Janine Sykes

Also known as  –  Maxine Millar

Janine was one of the Yorkshire bevy of beauties featured by ToCo. She was born in Leeds in 1936 and made her first appearance in Beautiful Britons No 8 in June 1956 as Janine and was voted The IT Girl of the year by a national newspaper. That doesn’t mean she was a computer wizard but the girl who had more of “it” than any other girl in the country – it being that indefinable quality that turns your head. “What’s so special about her, then?” “Dunno. But whatever it is, she’s got lots of it!”

We are given little information about her. But ToCo tells us she was very sporty and was a former Northern Counties Cross Country champion. In 1958, soon after she started gracing the pages of Spick and Span, she married James Mewson, a diver in the Royal Marines.

Janine did not exactly display the sense of fun that Nicola Taylor and Anne Scott did at flashing their knickers for us, nor the occasional apparent grumpiness of, for example, Jane Paul – who often looked as if she were thinking of photographer Fullarton, “what’s the dirty old bugger going to ask me to do next?”; more of a bewildered gaze of “what the hell am I doing here?”.

Personal Details  –  Born Leeds        38-23-36    5ft 6in (168cm)

Appearances  –  11, debut Beautiful Britons 8 (June 1956)

Spick  –  50

Span  –  31, 39, X1

Beautiful Britons  –  8, 18, 26(bc), 35(bc), 53

Spick & Span Extra  –  7

66  –  25