The Sabrina Fan Magazine

Une étrange folie

Please let me know of any errors on this page

Dear reader. Let me take you back to a strange time - the 1950s - probably in London. A place and time of fog, The Times , stiff upper lips, Oxford Commas, and post-war privations.

A place where freshly-demobbed men such as Private Parts, Corporal Pleasure, Major Lust and General Frustration wandered the cobbled streets in search of colour, excitement and unrationed titillation.

A certain gentleman (for, surely, a lady is unlikely to have been the instigator of the curiosity I am about to disclose) was smitten by a lass of comely proportions whom he had seen on the television programme called "Before Your Very Eyes".

She was mysteriously named "Sabrina" and her three-dimensional charms inspired this chap to devise, produce and distribute a publication most singular and mysterious. It bore but a single word betwixt its inaugural and ultimate leaves: SABRINA .

The rest is silence.

Whence, when and wherefore it was commissioned is unknown. Its copyright status is questionable.

Many of the photographs are taken from known photoshoots such as (what I call) the Shagpile and Walkabout series, but seem to have been rejected by newspaper or magazine editors/publishers. Telltale examples are those where Sabrina is facing away from the camera obscura, or the photographic quality (e.g. exposure or framing) is deficient. Photoshopping was needed to improve the quality of the scans of the tiny images, but nothing was omitted.

Perhaps the proprietor of this publication purloined the pictures from his place of employ - perchance from a photograher, publisher or printer.

But what is germane at this juncture is that the journal exists and I have it. And now, so do you*... its multitudinous pictures and its single word: Sabrina.

*If you care to purchase this mysterious magazine, please get in touch .

Jump to the categorised images .

The Cover, and The Word

Pages 2-3, 4-5

Pages 6-7, 8-9

Pages 10-11, 12,13

Pages 14-15, 16

Ah, the shagpile rug. The cap. The flannelette shirt . The nipslip.

Can a man ask for more?

There comes a moment in any young London girl's life when she needs to climb stairs.

Sabrina seems to have spent all day doing it, in a bikini, then in lace, and felt the need to record every step of the journey from base camp to summit.

Apparently, the stair expedition in bikini was ill-advised.

Her sherpas encouraged her to dress more suitably for this sally to the peak of the stairs.

Her mid-stair exultation may have been due to oxygen deficiency.

Sometime in 1955 (or thereabouts) Sabrina ventured to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons.

It was fortuitous that famous photographer RussMeyer and a crowd of bystanders were on hand...

And so we bid farewell to the mysterious Sabrina fan magazine,

still wondering which lusty chap had the gumption to produce it

for his and future generations of Sabrina fans.

We are in his debt.