Christine Norton

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Lovely Learner

When we were young we thought we knew it all. We thought, as every generation thinks, that we were the ones who’d discovered sex. We forgot that when Shakespeare was young his generation discovered it too.

Not concerned with any burning questions which don’t concern her academic pursuits, CHRISTINE NORTON is a student whose spare time is fully taken up with intensive studying.

Now and again she does break out, however, such as when she entered the Miss Enfield beauty contest and delightedly found herself a finalist.

Other than that it’s pen and pencil-biting sessions over books and logarithms and what were the economic reasons that led to the French Revolution and why Lincoln was so passionate at Gettysburg.

It’s a lot to cram into the mind of any lovely learner when there is so much gay living going on elsewhere. Christine admits she sometimes wants to drop everything and go down to the river for a trip in a canoe. But if she wants to qualify as a linguistic secretary or as a junior executive on a woman’s magazine, she’s got to forget canoes and things.

Maria Assin

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It Wasn’t For Want of Trying

There was this rubber canoe, see.

It was a new acquisition for MARIA ASSIN. Maria works all week in an office and spends all week-ends out-of-doors. That way a girl manages to keep pretty and vital.

Maria had the darnedest trouble launching the canoe and even more trying to get into it. It couldn't have been more difficult trying to get on the neck of an elephant with a rope ladder.

There's a classical method of launching and paddling a canoe, of course One, you swoosh it into the water. Two, you sling your left leg over the starboard side. Three, you sling your right leg in. Four—as Maria found out—you fall flat on your face over the port side.

No one can say Maria didn't try. She did. Both classical and un-classical methods. The canoe remained obdurately determined, Maria likewise. It became a fight to the finish.

“Pardon me,” called a wag from dry land, “but watch out for the torpedoes.”

“Blow the torpedoes,” said Maria, “I’m in at last and now it’s full steam ahead.”

It’s one thing to be an obdurately determined young lady, and quite another to be over-confident.

It wasn't the torpedoes.

It was the canoe.

It gave a wet cough and Maria went overboard. Not for the first time, either. “You’re all wet," called the wag from the bank.

“So are you," said Maria.


Janette Goodman

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It Can’t Be True

No, the fact is we didn’t think fashion model JANETTE GOODMAN would really go for these old-fashioned longs, no matter how much they’re currently being worn by those in the know. We really thought it couldn’t be true when Janette popped up in them, but as they say in the best technical tomes, the camera simply doesn’t lie.

Janette herself seems uncommonly tickled by them — figuratively, that is (we presume), not literally.

Well, she looks all right. They may be terribly old-fashioned, but Janette exudes no atmosphere of grandmother’s day. Maybe she needs a bustle for that.

Maybe a tall bonnet would also help. Janette doesn’t think so. The longs are back in fashion, she says, but not bustles or bonnets. So there.

Claire Peters

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In the Money

It’s not like winning the pools and saddling yourself with a trunkful of fivers that you don’t know what to do with. (You all know how difficult it is to spend money when you’ve got such a lot of it).

You’re in the money in a different way when you’re handling other people’s cash, as CLAIRE PETERS does. Claire is a cashier and what a pretty one. You kind of fall into her green eyes and forget your change. “Sir—your change.”

“Never mind all that humdrum lolly—what’s your phone number?” Honestly, some people.

LuLu

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Yoo-Hoo, Lulu

They ran the Derby at Epsom not so long ago and everyone got quite worked up. The runners went so fast that the only way of finding out how many were in the race was to count the legs and divide by four.

 One of the Epsom visitors was international singing star LULU.

 The cameramen caught her on the rail in her K.O. hot pants. Lulu just projected a lovely smile and they all said, "Good on you. Lulu, you're even more photogenic than the gee-gees."

 "I bet you say that to all the girls," said Lulu.

Diane Clarke

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Window Shopping

Pay day was still a little way off so all that Middlesex beauty queen DIANE CLARKE could do was window shopping.

Still, that gives a girl as much pleasure as going into the shop and not making up her mind, anyway. Girls in shops look their prospective purchase over, murmur “Mmmm .. . yes ... it’s lovely . . . but I was looking for something different,” and the assistant stands first on one foot, then the other.

Diane saved all that fiddling about by just window shopping. She was able to fall in love with all kinds of items without making any assistant hop worriedly about.

As a matter of fact, Diane in her mini outfits looks much better than any-thing we’ve seen in any window.

Jane Paul

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Personal Appearances

Nothing counts for more in the life of a film star than the rapturous acclaim of a bedazzled crowd, overflowing their own feet as each man and each woman shoves and pushes to get a glimpse of You-Know-Who. What we like is more a personal appearance, really, such as JANE PAUL always catches the eye with. Well-groomed, well-brushed, no stocking wrinkles, everything neat and clean and tidy and fab. Super-duper entrancing Miss Paul.

Margaret Box

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Who’d Have Thought It?

