Barbara Archer

Hello Again

And a big hallo it is for BARBARA ARCHER, the girl we're always pleased to see again and again. On this occasion Babs was showing us how she looked on her Spanish holiday, and we said, yes, my word, we like you in those black nylons, Babs. To which Babs replied, with a rather whimsical look in her eyes, that it was the hat, man, the hat. And we said good grief, just the hat?

"Whit,” said Barbara crisply, "are you implying?" (Barbara is a Fleet Street secretary and uses phrases like that).

We said we thought she meant she went around Spain in just the hat. and Babs said not only was that quite absurd but she could prove it by her suntan, which wasn’t all over.

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 10

Vicki Campbell and Janet Neill

Skirts Are Shorter!

How high can a hemline soar? VICKI CAMPBELL and JANET NEILL give us a preview of their reply to the Parisian designers. Any poll you care to take will show 99% in favour of the Campbell-Neill line.

The 1% ! That’ll be our office boy—he thinks Vicki and Janet could have lopped off another couple of inches. That boy’s too old for his years.

Aleisha Phillips

Oriental Look

The look is oriental, and you might expect the name to be, too. But it's not Little - Flower - That Flutters - In - The - Wind or Blossom - With - The - Cherry - Red - Petals it's ALEISHA PHILLIPS. The Christian name may have an almond flavour to it but don’t be fooled - Aleisha is a Beautiful Briton. Nevertheless, drape her in a kimono, place her unobtrusively in a Tokyo bus queue, and the nearest the Nips will get to classing her as a foreigner will be Shanghai. Is it the delicate slant to those beautiful brown eyes?

No, but listen. Aleisha’s never been to Tokyo or to Shanghai. We don’t think she’s even been in a bus queue.

She rides in taxis and she’s strictly a no chop-suey type. That alluring, exotic Eastern look just developed along with her slim and shapely legs, and any mysterious Oriental characteristics she’s acquired are really quite Occidental.

Now fashion modelling in London, Aleisha shows that black lingerie tailored around her trim 35 - 25 - 35 figure looks good from all angles, and she models it with the sweet assurance of a Tokyo counterpart who's left her kimono on the hook.

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 8

Lavinia Grant

Lavinia Drops In

IT was a rainy day wet, too, as so often happens in this country and the daffodils hadn't yet started to bloom, and the man from the collecting office had already been round twice to ask for the rent. Then luscious-looking LAVINIA GRANT dropped in - actually, it was only to get out of the rain—and we said why not come into the parlour. So, she did and the next thing she knew there was a camera keeping her company at very close range.

Well, it's not often someone as bright as Lavinia drops in on a rainy day. so why not - we said - record the fact? So, we did

This might mean that Lavinia has met too many sailors or not enough airmen. Anyway, she slings her hammock in Kensington now and is shipshape at 37 - 22 - 38.

Tessa King

Farm Favourite

Down on her farm in Sussex, TESSA KING is a great favourite - and not just because she’s kind to the animals. Tessa is a farmer's wife and just about as cute as they come.

It was a little too wet and muddy on this occasion to show you Tessa shepherding the gentle cows through the gate and across the road, but we're able at least to show you she's definitely one of the most photogenic farmers’ wives south of the Highlands.

Up in the morning early is Tessa, and if you thought a farmer's wife dressed herself in the rural equivalent of a boiler suit to face the day's chores, then here’s the exception which proves you shouldn't generalise.

This is the age of glamour - and the age that takes in farm favourites like Tessa. That side look out of the window was not made to project charm alone - a couple of hen turkeys had skipped away from the main throng (is throng of turkeys strictly correct?) to wing a lift on the tractor. Turkeys on tractors being taboo, Tessa was weighing up the necessity of rushing out to rescue them before they fell under the wheels. But not in this outfit !

Patricia McGregor

How Delightful

It would indeed be delightful to have a maid-of-all-work like PATRICIA McGREGOR around the house. But unfortunately, Pat’s not registered with any domestic agency. The chores she does are strictly for her own benefit career wise she’s a fashion model and drama teacher. No, we can't tell you where she teaches drama, and anyway, Horace, we can’t see you as Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. With that glint in your eye and that smirk on your face, you’re not mournful enough.

Washing-up sans skirt is to save the skirt getting splashed by detergents, and, of course, to prove that fashion models have very glamorous legs.

Pat, by the way, is a pukka fashion model, and this is the first time she’s posed for pin-up shots. She was quite confident she would do us justice—with a smile like that and trim limbs like these, this was a certainty.

