Marion Holmes

Marion was a pretty brunette, a shorthand typist in a London insurance company and part-time model from Surbiton in Surrey. She was bursting with vitality and had a sparkling smile. Her hobbies were painting, ice skating, collecting records, and “olde-tyme” dancing – whatever that is (the “oldest-tyme” dancing is, and always has been, a vertical application of a horizontal desire).

She was not particularly well endowed and compensated by wearing one of those bras (in Span Extra 3) that were known in those days as cowboy Bras – round ‘em up and point ‘em out! Although she looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, she also did duo sets with one of the really naughty girls – Harrison Marks’ sultry Rosa Domaille, whose schoolgirl dimples belied her obvious willingness to do better-paying knickers-off and legs-wide-open stuff.

Marion was one of the earliest models appearing in the issues that had a very different flavour from those of the ‘70s. She must be the earliest model to be in the ToCo Top 20 of the more than 4,800 girls to appear over twenty years of publication. It is worthwhile bearing in mind that the seamed stockings and suspender belts you see her wearing are what every woman wore daily in that era; the shots in the magazines of the mid-‘60s to mid-‘70s, after the arrival of tights, are of girls wearing them to satisfy our appetite for nostalgia − and to get our engines revving; they had become fetish items and acquired an air of naughtiness. Which is the very essence of Spick and Span

Personal Details  –   Born 1938   35-23-36

Appearances  –  37, debut 66 No 19 (May 1957)

Spick – 43, 48, 50, 52, 71, 72, 79, 83(bc), 269, X1, X2, X11

Span – 35, 38, 42, 78, 87, 95, X3

Beautiful Britons  –  21(bc), 22, 25, 28, 39, 55, 72, 90, X4(bc), X14

Spick & Span Extra  –  8 (57Autumn)

Spick & Span Annual  –  2, 3

Funfare  –  2(bc), 3

66  –  19, 23, 58