Girl Talk With Julie Driscoll

Article published in RAVE magazine, December 1968

When two girls get together anything can happen. When they are Julie Driscoll and Rave’s Dawn James, everything does!

Girl Talk With Julie Driscoll | TALKING to Julie Driscoll is like having a chat with your best friend. She laughs at the things most girls laugh at, she cares about the things that matter to all of us, she is in touch—her feet are on the ground. She is mad about clothes, but though she has a great collection, still enjoys. “looning about in scruffy fashion.”

“I’m very careful where I buy my clothes because I think in my job they matter very much. I have to look like me all the time. If I see something I like that suits me, I buy it. I never get a designer to design especially for me.

I used to earn £8 a week

In my job I’m lucky because absolutely anything goes. I can turn up in the most outlandish gear and get away with it. If I worked in an office or a shop it would be more difficult. But things are improving in that direction. I know a few girls who work in offices and are allowed to wear trousers.

I think in a few years there won’t be any real fashions like mini skirts, or trouser suits, it’ll just be wearing what suits you at that time. It’s got more like that now, I mean you don’t have to wear your skirts any particular length nowadays, long, short or with trousers. It doesn’t matter.

That is the way I like it. I’ve always spent most of my bread on clothes and make-up. When I used to earn £8 a week, and after I’d paid my Mum. I spent the rest on my appearance. I don’t think you have to look stunning the whole time, but I think a girl should be well presented, clean, and displaying herself through her looks.

Girl Talk With Julie Driscoll

“It’s difficult to generalise though, because, like I say, often I really enjoy looning about in old jeans with hardly any make-up on. I like boys who do that too. I am usually attracted to boys who wear jeans. Always they have to have long hair. I’m not very good at brushing-off boys I don’t like.

I find it rather difficult, boys do get hung up on me just because I’m a singer and because I’m seen on the telly. So many little things can put me off a guy, like I suddenly can’t stand him near me. When I’ve been going with a guy a while and I go off him, I just come out and say so and tell him to get lost.

It doesn’t make any difference what he does after that. He can cry, and threaten to join the foreign legion and all, I just ignore it. I’m very hard about that. But the difficult scene with boys is when you are friendly with them and really like them for their company. and then they start trying to make it with you. Everyone must get this, and isn’t it hell?

Talking about love

“I don’t want to get married and I think marriage will disappear one day, but not within my lifetime. Personally I don’t say I’d refuse to marry someone at all costs. I guess if I was really hung up on a guy and he was on me and he said, ‘if you don’t marry me I’m leaving you’ then I would marry him.

But I’d never suggest it in any way. My own sister is married and has a lovely little boy of six months old. I guess it depends what sort of person you are. When I was twelve years old I was very in love with a guy. All right so it wouldn’t have lasted all my life, but I’m not saying now that I didn’t feel real love for him at that time, because I did.

I never doubt very young kids who say they are in love, I know what it feels like.

Girl Talk With Julie Driscoll

“I dig kids a lot. I don’t say I’m looking to adopt a kid right now. if I really wanted one I’d go and have one of my own. But if I knew of a kid in need of help I’d sure help him.

“You can learn so much from children. I see through my sister’s Donovan that everyone of us starts off equally, we all have this yearning to learn. The effort a baby puts into doing things is terrific. Somewhere along the line, I think at school, we either stop wanting to learn, or we go on and want to learn more.

“To me the early years in school are very important to a child, and so is its home life. The size of home or the area it is in doesn’t make any difference, it is the attitudes of the parents that count. I think a lot about things, so does my sister, but we lived in a crummy place and only ever had one bedroom between all of us. But I suppose our parents thought straight, so we are reasonable human beings.”

I enjoy travel

With a life like hers, Jools has to get around quite a bit in double-quick time.

“I enjoy travel. I can relax in planes and cars. But if the schedule is tight and a plane is held up by fog, or the car gets a flat tyre, and I am in danger of being late for a date, I get tense. There is the audience to be thought about, and of course they don’t understand if I’m not there on time.

It doesn’t matter how good a reason I’ve got, I know it is annoying for an audience when an artist doesn’t turn up. If I am held up and I haven’t got the group with me I feel bad too. It’s unbelievable how tense I can get about this kind of thing. I like to be in control of situations.

Once I get out of control of them I feel helpless, though I’m by no means neurotic. People often find me calmer than they imagined.”

Girl Talk With Julie Driscoll

Jools is a health food addict. When she was voted top pop girl of the year, she was quoted as attributing her beautiful skin texture to these foods. She never eats things like egg and chips, or chocolate.

“I like to nibble so I nibble carrots” she explained. “At my twenty-first birthday party in the office last June, someone gave me a sack of carrots. They are good for your eyes and your skin. and they keep your breath pure.

“I use beauty without cruelty cosmetics too. I use a shampoo that is made from herbs. For television and photo sessions I have to use a fairly heavy base make-up, so I use Max Factor’s Pan-Stik. I use their cake eye make-up too.

My job is fun

I never wear false eye lashes. I feel my best when I’m as natural as possible. This short hair style is good for time saving. Before when my hair was so wild it took me ages to dress. I’d start at about ten o’clock and only lust finish at lunchtime! Now it takes five minutes.”

Apart from the spare evenings when Jools has time off and spends it with her sister and her Mum, she works all the time.

“It is hard of course, but I love to sing and I love my audiences. My job is fun.

Time passes. She improves her act, she is voted top pop girl of the year, she sells records. And she never changes. She is warm and funny she doesn’t deal with admirers in too cool a fashion. She’s a girl in fact.

Joe Cocker article admitting he digs Julie.