Julie Watkins was 20 when she found herself drawn into Hugh Hefner's black-stockinged world - with a little help from her mum.

In the early Seventies, Hefner's Playboy empire was the glamorous face of the gambling world.

His bunnies were the It Girls of their day - beautiful, desirable and untouchable, at least without permission.

Julie, 47, of Patcham, Brighton, was working as a beauty consultant at the time. She said: "I was bored with my job and my mum spotted this advert for bunny girls. She forced me to go for it."

Julie went through a selection process which involved her answering questions about her favourite pop star and whom she would most like to meet.

"They gave me some high heels to see how I walked - and that was about it. There was no stripping off or putting on one of the bunny costumes. They wanted to know about me, what I had done and how I could communicate."

Eight weeks of bunny training began with a strict diet.

Julie said: "I wasn't big but they made the costumes smaller than your size and expected you to fit into them. They were so tight you couldn't cough. If you had a cold, you couldn't work."

The suits were like corsets, high cut with lace over the hip bones. The girls wore two pairs of tights - flesh coloured underneath and black on top, to prevent any harsh black outline.

The look was completed with false eyelashes, wigs, full make-up, collar, cuffs, ears and, of course, the bunny tail.

Julie said: "You also had to develop the bunny bop. You couldn't bend in a costume so if you dropped something, you had to bend your knees and reach down keeping your top half bolt upright - or just wait for someone to pick it up for you."

All the girls were inspected before going on to the floor by the bunny mother.

Julie said: "It was like going on stage - our dressing rooms had all the lights round the mirrors."

A lot of work went into perfecting the bunny look. But it was the psychology of the role that fascinated Julie.

She said: "The clubs were private and although we got to know everyone, we were trained to chat without talking about ourselves.

"We never called customers by their first name and never addressed anyone as Mrs or referred to a wife because quite often they weren't.

"If you talked to a couple, you made eye contact with the lady, as some got jealous of girls in costumes. The lady always had to be made comfortable first."

Being a bunny was a way of life. Even off duty, if the girls were caught without full make-up or hair that was anything less than perfect, they could be fined.

Julie, now an advertising executive, worked in the smallest of the three English Playboy clubs in Portsmouth. She was a receptionist and a waitress before become a croupier.

Single girls were allowed to date customers but only under strict rules.

Julie said: "Gentlemen had to have the manager's permission and tell him where you were going. You had to be collected from the club and returned there before closing time.

"The club looked after its girls and wanted to protect them. They didn't want people to know where you lived."

She has kept three of her original bunny girl costumes and uses them to fund-raise for charity.

Although bunnies had a reputation as beautiful and glamorous, Julie disputes this.

She said: "They were ordinary girls, not lookers. But once you put them in wigs and make-up and the costumes, they were transformed into these legends.

Julie left Playboy when the clubs were closed down in the early Eighties.

"If they hadn't closed, I would probably have gone on to be a bunny mother and swapped my costume for a smart suit. It was a wonderful, wonderful world."