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Showing posts with the label Historical

Join the Dots 4

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From Whispers 4 It was Mr Ashford who had sent her there, Pam knew that. Well actually it was her mother but it would have been Mr Ashford telling her mother to do it. In fact she had heard him through the half-open kitchen door. ‘What that girl needs, Mrs Stelling, is a touch of discipline, otherwise you don’t know where she’ll finish up.’ Pam’s mother had said apologetically, ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Ashford.’ What she was sorry about and what Mr Ashford was annoyed about was that Pam didn’t want to go and work in his house. She had left school and started training as a typist but Mr Ashford wanted her to go round to his place part-time. Mr Ashford was very keen on pretty girls of about Pam’s age which was 16. Two of her friends did part-time work at Cranley Hall, where Mr Ashford lived, and they had told Pam what he was like and the sort of thing he liked to do to you. So Pam said she wasn’t going. The trouble was that her d...

Join the Dots

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From Uniform Girls 19, following on from  Bringing it to Life . By the Wednesday of Christina’s week with Sir Richard, the pretence that she is there to assimilate the feel of her part as a Victorian maid has worn very thin, although it is still maintained superficially so as to provide each of them with a face-saving front behind which to hide. Without it, Sir Richard would be obliged to appear undisguised in the role of villainous lecher, and Christina as the star-struck hopeful that she is, ready to sacrifice all for her art — or if not for that, then for the promise of fame and fortune. Fortunately she has not made the mistake of demanding of Sir Richard, ‘What  do  you think I  am !’; Sir Richard would doubtless have been unable to resist the cliched riposte, ‘We have established what you  are , Madam; now we are merely haggling over your price.’ As it is, however, the maid still pretends that she...

Bringing it to Life

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From Uniform Girls 19 with Wendy Collings Christina was over the moon. At long last, the big break had come. After dancing on decrepit stages in dubious old working men’s clubs, she was virtually dancing on air as she told her friends about the audition. ‘I’ve got it!’ She jumped up and down, waving the letter of confirmation. ‘A two-hour pilot and then the series; and it could run and run.’ She ran up to her room, and rang through to the production company’s office. ‘Yes. Christina Jones, here. Yes. Just to say I’ll be there, tomorrow at noon.’ Battlestar Vision was one of several up and coming small production houses providing television programmes to independent television stations through Europe: and their young Managing Director, Chris Thorne, was justifiably pleased with his company’s latest coup. A brand-new British-based soap opera, sold to one of the biggest cable-networks in Europe. The series would start with a major ...

1966 and all that!

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Story with some nice Alan Bell illustrations, from Roué 23 It was 1966 — that halcyon period when mini-skirts had come in, and stockings and suspenders had not yet gone out. Dedicated observers were treated to the sight of more white thighs and stocking-tops than they were ever to see again. Just such a dedicated observer was Mr George Jones, draper and pillar of the community in his small home town. Mr Jones was sitting, as usual when the shop wasn’t busy, in his office-cum-storeroom at the back. When not serving he always had plenty of accounting and bookwork to keep up, and was happy to leave his young assistant, Carol Summers, to look after the trickle of customers. Carol had entered the storeroom to look for a type of cloth required by a woman who had just come in. She asked Mr Jones where the particular cloth was kept. ‘It’s up there, Carol. You’ll need the steps,’ he told her, indicating the row of shelves immediate...