I was reminded over the weekend that Easter Sunday, 31st March, marked Sadie Milligan's 86th birthday. I can confirm that she is well and thriving in Australia. It was 60 years ago that she left Ardrossan for a new life down under.
Let's hope it was all that she had hoped for and more. Let's enjoy a few pictures of the very lovely Sadie Milligan, who was about 19 to 20 years old when most of these pictures were taken.
Little girls are the enchanting subject of the song.
When SADIE MILLIGAN was a little girl, she was a terror. Well, that's what all the other little girls said, but as for the little boys, ah, that's different. They shared their apples with her, and Billy always gave her half his jelly babies.
Sadie looked ever so cute reading her children's book in front of her slate.
But you're a big girl now, Sadie. I know I am (said Sadie) but I still like to wear my old-fashioned knickers. They remind me of Santa Claus in his red flannel nightgown.
If you can see the connection, we can't.
It must be something to do with having a warm, cosy childhood when you're a little girl.
Beautiful Britons No 192 - November 1971
This all starts with a picture of Janet Neill, used or taken for Pin-Up No 4 (July/August 1956). Many of the models who appeared in Pin-Up were also familiar faces in ToCo publications, and Janet Neill was no exception to this. The pictures used in Pin-Up frequently had the photographer details credited alongside the model’s name. In Pin-Up No 4, Janet is seen on pages 7, 8, and 9 and the photographer is credited as Jack W Boyd.
A search on Jack W Boyd found that in the late 1950s he owned the photographer’s shop in Saltcoats. Dockhead Street, Saltcoats, showing Jack W Boyd's photographer's shop at number 41. Mr Boyd was the tenant of the property from around 1957.
Further investigations led to the Threetowners website and their forum. A quick search on Janet Neill and Sadie Milligan quickly produced some interesting results; both had emigrated to Australia, with Sadie (Sarah) Milligan now living in Melbourne and being an active forum member.
Sadie (Sarah) Milligan - Far Right
Sarah Milligan, far right, taken in 1974. By my calculations that would make her 35 years old in this picture. ToCo were still publishing pictures of her from old sets in 1971.
Another picture shows the Stevenston Motor Cycle Club outing, circa 1956. Crouched down in the front row next to each other are Janet Neill and Sadie Milligan, so they obviously knew each other then. Sarah (Sadie) identified the people in the photo.
Another search of the forum for Fullarton found this request for family history information from a John Fullarton. Threetowners Forum
There are two key paragraphs – Posted below.
I have been working on my family tree for some four years and while I have many of the main branches back to 1690`s, I have data back to 1550 which I am trying to confirm, before entering into my family tree. I have over 1000 relatives on my database. So perhaps I can be of help to someone out there and you can help me either confirm or add to my family tree. I also have a large collection of school and local photographs from 1880 to 1960. In the 1950`s. I was a freelance photographer (as a hobby) and had pictures printed in both National and the Local paper, including the ICI paper and magazine.
My name is John Fullarton ( known in Scotland as Ian Fullarton). My family comprise of names such as, Sutherland, Boyd, Breckenridge, Dunlop, McCleland, McGrath, Orr, plus many more On my mothers side there are Brown, McMurray, Black, Ballantyne, McCulley, etc, all from Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston. I was born in Killwinning and lived in Stevenston until 1960. I attended Stevenston Higher Grade School till early 1950`s (I have a photograph of the Class of 1952), I then went to Ardrossan Academy until 1954. I served an Engineering Apprenticeship at ICI, Nobel Division, Ardeer from 1954 to 1959 finishing in the Power Station. I was in the Scouts (11th Ayrshire) at Stevenston, finishing up as Scoutmaster for a number of years, in the late 1950`s.
So, we have a freelance photographer named John Fullarton who worked at the power station at the explosive factory. As one of the surnames he was interested in was Boyd, he is almost certainly related to Jack W Boyd.
Armed with the vital information that he was born in Kilwinning, I did a search of Scotland’s People for the index entry for a John Fullarton born in Kilwinning in the 1930s. There was only one!
FULLARTON JOHN BOYD ORR M 1937 599/ 537 Kilwinning
So, if he only used the first two initials, he becomes J B Fullarton. Not using all your initials is not uncommon - if you have more than two you would possibly only use the first two.
A final surprise - a search on John Boyd Orr Fullarton found this obituary from 2019 in the Isle of Thanet News.
So, this possibly could be the elusive J B Fullarton. I'm curious as to when he stopped being a glamour photographer; was it when he got married in 1964 or did being a civil servant make continuing as a glamour photographer difficult. What we do know is that his involvement with ToCo came to an end around this time and it has been suggested that he may have died or just moved on to another chapter of his life.
