We recently received the following email from Mark:

I’ve been a very big fan for many years now, and love seeing unused photographs and catching up with the models that have appeared in Janus. The first magazines I bought were Janus 49 and 50, which featured a very good looking asian lady called Lali. I would be very interested to know if you have any unused photo’s from these shoots and any more information with regards this fine looking lady.

A job then for our resident archivist Jon Rayworth, who takes up the story:

One of the most disappointing aspects of any archive work are the gaps you discover in the content. It’s fair to say that the Janus prints and negatives were not in any sort of order when I first laid eyes on them. As a long time collector of the magazine the excitement I felt on discovering particular shoots had survived was matched with the disappointing realisation that others had not been so lucky. 

Sadly only three colour plates of Lali from Janus 50 have survived. A real shame as this two part story was a sequel of sorts to the ‘The Witnesses’ in Janus 47 and features Ann and Stephen Morley, who were members of the newly formed ‘Janus family’. 

It’s important to remember that the creative and hard working people who produced these magazines were quite rightly always focussed on the next issue, not on curating their past glories. In some ways it’s remarkable that so much original content has survived from a spanking magazine that was published when censorship of this type of material was at it’s height. 

Our thanks to Mark and Jon. The three surviving photos appear below, for the first time in high quality. To see more of Lali you can download copies of Janus 49 and Janus 50 by clicking on the highlighted links.