What she didn’t realise was that so many pin-up girls who put their feet up for temporary relaxation inevitably end up flat on their backs.

“This is a new one on me,” said Pat, “and I can’t say anything except the bump hurt me a lot more than it hurt you. How many times do I have to do this for pin-up art?”

And while she made herself a cup of tea to soothe her shattered nerves we explained it was a pure accident.

“Willingly,” said Pat, “I’d give you the benefit of the doubt on that if I hadn’t seen you push me. Pardon me if I pick a softer seat than before but I’m a little tender.”

We laughed that one off by saying that a little tender is just as much behind as a big tender, especially on British railways.

“You can say that again,” said Pat, and curling up on the armchair she refused to budge until we’d gone. And she stayed unbudged so charmingly we had no option but to fold up our tents and depart like the wise men of old.

Jennifer Mitchell

Mind My Bike

THAT’S what the photographer asked JENNIFER MITCHELL on a recent modelling session. Jennie didn't need asking twice she'd been longing to try the machine out for size ever since he drove up. So, she told him to run along and attend to his flash bulbs, or light meter, or whatever it was needing attention she'd stay guard over the bike.

As soon as he was out of sight, Jennie was on the saddle. On the handlebars, too which is original if not comfortable.

A peek to ensure that the photographer was still occupied elsewhere, and Jennie was off for a trial spin. Alas, the bike will never be the same again neither, we think, will the photographer. Jennie, we’re glad to report, remains unalterably delightful.

Helen Williams

Chelsea Model

That’s the place to be. Where it’s all happening. Chelsea. Full of the most interesting people and lovely walks by the river. Old pubs and frothy beer. Girls. Boys. Bicycles. Tall and kindly policemen. Hat shops. Colleges. Studios. Painters and writers. Models.

The nicest, the loveliest, the shapeliest live in Chelsea. There’s one we saw looking in the shop window. HELEN WILLIAMS. A real pet, a dream boat, a lover of poetry, of Byron, Shelley and Keats. Shame about Keats. Meander with us down tree-lined Cheyne Walk and take your mind off all that traffic at Piccadilly Circus. Helen adores Cheyne Walk. She’d like to live there. She will if she can win fifty thousand on a horse.

Anne Leyton

Let's Iron It Out

Pretty ANNE LEYTON “irons it out”

Crease - troubles - can usually be ironed out with a little patience and the right kind of approach. Naturally ANNE LEYTON has both.

She also has big brown eyes and a gorgeous figure, but that’s by way of being incidental in relation to the approach. And the item with the creases is a skirt.

In SPICK, such a picture is always cute. And Anne, an office girl, is the governing factor of this one.

Ben's Books

Strip Lingerie No 13

Penny Price

What Price Penny ?

The answer isn’t peanuts. It’s more a matter of corn if you consider the title alone. The fact is, this sweet young thing’s name is PENNY PRICE, and we thought there was a gag in that somewhere. But corn and gags apart, Penny is going places in show biz.

To start with, the girl has a background. She used to work in a circus, starting off by flying around on a trapeze. A succession of falls helped her to develop the art of bouncing, and she does it better than a Yo-Yo.

Incidentally, Penny left the circus because they put her into the strong man’s act. The strong man wanted to fire her from a cannon and catch her before she landed. But Penny, a slim young lady at 36"- 22"- 34", thought she might slip through his fingers. Well, there are easier ways of saving money to etcetera, etcetera.

Marion McGregor

Honey Blonde

Gorgeous is the colour of MARION McGREGOR'S hair, like golden honey—and the eyes, of course, must be a beautiful dark blue. Marion, like so many of our Scottish models, is beautiful and bonny. She works in an office, providing the conventional coldness of commerce with a brightness infectious enough to make the working week seem a whole lot shorter. Marion, of course, loves dancing, and thinks men are wonderful. Well, Professor Higgins says in the musical, “on the whole we are a marvellous sex”—or words to that effect. (Bighead).

This was Marion’s first time before the camera, and she models modern lingerie with a smile as bright as her personality. Her vitalistics amount to 36"-23"-37".

Vitalistics like those add up to a cute figure and if the frequent wolf whistle echoes round the office when the travellers come in, they really are no more than you’d expect, are they not? Marion, one of our New Year discoveries, will be seen again—we hope.

Margaretha Schneider

You're Joking

There was this dishy German-born MARG ARETHA SCHNEIDER trying not to let the aristocratic boutique madam sell her this last word in the lingerie of the mad twenties. There was Margaretha saying faintly, “You’re joking, of course.”

But it was no joke. It was a high-pressure sale.

Never mind. Laugh it off'.