A few years ago, a shapely young brunette from Catford called in to see us. Her name was Margaret Box and she looked just like she does in the photograph above. Her ambition was to make her mark in the cinema, and that didn’t mean gouging a lump out of the carpet in the middle row of the stalls.

Well, we thought good luck and all that, and reckoned she might or might not make it, we weren’t sure. We knew about the competition and how tough it was.

Well, in a nutshell, who’d have thought it? This year we’ve been receiving wildly-exciting photographs of Italy’s newest star MARGARET LEE, a blonde in the tradition of today’s eye-catching blondes, and the likeness striking a chord in the way it does when we’re a bit with it, we soon found out that Miss Lee was formerly Miss Box. Miss Box was delightful in Catford, but Miss Lee is sensational in Rome.

Sadie Milligan

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Oh, Hang It

That’s what SADIE MILLIGAN said when someone gave her an oil-painting for her birthday.

The reason for Sadie's remark was one, because she'd been expecting half-a-dozen pairs of nylons, and, two, because what can a girl do with an old oil-painting except hang it? So, do-it-yourself Sadie collected stepladder and hammer. She should have called in the man next door to hang it for her - then, like most do-it-yourself girls, she wouldn't have ended up on the floor.

Framed? Yes - the painting, not Sadie, because there's a consensus of opinion among those who value somebody else's grandmother in oils that this was deliberate sabotage on Sadie's part. All we can say is she makes a better picture than the picture.

Sadie, of the long and shapely legs, is a Bonny Scot from Ayrshire. And when she's not hanging pictures she works for a chemical firm.

Marie Auge

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Break for a Soufflé

When one is not only studying Chinese in a Paris university but also working hard in one’s spare time to earn one’s university fees, one needs the occasional break.

MARIE AUGE may not be able to afford a five-course lunch, even though there’s nothing that would give you greater joy than buying her one, but she has to eat.

During university recesses Marie works as a manicurist. At lunchtime break she likes a soufflé.

At a Chinese restaurant she knows in Paris they serve the most aromatic and fluffy soufflés. She orders in Chinese. It helps her with her homework. It seems a terrible waste dedicating oneself to Chinese, because there’s not much call for it except in China. Where’s China? Oh, sorry, Chairman Mao.

Ann Mountford

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Glorious Devon

Devon is a county renowned for being glorious. Lovely golf courses, green farms and sea-washed beaches. Drake used to sail out from Devon. Not long-ago ANN MOUNTFORD sailed out herself and came to London.

Now, instead of gathering hay on farms in Devon she's a ledger clerk in the City. Some might think this isn't a change for the better, but Ann likes London and she likes her work.

She's good at figures.

And she's got rich auburn hair, lovely green eyes and long legs. She's nineteen. It's her world.

Anne Stewart

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Secretary at Work

When she’s not doing six things at once for her boss —and chasing up the junior who makes the office coffee—lovely ANNE STEWART is doing odd jobs in her flat or sailing boats off the Hampshire coast or hacking over the Downs. As a secretary Anne is both beautiful and efficient, and as a wielder of a paint brush or a knocker-in of nails she’s no less beautiful and probably just as efficient. She’s a dab hand with a screwdriver and knows what she's doing with a brace and bit. As you lie in your deckchair, doing nothing but waggling your toes in the sunshine, aren’t you just a little mortified that you don’t even know what a brace and bit is?

Anne, by the way, loves to travel and is saving up to buy her own car for use on the next trip abroad she makes. There's hardly any need to mention that she’ll be able to do her own maintenance on the vehicle.

Barbara Boon

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Babs Figures

Very good at figures is BARBARA BOON, which isn’t surprising in a girl who wasn’t far short of being a mathematical marvel when she was at college. Not that the boys were breathless admirers of her mathematics—well, not as much as they were of her inches, which made her look lovely and shapely.

It’s all very well to go on a diet and finish up looking flat all the way down but it doesn't inspire the chaps as much as an oo-la-la shape of 37-24-36.

That figures.

Nicki Stevens

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Window Dressing

There’s nothing that decorates a window better than an indoor bloom of exotic colour. If you don’t go in for tropicana flora, however, but you do just happen to be having NICKI STEVENS to tea, you’ve got the perfect window dressing. A fascinating blue-eyed blonde, Nicki comes from Newcastle, lives in London and measures 37-23-37.

Tamie Scott

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A Very Sporty Bird

Tamie is a secretary and the love of her life, apart from rugged men with a sense of humour, is her zippy little sports car, in which she whizzes around the Hampshire countryside with a great deal of nerve, verve and expertise.

No novice at the wheel is Tamie.

“You don't only need a sense of humour," said one rugged gentleman, “you need to know how to keep your head on round all the bends. It's all fast gear changes with Tamie, and that's racing stuff, boyo. Let her go, gal."

Tamie works in an office in Bournemouth and arrives every Monday morning looking glowing from all the fresh air of the week-end.