Body Images

It doesn't matter what our body shape is like, as long as we like ourselves.

The 'Elephant Man', saved from being a circus freak by scientists, was proud of the one arm which was free from his illness, and insisted that it be shown in all photographs.

And even if any of our physical characteristics seem to be inadequate to us, most of us do not suffer as much as the Elephant Man did.

Codger, a former friend, remembered as a one time Golden Youth, is very irritated by the world these days, particularly after a few drinks.

Last time I saw him he yelled at me about the Sixties, saying that I'd looked as good as Twiggy when I was young and why didn't I become successful in the way that Twiggy has done? An 'ugly duckling' as a child, the swan phase was unnerving when I was placed somewhere between Catherine Deneuve and Garbo!

OK, after several people suggested it, I tried. I saved up and went to modeling school. I was taught to apply false eyelashes and advised to try falsies. An older woman attended. It turned out that she was a Madame, hell bound for recruitment.

As to our modelling success rate, one very nice short gal with blunt heavy features and a stumping walk, gained the highest marks for the course. She came from one of Adelaide's wealthy families. Her old fashioned bouffant would appear in newspaper fashion shots for a few months.

I don't know, people in those days compared my looks to various people and so on, but I guess I tried too late and I was in the wrong place. Besides I just couldn't relate to the scenes around that modeling school.

Besides, Adelaide had apparently, even in the early seventies, not then noticed than slender framed gals with straight hair had been doing pretty well over seas for some time.

Twiggy? Well I can tell you quite a lot about her since I obtained her autobiograhy lately.

It was her fifty ninth birthday on September 19th and a local rag which features a 'birthdays column', stated that she was.. 'a well known model from the sixties who never succeeded as an actor because of her cockney accent'.

This is factually wrong and I note this because of the very different lives both Twiggy and I had even if we were born in the same year.

Twiggy came from a stable family and she learned to read music at school. She was a good dressmaker and wanted to work in fashion design. She was sewing fast enough to supply many local fashion shops with her designs in her mid teens. The suggestion that she try modelling came as a complete surprise. (Even in those days, five foot six and a half inches, (You work out the metrics), was considered to be too short.

She didn't want to cut her hair, but Vidal Sasson was a good choice. She'd barely made the papers when she was declared The Face Of The Year.

The clown-like caterpillar bottom lashes were her invention and, apart from the surreal make up for David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album, she always did her own make up.

She wasn't a cockney at all, she was brought up well away from the sounds of the Bow Bells in Neasdon. Her accent was London, although as her father became deaf, she increased her volume until she was once described as sounding like a 'demented parrot'.

Ken Russell spotted her early in the piece and decided that she had enough presence for him to feature her in a movie. The Boyfriend showed that she could not only act, she could also dance. Eventually she performed tap dance on Broadway for three years, attracting in her audience such awesome luminaries as Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright.

She acted in Pantomine and also appeared in several plays. The Boyfriend wasn't her only film. She could be cockney if required and she adapted to accents because of her musicality. She's released several albums, (one which features Carly Simon as back up). Apart from that, she's also worked as a film producer and... so it goes.

Presently, she's appearing on our television screens in America's Top Model and is surviving very well in that particular shark pit.

Her face is softer and her figure is fuller, but she's still sane sweet gifted Twiggy.

Comparisons? I could sew, but not fast enough to sell clothes to shops. Noone we knew did that sort of thing back then.

My family was a disaster zone. True, I was sixteen when an older woman asked my mother if she could take me to Adelaide and coach me for modelling but my mother said no because she believed I should be a teacher.

I didn't want to be a teacher after I wasn't allowed to do Art at school (too useless) but I did eventually study drama, which I loved.

By the time I was twenty, I had liabilities such as Asperger's Syndrome and a fast encroaching Nervous Breakdown.

Above all, I hate other people messing with my hair and my face and my looks and if I don't get time to study and work at my writing, then I am uneasy and even clumsier than usual. I'm now casually designing garments and collecting fabrics and maybe I'll sell some to friends if I'm lucky. I've modelled for artists and for various friends who design and sew, but I never hit the serious prfessional scene.

I don't tap dance. Indeed, even my walking is difficult on certain days and in recent times.

I love clothes, but don't dress up very often. (This is admittedly boring, but Oh Well).

I love acting and anyone who wants to try me in a part may do so.

I've never been in a situation where I'd be likely to meet Noel Coward, Fred Astaire, Paul McCartney or even Fran Drescher.

On the other hand, people still put Twiggy down even if she's still recognised all over the world. They put me down because not only am I not recognised all over the world, but I wouldn't care to be!

I prefer Bob Dylan to Carly Simon.

Apart from all those differences and one or two vaguely similar inclinations, I'm no Twiggy at all and neither could I ever have been.

Bless her all the same, and I must say that if a girl or woman is naturally slender, then they should be inspired by Twiggy.