Susan Douglas
/Your Choice - One of My Favourite Models to End a Difficult Year.
If we laid end-to-end all the letters, we've received telling us that SUSAN DOUGLAS is your choice in the pin-up roll, they'd reach from as far back here to as far forward as there. Out-of-doors Susan makes just the picture to complement the fascination of Nature.
There is a certain something about the trees, the birds and the sky, and there is definitely a certain something about Susan.
That certain something about Susan is her ability to look enchanting what-ever her environment, and as the film star said to her publicity man, you can say that again.
Span No 110 - October 1963
Mustang
/Mustang No 7
Mustang No 7 - 1969
Vintage Stockings Archive
/Vintage Stockings Archive
Greta Berry
/Bright Light On A Dark Night
It was lovely and warm in the country that night, and if only there had been a moon instead of an inky sky, GRETA BERRY would have been lit up in the most romantic way.
"However," said Perce, the camera man from the big city, "as there isn't a moon I'll use my flash.”
"Oh, don't mind me," said Greta, who couldn't get the zip of her coat done up, "just go ahead, naturally."
"Willingly," said Perce, and there was a click and a flash, and then Greta was a bright light on a dark night.
By day she's an office girl, and if we're concentrating lately on bringing you different features on her it's only to keep you happy.
Beautiful Britons No 188 - July 1971
Vintage Stockings Archive
/Vintage Stockings Archive
Tracy Reeves
/Student of Philology
The girl in the picture is Tracy Reeves. We took her to a furniture exhibition and told her she could pose on whatever took her fancy. She chose this luxurious soft settee because she liked the feel of it. "Can put my feet on it?" she asked.
We asked why she wanted to, and she explained it was all a matter of texture. Her suede boots had the same fuzzy feel as the settee cushions.
So, they went well together. They go well with Tracy, too.
Tracy is a student of philology - which means the study of words. So, she told us what her name meant. Tracy is a shortening of Teresa, she said.
Teresa comes from the Greek and means "Harvester". Reeves, her second name, means a number of things. Among others, it's the name of a bird, a kind of sandpiper, found in America. "This doesn't seem to make much sense to us"', we protested. "No, but it's something to say when you run out of conversation", she answered.
"Can't you pose anywhere but on that settee?" we said. "People will get bored if you're in the same place all the time". Reluctantly she agreed
Kneeling on a table? ? ? Well, with a girl as nice as Tracy, with us it doesn't really matter how she poses. She'd look good anywhere.
Relax No 12 - Gold Star Publications 1967
Moni Carr
/Gym Girl
Mad about physical jerks is MONI CARR. Gym sessions keep Moni's tall, shapely figure streamlined to just the right proportions, and she can vault the horse just as easily as you can fall over a kerb, except that Moni will land gracefully on her feet and you'll land flat on your face.
Moni's talent in a gym includes a devastating overhead smash with a badminton racket, and if you want to get hit in the eye by a fast-moving shuttlecock just stand nicely in the way and keep your optics fastened on Moni's shapely knees. That way you won't see it coming.
Alternatively, if you want to slip a disc emulate Moni in this exercise.
Spick No 102 - May 1962
Vintage Stockings Archive
/Vintage Stockings Archive
Laurie Sands
/Surburban Fantasia
Suburban fantasia are all those fairy stories featuring what a dull old lot we are. If you believe them and you live in suburbia yourself, you probably feel like going out and shooting yourself on the front lawn.
Take no notice. The people who write those stories think you're only living if you dwell under a railway arch and leave all your litter about.
Well, look at LAURA SANDS.
She's a suburbanite but does she strike you as a dull old lot? She's a housewife, she's a happy mum and she's our idea of what a womanly woman should look like.
Curves are always more exciting than straight lines.
Beautiful Britons No 205 - December 1972
Jennifer Taylor
/The Way You Are
Now this is as it should be. This is a girl being herself, gorgeously feminine. This is a girl dissociating herself from all that other jazz.
