Yes, she was perfection, that model of mine. She had posed many times for me and always produced the goods. There is a certain skill in posing for photographs that may not be immediately apparent to those not in the business, but this lady knew it all, and knew she was good.

Jeremy, my lighting man, was always telling me that she needed nothing to get a good shot.

‘She’d glow in the dark,’ he would say in that sibilant way of his.

‘Yes, my love,’ I would tell him, ‘ But you light her properly in the mean time.’

‘My love’ is just an appellation so don‘t get any ideas, we use it a lot in the trade, usually as sarcasm, but more to get things moving along. Where the army bawl and shout we use endearing terms, but they amount to much the same, except we have more tender souls to deal with.

Betty Stockwood came from a fish and chip family on the Old Kent road - I know, that sounds straight out of a film scenario - but she was now Linda Stojkovic, the product of some PR geek, God damn it she even spoke with a Russian accent!

I’m never sure if she came to regret it because it soon got bastardised -

‘chin up, Stodgy old gel,’ was often heard in the studios.

This would produce a withering glance, and as her fame mounted it was heard less often, she became something of a celebrity bitch. I mean when you can command £1000 upwards for a mornings shoot it’s fair to say you’ve got some clout.

One day we were commissioned to do a shoot for one of the premier perfume brands - ‘I’ve got a smelly job for you coming up,’ my agent would say, ’And you’ve got Stodgy as well.’

In she swept, my God, this was too much, she brought her entourage, including a lighting man! I knew there would be trouble. Jeremy skulked in the background but he could not help interfering and suggested a better lighting angle.

‘Get that little shit away from me.’ she screamed.

Bad move I thought, and I was proved right cause at that moment the lights went out and an arc light came on from the back, silhouetting Stodgy revealing some dubious breasts and some rather scrawny legs. Sadly the resulting photos were rejected with -

’Hell, they wouldn’t sell fish and chips!’

Jeremy rather liked that.