Mensday: Pinning down pin-ups

1960s, david warner, Honey Magazine, Mensday, micky dolenz, oliver reed, steve marriott, steve mcqueen, terence stamp, the monkees, the small faces

If you have already looked through the pictures in this feature, picked out your idol, or dwelt lovingly on the reckonable men there, THEN . . . it‘s very likely you‘re immature. 

Thats the psychiatrists opinion, anyway. They state the facts, saying that most girls outgrow their attachments to film or pop stars when they become mature, and that these attachments are safety-valves for pent-up emotions.

This is stating facts without criticising. But it‘s worth taking a closer, critical look at just what these attachments can do to one’s life. Basically, we feel, it‘s fun to sigh or scream over a pop star, and harmless to take a fancy to a film star. But a lot of girls don’t leave it at that. 

Very soon, the pinning-up and pining becomes an obsession with them. They find it increasingly hard to construct real life doings, because they’re in a glorious never-never world of mental communication with an unattainable, transcendental man. This doesn‘t call for any effort on their part, whereas carving out a real life, and real relationships, does. So they take the soft option. Though, if they stopped to think about it, they’d see which turns up the thumping great bonuses in terms of personality-enrichment, and which keeps one simmering away in a state of negative-thinking infantilism.

So, beware. lf you spend any more than the occasional minute thinking about lover-boy, not only may you be tending dangerously towards obsession, but also you‘re wasting a lot of time, which you might spend making life interesting in reality, instead of only in imagination. ln just one half-hour of idle dreaming, you could be doing, learning, enjoying things, even if they‘re as un-strenuous as Capable-Kating a dress, or experimenting with Meringues Chantilly. 

This doesn’t mean we suggest you all take vows never to go near a discothéque or cinema again. Just that you get the pin-up scene in proportion. Pop records and films are meant as an adjunct to life. If you start thinking of them as life itself, then you are, in effect, drugging yourself, distorting reality.

But if you can realise all this and say: okay, but my thinking David Warner is fabulous only adds another interest to an already interest-packed life, then that’s fine. Go ahead. Ahead to our Pick of the Pin-Ups.

Honey Magazine, July 1967

I’m sorry, what were you saying unnamed Honey staff writer? I was too distracted by Terence Stamp’s eyes and Oliver Reed’s exquisitely sexy scars to pay much attention to you…

Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smiles

psychedelia, ronnie lane, sixties, the small faces

There are a few people for whom I would dearly love to go back in time, purely to engulf them in the biggest hug of their life. Ossie Clark is one. Barry Evans is another. If I didn’t think he’d have me arrested for harassment, I’d go and find Richard O’Sullivan (Man About The House) and do it right now.

High up on my list is Ronnie Lane. Definitely my favourite Face, both Small and otherwise, and an absolute genius. He had it pretty rough in his later years, and he was just so gorgeous and fabulous, and all in all…very huggable.









I’ve been feeling a bit down lately, for various reasons, and a little under the weather too. But I happened to fling Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake on today, and it cheered me up good and proper. I love the footage of them performing the album as well, and Happy Days Toy Town is just such a brilliantly uplifting song. Both lyrics and performance. So here it is, and I hope it cheers up anyone else who might be feeling gloomy out there…

Life is just a bowl of All-Bran
You wake up every morning and it’s there
So live as only you can
It’s all about enjoy it ‘cos ever since you saw it
There aint no one can take it away.

So life is just a bowl of All-Bran – very true!
What you say has made it very clear
To be sure I’ll live as best as I can
But how can I remember to keep it all together
When half the moon is taken away?

Well, I’ve got the very thing
If you can laugh and sing
Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smiles
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
When you’re untogether and feeling out of tune
Sing this special song with me, don’t worry ’bout the moon
Looks after itself

Steve: Can I have a go?
Ron: Yes
Steve: Yeah?
Ron: Sing now:

Give me those happy days toytown newspaper smile
Clap twice, lean back, twist for a while
Well now you’ve got the hang of it
There’s nothing you can’t do with it
If you’re very tuned to it you can’t go wrong.