The story of Page 3, the models and how it came to an end
Page 3 is 50 years old. A national institution or sexist throwback to darker times? David Barnett reveals all there is to know about the girls, the glamour and the grime of this very British phenomenon
In 1986 the teenage Tracy Kirby was sitting on the Tube when she noticed a man looking at her. Then he looked down at the newspaper he was reading, and back at Tracy. Then he asked her if she’d autograph his copy of the Sun in which Tracy had – unbeknown to her until that point – made her debut as a Page 3 model.
“I was so embarrassed. It was just awful,” laughs Tracy from her home in Essex. “I did sign it in the end, but I put my hand over my boobs while I did it. It was a mixture of being horrified and thinking, oh God, I’ve made it into the Sun.”
Some months earlier, 18-year-old Tracy’s boyfriend had suggested to her she should try modelling, to which she replied, “Don’t be ridiculous!” But he surprised her with a week-long modelling course as a Christmas present.
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