We might never know the truth, but this is definitely a real possibility, and it certainly is great to hear a little more about Sadie Milligan and Janet Neill.
Many thanks to Robert for researching all this and making it available to me.
Janet Neill was born in 1937 in Kilwinning, just a couple of miles northeast of Saltcoats. She married George Fleming on 30th March 1959 at Barony Church in Ardrossan, which was recently sold and is now being redeveloped. At the time of her marriage to George, Janet was living at 4 Galloway Place - a small, terraced house not far from the sea front in Saltcoats - and was working as a Dental Nurse. What’s interesting to note on her marriage certificate is that Sadie Milligan is one of her witnesses.
Sadie (Sarah) Milligan was born in 1938 in Ardrossan. She married Patrick McAteer on 4th August 1962, and was married at the same church as Janet in Ardrossan. At the time of her marriage, she was living at 3 Caledonia Road Ardrossan - though it looks to me like the original house is now gone. Her profession is shown as an Explosives Process Worker; there was a large explosive factory in Ardeer just south of Saltcoats.
I often wonder, as I put things together and look at the local area, how they met and became friends. Janet was on the scene much earlier than Sadie, first appearing in May 1956. Sadie’s first pictures were not seen until June 1958, some 2 years later. Sadie, of course, was roughly 2 years younger than Janet, but both girls would have been about 19 or 20 years old for their first photo shoots. It certainly does make you think who else might have worked at the Explosives Factory, as it was such a large local employer. Julie Scott appeared in a couple of two-girl sets with Sadie, so perhaps she worked at the Explosives Factory as well.
You can just image the talk that went on during breaks about showing your stockings and knickers to a local photographer for some extra cash! I wonder if they are both still with us; Janet would be about 83 now and just full of great stories to tell us all.
The pictures of Janet are taken from Span No 54 February 1959 - just a month before she was married; what a lucky man George Fleming was!
The pictures of Sadie are from Spick No 105 and Beautiful Britons No 82, both published in August 1962 - the same month that Sadie was married. Oddly, both sets are of her in Directoire Knickers and in magazines published in the summer; not sure what that was saying to Patrick, her new husband!
Both girls though went on to appear in ToCo publications after they were married, so it was presumably something that their husbands approved of.
From Wikipedia
The Ardeer peninsula was the site of a massive dynamite manufacturing plant built by Alfred Bernhard Nobel. Having scoured the country for a remote location to establish his explosive factory, Nobel finally acquired 100 acres from the Earl of Eglinton, and established the British Dynamite Factory in 1871, and went on to create what was described then as the largest explosives factory in the world. The factory had its own jetty on the River Garnock in Irvine Harbour serving ships disposing of time expired explosives or importing materials for the works.
At its peak, the site employed almost 13,000 workers in a fairly remote location and had its own railway station. The station was used solely for workers and those special visitors with business in the ICI plant, and was never a regular passenger stop. Until the mid-1960s, there were two trains per day to transport workers. Although the line no longer exists, the abandoned platform remains, hidden beneath dense undergrowth.
Many thanks to David for researching this.
I recently received this message from Sprocketman. What do you all think?
Message: I was recently looking through some old mags. I seem to remember last year(?) while discussing JBF that someone wondered if he had only worked for ToCo. So, I was perusing a copy of Strip Lingerie No 43 and I spotted a shot of a young lady starting to disrobe in front of a massive fireplace complete with tiled arch. Looks familiar to me, as does the jazzy wallpaper on the chimney breast wall. The clincher for me was the appearance stage left of the arm of a chair in a familiar check pattern. I’ve lost count of the number of young ladies we’ve seen in front of or on that suite, let’s just mention Julie Scott, Margo Hamilton, Rita Lees and Sadie Milligan to name but a few. There is another shot later in the mag where the chair is more evident and the model more visible, but I still can’t recognise her. I suppose with quite a stretch of imagination she could be Sadie Milligan, but I remain to be convinced.
Any further input from anyone?
Sprocketman.
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.
Getting down — or should it be getting up? — to a spot of do-it-yourself decorating is bright and bonny SADIE MILLIGAN. And Sadie believes in the outfit being suitable to the occasion.
That’s why for stripping the walls to the bare foundations Sadie strips to the bare necessities. But why is it that the phone always rings at the most inconvenient moment!
That was the landlord on the line. He wanted to know how the decorating was progressing. Sadie told him it was progressing in a series of stripes and polka dots. That left him feeling bewitched, bewildered—and rather worried!
Sadie’s a 19 year old Scot with vitalistics of 34"-24"-36".