It's our latest pin-up favourite, JENNIFER TAYLOR, who is absolutely certain that to be heavyweight boxing champion of the world is only for gorillas and suchlike. Jennifer is our idea of curvy perfection, and the girl we'd love to climb trees with. It's the easiest thing in the world to get all caught up in a tree and not be able to get down again until the fire brigade arrives. How absolutely thrilling.
Jennifer has begun to enter beauty competitions and you could be looking at a future Miss United Kingdom. On the other hand, if we had our way, we'd carry her off to a desert island and teach her how to make Christmas pudding out of coconuts.
You're crackers," said Jennifer.
Vintage Stockings Archive
/Vintage Stockings Archive
Sue Simpson
/The Problems of Reincarnation
Ever since we set eyes on these pictures of lovely Sue Simpson, we've been worried by a terrible problem. It's kept us awake at night, sleepless and tossing and turning, gnawing our knuckles, sitting up in bed reading back issues of RELAX in desperate attempts at sending ourselves to sleep. But it's no good. However long and hard we try; we never arrive at a decision.
At the bus queue in the morning, we mumble quietly to ourselves. People edge shiftily away from us. Well, at least that gets us a seat, even in the rush hour. But the problem remains.
You see, it's like this. The other day we read a book, about reincarnation. Apparently, we don't just have one life on earth, when we die, we're born again as someone else. And it happens over and over again. But there's a snag. (There always is, isn't there?) You see, when you're born again, you may not be born again as a person (so this book says). You might be a frog, a flea, or a woolly necked tapir. Or even a flower. Somehow we don't fancy the idea of being born again as a pansy.
But now perhaps you see the problem. Bearing in mind we might be born again, we've been wondering, wondering, wondering what we'd rather be. Would it be best to be that tree that Sue Simpson is embracing so warmly? Or maybe the grass, where she rests her delightful derriere? Or even-dare we suggest it-those black net stockings that hug her so tightly?
Relax No 17 - Gadoline Publications 1969
Martina Evans
/Mixed Up Martina
It all began with nothing but good intentions. MARTINA EVANS, sales- girl in the lingerie department of a London store, decided to do mum a good turn and put the cleaner over the carpet.
But before she could say, "Someone come and help me switch this thing off, it's getting recalcitrant," the long lead got all mixed up with her long legs.
From then on it was chaos.
At first Martina was determined not to be beaten, and a rare old struggle ensued. Martina was grounded like an all-in wrestler who'd slipped in a moment of over-confidence. The cleaner whirred and Martina went bump.
It wasn't the bump that mattered so much, it was the indignity. Climbing to her feet Martina thought right, monkey, you wait only for the cleaner to throw her again with a double-ankle knee-lock.
"Well," panted Martina, nineteen and with an ambition to be an air hostess, "you saucy old carpet- cleaner, you."
No more. That's your lot.
Beautiful Britons No 188 - July 1971
Nostalgia Publications (NPL York)
/Nostalgia Publications produced and published a selection of glamour and stocking fetish magazines throughout the 1990’s. They also had a small shop in York, which I am sure many of us were familiar with.
Titles included Nylon Parade/Flash - a nice quality A4 size magazine. Nostalgia also held a large selection of ToCo prints and negatives, which I guess they had acquired when ToCo themselves ceased trading. Nostalgia went on to use some those negatives to publish a selection of themed stocking and nylon interest A5 magazines. They also published a range of magazines featuring many well-known Harrison Marks girls, who had been frequently seen in Kamera, Solo and other Marks publications.
I have, over the years, acquired some of these magazines and have now decided to make copies of them available as eBooks for us all enjoy for a little longer.
It would be good to hear from anyone who has a full collection of these books, which would enable me to fill in the gaps in my information. Some years back I was offered Jim Barker’s stock of negatives, which Nostalgia Publications held at that time, but sadly we could not agree on a reasonable price for them, and they slipped my grasp. I often wonder if they did get sold and, if so, where they ended up. Jim would now, I think, be in his late eighties. Any more information - or just your thoughts on NPL - would be of interest. Please do get in contact.