Joan Russell

With the first wave of Bearsden girls gracing the ToCo pages in early 1963, Joan was one of the last fillies in the stable of girls from Ayrshire, that glorious area of Scotland to the south-west of Bearsden. But she is unique in that she made her first appearance in all three titles in the same month – December 1965.

That she is indeed a Bearsden girl is clear from the range of photos in her portfolio – the inevitable, and by now familiar, Scottish woodlands (with that car as a prop) and  Fullarton’s sitting room and kitchen – though, unlike most of her other Scottish colleagues, she was never seen wearing directoire knickers. This cannot be because the novelty was becoming stale in the eyes of the reader – their heyday was in 1967 and 1968, when they were seen in every month, though with fewer in Beautiful Britons; Spick featured nearly 40% of all the DK shots in the three main titles.

She was a very pretty girl, said to be a private secretary, fashion model and housewife – but also a keep-fit fan. With her dark colouring and sultry complexion, Joan looks as if she could have some Mediterranean blood mixed with that of her Lowland ancestors. This is entirely possible as Italian ice cream manufacturers were quite common in Scotland at the time. What is certain is that she had the most fabulous legs ever seen in a pair of stockings – slender ankles, shapely calves and ice-skater thighs. And unlike some of her colleagues from the south of England, she was not shy about showing us that she had a delicious pair of boobs to balance things out.

Joan was one of the very few models who wrote (or, more accurately, is credited with writing) the accompanying blurb in one of her appearances – Beautiful Britons No 125 and Me and My Bucket, a prop that features in a couple more of her shoots.

Personal Details  –  37-23-36

Appearances  –  25, debut in BB 121 (first), Span 136, and Spick 145 (all December 1965)

Spick  –  145, 153, 175, 213, 216(bc), 269

Span  –  136, 186, 187, 190, 236

Beautiful Britons  –  121, 125, 137, 153, 168, 180, 193, 197, 216

Spick & Span Extra  –  19, 21, 22, 32, 55