Why Sabrina and Jack Davey are such good neighbors

WEEKEND, 21 March 1959 (Australia)

When a girl and her mum come to a strange town they need a friend. When the girl is SABRINA, the mum is Mrs ANN SYKES, and the friend is JACK DAVEY, you have a story.

It was a story - as you might expect with THOSE famous names - that began with a business deal.

Jack wanted Sabrina on his popular Sydney breakfast session. Sabrina, who knows publicity when she sees it, wanted to go to the breakfast session.

But Mrs Sykes was the problem, Sabby loves publicity, but she loves sleep too.

To get up and get dressed and travel from Bellevue Hill to Point Piper and get to Jack's flat by 8:15 (for a girl who doesn't go to bed till one, two or three o'clock in the morning) meant a lot of lost sleep.

"Why don't you stay at my flat overnight?" Jack suggested. So Mrs. and Miss Sykes packed their best negligees and did just that.

And when Sabby admired the harbor view from Jack's window it was Jack who got them a house with the same view.

Simple enough when you're Jack Davey. All you have to do is persuade one of your friends to move out of the house and let it to Sabrina.

Simple enough when you're Sabrina. All you have to do is take it and pay £50 a week.

And now Jack is an expert in the good-neighbor policy.

It is JACK who is waving back (almost falling out of his living-room window) whenever Sabrina leans out of HER window and gives a big yoohoo.

IT WAS JACK who, when he heard Mrs. Sykes say she was a bit lonely for a Blackpool face, found her a friend who came from Blackpool too.

IT WAS JACK who arranged for Sabby to have a wonderful day on the harbor with his old friend BOB DYER and Bob's wife DOLLY.
And on the first day when the Sabrinas moved in there was a knock at the back door.

YES, IT WAS JACK, who had come to borrow a cup of sugar.

Related material

Sabrina goes fishing with Bob Dyer on his boat - 1 March 1959, New South Wales

Australians of a certain age might recognise Graham Kennedy in the middle

"A photo of Sabrina in a book about Australian radio celebrity of the 1950s and 1960s, Jack Davey (who was Bob Dyer's only rival). Jack is spraying suntan lotion on Sabrina, and she is wearing a striped bikini, which seems to have no laces to secure it behind. (And I'd suggest she is using falsies...)"