Young women in Bath queued up to appear in the Bath Chronicle’s Thursday Girls slot. Samantha Walker-Sowden found out more in a feature to mark the paper’s 125th anniversary.

For many Bath beauties in the 1960s and ’70s, Thursday became the day to buy a copy of The Bath Chronicle.

The paper used to run a regular feature called Thursday Girls.

And in those ‘politically incorrect’ days, hundreds of women queued up to take part.

Linda Brine was one such lovely who appeared in the paper. She was 19 when she sent in her picture to The Chronicle.

She was then asked to be a Thursday girl and when her picture was published she became a bit of a celebrity.

“I entered one of the local beauty pageants and as a result of that, sent in a picture of myself to the paper. It was great fun to see myself in the paper at the time. I was only 19 or so and got stopped in the street for some time afterwards,” she said.

One Thursday Girl who confused our photographer was Rona Cook, née Williams.

She was spotted at a wedding and was asked to pose for The Chronicle.

But when she arrived for the photo shoot the photographer was a little perplexed. Gone were the fashionable curls Rona had for the wedding, replaced instead by a short crop.

Rona explained: “Wigs and attachable hair-pieces were fashionable, so on the day I turned up he was in for a shock – my curls were on the sideboard at home – and he said: ‘Where are all your lovely curls?'”

Maureen Hill was another young woman singled out for attention – and a rather special T-shirt drew some extra attention.

Maureen’s top had a butterfly logo on it – particularly appropriate as that was the theme of the music festival that year.

Maureen was also used by the then Bath Chronicle fashion editor Liz Kelly to model many of the clothes – including items for Laura Ashley when it first launched. As for Liz Kelly, who has since died, she went on to be editor of British Vogue magazine, before working on Harpers and Queen in America.

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