Carmen Dene on the cover of Span, Issue 101,
(Town and Country Publications, Jan, 1963)
Although Miss Dene, born in Liverpool, 1944, to a Spanish mother, had minor roles in several major films in the 1960s, including Goldfinger (1964), Genghis Khan (1965), and Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) - often being cast for her Mediterranean good looks - she is perhaps most fondly remembered by those in the know as a regular model in the trio of pin-up magazines published by Town and Country during the 1950s, '60s and early-to-mid '70s - Spick, Span and Beautiful Britons.
This is not, unfortunately, the time or place to outline a full history of these publications, but readers who are interested in such are encouraged to visit the invaluable site Vintage Fetish Magazines, by clicking here. I would, however, like to put on record my love for these magazines and the numerous models featured therein; girl-next-door types, posing in their underwear in the somehow reassuring (if slightly shabby and sexless) suburban settings of Post-War Britain, thus allowing those with no interest in glimpsing stocking tops and directoire knickers, to admire the furniture and upholstery of the times, or simply stare at the wallpaper.
Ultimately, if given the choice between today's explicit, charmless, full-colour pornography and this lost black and white world of erotica and home decor, full of girls who haven't been surgically or digitally enhanced and interiors that haven't been designed with so much coolness and good taste that all the joy has been drained from them, then I know which I'd choose.
As one gets older, it seems, one becomes increasingly nostalgic for - and seduced by - naivety and queer signs of life. One wants a world in which it is still possible to dream and to play and there's honey for everyone ...
