They were formed at the Vernons football pools company[1] in the 1950s in Liverpool, settling down to a sixteen strong choir[1] and recording an album of standards.
As session singers for Decca, the Vernons Girls were the female backing voices on many hit singles during the 1960s – one of the first being Billy Fury's "Maybe Tomorrow".
The trio of Jean Owen (aka Samantha Jones), Frances Lea, and Maureen Kennedy also appeared on film in the 1964 TV special Around The Beatles with the Beatles plus Long John Baldry, P. J. Proby and Millie Small, in the Billy Fury film Play It Cool, and in Just For Fun; ex-member Vicky Haseman also appeared in this, with her group, the Breakaways.
Some of the girls continued in show business ventures: Lyn Cornell married session drummer Andy White[3] (notable for replacing Ringo Starr on an early take of "Love Me Do"), and became a successful solo performer; having a chart hit with the title song to the film "Never on Sunday" in 1960 – and later becoming one of the Pearls.
Other members of the group banded together in various combinations as duets and singing trios; these include the Redmond Twins, the Pearls, the Two Tones and the DeLaine Sisters.
[6] More recently, Stredder and Sheila Bruce, together with ex-Ladybird Penny Lister, performed on tour with their friends as part of the 'Solid Gold Rock 'n' Roll Show'.