Toni Townsend

Design For Living

Down in the leafy, bowery woodlands of Hampshire you'll often go neck-over-croppers if you don't know your fences and you're not all that attached to your horse.

Do you hunt, then?

No, do you?

Not on a horse. I say, I saw the most larky bird at Aniseeda's Discotheque last Tuesday.

Yes, and when she found out what an unutterable nit you were she stuck you on the turntable and you went round and round and round, and everyone thought you were top of the pops. Now then, down in the leafy loveliness of Hampshire, where all is just as nature made it, there dwells a lovely maiden called TONI TOWNSEND.

Cor, you talk just like Bonnie Prince Charlie going after a date with Flora. That's our Scottish ancestry. Our modern heroine is Toni, she's an advertising assistant but her real design for living is designing. She's a natural at dress design, makes all her own clothes and looks so good in them she takes our minds right off the landscape.

I daresay, but this larky bird I was telling you about. Took one look at you and screamed the place down. She thought you were something from outer space. Why did she think that? Because you look as if you've just landed and are having trouble with the oxygen.

Beautiful Britons No 154 - September 1968

Britt Hampshire

Down In The Cellar

They sent BRITT HAMPSHIRE down to the cellar to find a bottle of red Cinzano and she was such a long time coming up that they sent a large St. Bernard dog down to look for her and carry her up the stairs again. But Britt had found a quite lovely man in the cellar and was absorbed in a fascinating political conversation with him. And the St. Bernard found a bottle of cognac and settled down to get high.

And that was that.

Beautiful Britons No 144 - November 1967

Marilyn Ward and Nicola Taylor

Someone Forgot

First of all, if you haven't met them before and you're kicking yourself in consequence, these two Bournemouth dollies are brunette NICOLA TAYLOR and blonde MARILYN WARD.

They went down to the beach for a swim. It was the kind of day that called them to the warm waves. Only when they got there someone had forgotten the bikinis. Nicola meant to remember for both of them but forgot, and Marilyn meant to remind Nicola to remember but she forgot too. Never mind, they looked ever so glam in their best nylons and the sunshine was marvellous.

Beautiful Britons No 154 - September 1968

Venus Starr

Can it be True?

Can what be true? Well, we were walking through Kidderminster looking for a carelessly. parked umbrella the other day and although we didn't have any luck with the umbrella, we did spot a girl with just about the most glam name we've ever heard. It pings sweetly on any ear - it's VENUS STARR.

Venus appeared out of a rain shower like the Grecian goddess appeared from the sea- except our Venus was conventionally dressed. The Grecian one wore a topless, bottomless swimsuit, but a lot of them used to go about like that in those enchanting days.

Venus is a secretary aged nineteen, was educated at a well-known college, loves modelling for a hobby, is mad about large vintage cars and tapes up to 37"-24"-37". That's as good as any Grecian Venus.

Spick No 130 - September 1964

Brigitte Kruger

How They Used To Look

Perhaps you've always thought that your grandparents and great-grandparents were much too absorbed with the pressing problem of high stiff collars and tangled horse traffic to spend any time or energy on promoting cheesecake. Perhaps you've always thought that cheesecake and pin-ups represent something you invented, and perhaps you're even a little smug about it.

In our present frame of mind where we're beginning to think it's dead square to kick a ball around, we're inclined to think the Edwardians and Victorians the epitome of establishmentarianism and whatever that means it sounds dead grim.

It's not true. The Edwardians and the Victorians invented the pin-up when they flung their toppers and carnations in uninhibited joy at the Can-Can girls. The difference is that they liked their pin-ups with plenty of frills and we favour the bikini types.

The pin-ups of those days used to look like BRIGITTE KRUGER looks here, complete with furbelows and hats and everything. Jolly good.

Span No 140 - April 1966

Martina Evans

Martina Mia

That's the Latin for Martina belongs to me, which is what some lucky guy will be able to say when MARTINA EVANS decides he's the one to take her to the altar for better or worse. If he's the right kind of guy it can only in his eyes be for the better, as what with her talents for cooking and her photogenic grace, Martina must make life better for any man.

