Vicki Campbell

Vicki was another of the very early ToCo girls – and another model from Ayrshire in Scotland, but as her last appearance was in 1960 she can’t have been on the books of photographer Fullarton. She arrived on the scene at the time when the titles had got past the very innocent days of appealing to male and female readers alike and started publishing the photos that made them so famous and such collectors’ items today – the girl next door accidentally on purpose showing you her stocking tops, suspenders and knickers. And Vicki was brilliant at it – both in solo sequences and duo shoots with the delicious and very enthusiastic Janet Neill.

It is interesting to note that Vicki changes appearance so markedly from mag to mag that you have to look twice to believe it is the same girl. This was also the time when the text accompanying the photos was a ridiculous narrative attempting to make a story of what we are looking at, and provided little or no information about the model portrayed.

A word of explanation is called for about an archetypical sequence in Beautiful Britons No 25, Vicki’s ToCo debut, involving her in a shoot with a car, in the boot and out of it, lifting her very fifties dress to show us her fantastic legs encased in black, Cuban-heeled, fully-fashioned stockings. In one of the shots, she is standing with a sign – a white square with a large letter L in it. In the UK, anyone can teach anyone to drive before that person takes the driving test. The only conditions are that the instructor must hold a full driving licence, that the student must be at least 17 and have a provisional licence, and that the car must display an L plate – to warn other drivers that anything may happen. Hence the title of the sequence, Lovely Learner. The shoot was extended with a different sequence in exactly the same situation and in the same clothes in the sister magazine Span No 39 of the same month, November 1957 – so Vicki was one of the few girls to be make her debut in two magazines in the same month. But as Beautiful Britons was published on the 17th of the preceding month (in this case 17 October) and Span on the 6th of the current month (6 November), her debut is recorded as being the Beautiful Britons edition. But it looks like being a lovely day, so the shoot probably took place some months before.

Vicki was one of the girls who epitomised the Spick and Span brand, so it is mystifying that she appeared in only 12 magazines. Until you read in Spick 80 of July 1960 that she was about to leave for pastures new in Canada. Wonder what happened to her.

Personal Details  –  Born 1939

Appearances  –  12, debut BB No 25 (November 1957)

Spick  –  49, 52, 54, 56, 80

Span  –  39, 42

Beautiful Britons  –  25, 30, X8, X9, X10