VANESSA FELTZ: ‘There was one magnificent moment when I was gloriously, glowingly bikini body ready – it was in 1974'

Daily Mail​

7 days ago

Let me begin at the pinnacle. I was 12, on a four-star package holiday with my parents and younger sister in Halkidiki. I didn't realise. No one alerted me. The occasion should have been marked. Someone ought – at the very least – to have thrown a tickertape fiesta featuring the local mayor presenting me with a certificate inscribed: 'You, Vanessa Jane Feltz, did on 17 August 1974 reach the world's required standard in curvaceous, non-cellulite-riddled, firm-thighed, high-breasted, flat-stomached, deckchair adorning perfection.'
The Feltz family should, for one fabulous foray, have abandoned the grim pre-paid hotel half-board buffet and splashed out on celebratory moussakas at the taverna down the road, toasting my never-to-be-equalled swimwear slam dunk with diluted ouzo. Alas, my mother, disgruntled by the lustful looks directed at her pre-teenage daughter from waiters – and Vassilis, who offered me free rides in his water-ski boat – hastened to draw a veil over my Lolita fortnight. Literally. She kept flinging oversized T-shirts and gigantic towels at me, barking, 'For heaven's sake Vanessa, cover yourself up. There's no need to parade yourself about the place.'