama teacher. No, we can't tell you where she teaches drama, and anyway, Horace, we can’t see you as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. With that glint in your eye and that smirk on your face, you’re not mournful enough.

Washing-up sans skirt is to save the skirt getting splashed by detergents, and, of course, to prove that fashion models have very glamorous legs.

Pat, by the way, is a pukka fashion model, and this is the first time she’s posed for pin-up shots. She was quite confident she would do us justice—with a smile like that and trim limbs like these, this was a certainty.

What she didn’t realise was that so many pin-up girls who put their feet up for temporary relaxation inevitably end up flat on their backs.

“This is a new one on me,” said Pat, “and I can’t say anything except the bump hurt me a lot more than it hurt you. How many times do I have to do this for pin-up art?”

And while she made herself a cup of tea to soothe her shattered nerves we explained it was a pure accident.

“Willingly,” said Pat, “I’d give you the benefit of the doubt on that if I hadn’t seen you push me. Pardon me if I pick a softer seat than before but I’m a little tender.”

We laughed that one off by saying that a little tender is just as much behind as a big tender, especially on British railways.

“You can say that again,” said Pat, and curling up on the armchair she refused to budge until we’d gone. And she stayed unbudged so charmingly we had no option but to fold up our tents and depart like the wise men of old.