I had just returned from college and was so broke it hurt. I hadn't a penny left from my allowance, but that was so tiny. I was always the poorest girl in my class - my parents did as much as they could, but simply didn't have enough to keep themselves, let alone subsidise me.
My mum went back to work just to help me. She couldn't get a job in her speciality so worked evenings serving at tables in a rather cheap and nasty restaurant, getting her bum groped by strange men. So I really shouldn't complain. There aren't many mums who would put up with that, so that they could educate their only daughter.
I was the only girl in a family of six; all my siblings were boys, well, men to more accurate. I was the youngest. Mum always said I was a second honeymoon mistake. But she loved me so much, and my dad thought the sun actually shone from my backside. He wanted a girl so much that he called me his princess.
To get to the story I want to tell you about; I was invited by one of the girls I was friends with at college, to her eighteenth birthday. She was the best looking and wealthiest girl in the whole year. I so wanted to go but didn't have anything to wear to such a posh party that I knew she would have.
I couldn't ask my mum to pay for pretty party clothes out of the paltry wage she earned, besides she wanted that to stop now I had graduated. The only alternative was to find a job, and quickly. I had less than a month to find the cash to buy something nice enough for the party.
We lived in the country. It was an hour's bus ride into town. Sitting on the bus I was so sure I could get any job I wanted. I was full of confidence, but by four that afternoon I wasn't so sure. My feet hurt, and so did my head from trying so hard just to get an interview. The real world had found me, and found me short of what it took to get a job.
Of the interviews I got, some said I was too qualified, others said I had no experience. I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place. My feet ached from walking round the town, trying every business and even shops - anywhere I thought I might find a job. I sat in a little café drinking a coffee. I would have liked something to eat but didn't want to squander the last of my money on food, because it looked like I was going to have to pay the bus fare again tomorrow.
After three days of constant knock-backs I was desperate, and very broke. I sat at home that evening with mum and dad. Mum mentioned that she was handing in her notice on Friday and it suddenly struck me that her job would be open, so I asked her to get her manager to take me on, in her place.
Both of my parents were shocked that I would set my sights so low and protested that, as I had a good education, I shouldn't waste my time in a sleazy café. I explained that I had tried for three days to find something suitable, but nothing was on offer. Eventually they persuaded me to at least give it till the weekend to find a 'proper job', as they called it. Dad lent me the bus fares to go into town to try harder to get a decent job. I tried the agencies next, putting my name down for several different jobs that I thought my qualifications might get me. The last agency was a sleazy back street affair, a little office on the third floor of a run down building.
There was no receptionist, just this rather disreputable-looking man about ten years my senior. He sat me on a low chair facing him and his eyes seldom met mine. His line of sight was lower, ogling my bust and my legs, obviously trying to get a peep up my rather short skirt.
After filling in his silly forms, and being aware of him leering down my top as he stood above me, he read through them, asking several questions.
"You haven't mentioned modelling," he remarked.
I replied that I hadn't any experience of modelling.
He smiled and said, "You don't have any experience at anything else either".
He was so right. I was just a country girl with a few college grades and nothing to show for it. But modelling was something I hadn't even considered. I was just desperate enough to listen to his suggestion of work. I should have known better but the money he offered was off the scale, several times better that anything I had tried unsuccessfully to get.
He told me to turn up the following day at ten, when he would tell me what was on offer. During the long journey home I thought about his offer and, ignoring the warning sounds clanging in my head, decided to go back the following day. I could always turn him down.
I arrived sharp at ten the next day, scared out of my wits. I knew it wasn't as legitimate as he made it sound. £uk100.00 a day called for more than just modelling clothes but he was very upbeat and keen to get me to sign a contract. I scribbled my name on the form without reading it properly.
He took me in his big flash car to a club on the outskirts of town. The club looked very posh and even had doormen in uniform standing either side of the front entrance. He went to the reception and asked for Rupert, the manager. We were asked to wait in the lounge.
Rupert came in, smelling of a very female perfume, not manly at all. He kissed me on both cheeks like I was some film star and said, "Come this way my dear." Taking my hand, he led me to the lifts. As we rose through the building he told me that he would put me in the hands of his senior girl. She was delightful, he added. We arrived at Bernadette's room and, after introducing me to her, he said, "I will see you later."
She took me into a room all girly and festooned with lace and so pretty. She smiled at my look of wonder. She said, "You are new to this aren't you dear."
I said, "Yes, this is my first job. I need the money so badly."
Bernadette took me into a changing room and selected some clothes for me to model, but this wasn't the sort of modelling I had in mind. The outfit consisted of nothing more than a few scraps of lace held together with pink ribbons. She asked me my size. I told her I was size 10, but she said, "Not your dress size dear, your bust."
"32D," I answered, without thinking.