[Greenman]

I do find it very annoying and puzzling that the self same newspapers that build up and promote their girls or indeed others, find the need to slag them off when there is even a whiff of scandal-proved or otherwise. These girls promote not only the paper but the reputation(such as they are) of the papers too. The Page 3 ideal was explained several times as the sort of 'girl next door type' mixed with the wholesomeness of a girl that wanted to better themselves, albeit taking off their clothes. It is hard to believe that a topless girl would so much as warrant a raised eyebrow these days, yet the page 3 girl came in for so much stick, mostly from feminists who found it degrading-to themselves yes, but ask ANY page 3 girl if she felt degraded and the answer would be no. It was all the jet-set lifestyle and if you were lucky appearances in films and television.

It seems odd now, what with the present climate and how the Internet has created a more predatory menace, but years ago the sight of a page 3 girl topless on page 3 or a celebrity(and not the sort of reality garbage you get these days where any tomasina, davina or harriet can become famous for going topless on your tv) taking their tops off was seen as almost bringing Britain into disrepute. We finally woke up and accepted this as the norm. Other countries didn't bat an eyelid if a girl walked down the street or on a beach topless but Britain in the early 80s was a bleak, desolate place, with a hated Government and very little prospects of jobs or a future in some cities. The Page 3 girl brightened up that outlook somewhat.

What really annoyed me though was the so-called scandals. If a page 3 girl so much as did more than pose prettily on a page or appear on a panel in a game show(Blankety Blank, Celebrity Squares etc had Linda Lusardi, Samantha Fox and Maria Whittaker for instance) the papers would jump on it in banner headlines. Jilly Johnson has publically said that it was around in her days modelling but with a jet-set lifestyle came the pitfalls of drink, drugs & sex, two of the worst to get caught up with and some girls did (I won't name others because I have a lot of respect for the page 3 girls-as some of you may have seen) indeed some have been members here. Nowadays, the page 3 ethos has been hijacked by sleazier newspapers like the Sport who expect their models to drop their knickers and sooner or later get into porn(soft or hard) and I think the phrase 'page 3 girl' has now become more of a hackneyed cliché(outdated) The best thing to do is never believe anything you read in the papers-Twitter, Facebook or the model's own website(should she have one) is probably the best place to find the truth straight from the model's mouth herself.