Spick No 186 - May 1969

Renate Dittmann

Don’t Get Shirty

It's no good rushing up and down the stairs and shouting your head off when you find your sister, or your wife has nicked your best shirt and is wearing it at the Festival of Flowers.

Women, especially sisters and wives, don't respond at all these days to men getting noisily shirty. Gone are the times when the little woman or the doting sister flinched and cowered at the mere sound of the brute. Lay a hand on your sister these days and you'll likely end up looking like the well-worn end of a Chinese puzzle. Put the lightest finger on your wife and you could find yourself scarred for life. Someone's been teaching them to fight back.

The boyfriend of RENATE DITTMAN is wise enough to know that whenever Renate borrows any shirt of his it's better for him to laugh it off. "My goodness," gasped Renate, "where's that shirt I was wearing?" “ I laughed it off," says he.

"Oh, clever stuff, hein?" says Renate, and punches him in the eye.

Pam Johnston

Groovy Girl

If you're addicted to Long Johns, you're with it, and right in the groove is PAM JOHNSTON with her latest.

Long Johns went out when the mini skirt went high but came back again when they thought about the maxi. Point is you need something warm in the winter, don't you, and the hot chestnut man isn't always around when you most need him.

Spick No 186 - May 1969

Melanie Cooper

This Is The Life

When she's at work MELANIE COOPER is a telephone operator and if you know a more scintillating hello girl than Melanie, please let the rest of us share the bliss of hearing her golden voice.

Melanie had a day off when these photographs were taken. More than anything else Melanie loves the call of the fresh air. Not surprising in one who is clamped to a switchboard so much. The outdoor environment is the life for her. There she can gambol free and untrammelled through leafy woods.

There she can make the most delightful subject for anyone's camera, and you don't have to like leafy woods yourself. You just have to like Melanie.

How can you fail to?

Petra Germaine

What's Keeping You?

Apart from the fact that PETRA GERMAINE is all tied up with domestic cable and can't join the girl next door for elevenses until she's sorted herself out, the only other knotty problem she's got concerns her return to West Germany.

It's like this, you see. Petra came to London for a short visit last year, just to see what it was all about and whether the Changing of the Guard really was full of redcoats.

It isn't recorded whether Petra was as much impressed with the Guard as the Guard was impressed with Petra, and if every member of the Guard came to a halt on the wrong foot and the front rank cannoned into the Guard Commander, that could merely have been an epoch-making clanger completely divorced from the presence of Petra.

All we know is that Petra is still around and that all her boy friends in West Germany are sending her postcards asking, "What's keeping you?" It isn't the Changing of the Guard, but it could be a handsome Guardsman. Petra is nineteen, by the way, and measures 36"-23"-36".

Mystery Model

Relax No 13 - 1967

Gold Star Publications 1967

Nina Swallow

The End In sight

It had to come, of course.

What did?

The mini to end all other minis. They can go just so high and then it’s the end. When NINA SWALLOW found out just how mini her latest creation was, she couldn't go out in it until her stretch tights were dry. She'd just washed them. She didn't fancy going to the classical concert in her nylons, it would have distracted eyes from the conductor.

Nina is absolutely sold on classical music, and she's a lover of the theatre too, so if you want to keep her absorbed in a lengthy conversation it's no good keeping to subjects like detergents and Derby winners, you won't get past the first five minutes without looking up and finding Nina gone.

Gone where?

Gone to find someone more intelligent.

Spick No 186 - May 1969

Louise Grayson

Life Is What You Make It

Women appear on TV and are heard on radio complaining that it's a man's world. “Why,” they ask, “can't we drive dustcarts, collect garbage, mine coal, man the fishing trawlers, look after lighthouses and be bricklayers? Why must men hog all these lovely jobs, the swine’s?” Dunno. Men are like that, the swine’s.

But LOUISE GRAYSON is a happy enough housewife. Life, to Louise, is what you make it. If you want to make it a life of complaining, that's up to you, but you won’t get much out of it.

“Anyone,” says Louise, “can sit at home and wish herself surf-riding in Honolulu" says Louise,

Honolulu is lovely for surf-riding, of course, but who wants all that water and no green parks?"

Beautiful Britons No 154 - September 1968