Grandmother Jo Roffey will share her memories of teenage discovery and freedom in the Fifties in a television documentary next month.

As a teenager she fell in love with Elvis, swooned to Frankie Laine and had her first taste of swinging London in the nightspots of Soho.

Next month Jo, of Bylands Close, Eastbourne, will share her experiences in an ITV documentary called The Fifties And Sixties In Living Colour.

The three-part programme explores the birth of the British teenager, emerging from the shadow cast by the Second World War.

Jo, 60, said: "I loved everything about the Fifties, especially the music and the clothes. Whenever I hear any of that old music on the radio or for an advert it brings back so many memories."

Jo got her first job in department store Pratts when she was 15. The money she earned allowed her the freedom she craved to dance in music halls and check out the opposite sex in her local south London coffee shops.

But for all the bouffant hair and kohl eyeliner, sexual innocence was the norm for girls of Jo's age and the cosmopolitan underworld of trendy London came as something of a shock to her.

She said: "There was a girl I worked with who said she would take me out to Soho one night. We went to a bar and she went to get us some Cokes.

"On the way back she was talking to two of the most beautiful women I had seen. I told her with looks like that those women should have been in films.

"She laughed and said 'Women? They're transvestites'. It just wasn't anything I had heard of - it was quite an eye opener."

Jo's parents were less open about their daughter's taste in clothes. Trouble often erupted when her older brother insisted Jo take off her short, white plastic mac and wear something more appropriate.

She said: "I went through all the looks, beatnik to big hair and lots of eye make-up."

At 18, she met and married Vic, despite her parents' protestations to wait until they were 21.

Boys had been a bit of a mystery until then and a fear of pregnancy outside marriage made many girls very cautious. Jo said it did not stop them from trying it on.

The couple moved to Eastbourne 16 years ago and have six children and 12 grandchildren. They have been married 42 years.

Jo was worried less about what friends and family would think of the forthcoming documentary than some of her previous TV appearances.

No stranger to the limelight, she has shared her more intimate secrets with viewers in the documentary Married Love, screened last year.

The programme explored the sexual experiences of newly-weds in the early Fifties and the fears and misinformation which abounded through early sex education.

Jo confided she had not enjoyed her sex life for the first six years of marriage but said it was fine once she got the hang of it.

Before that she appeared in another documentary Some Like It Hot, about the tradition of English seaside holidays.

She said the films were something to leave behind for future generations.

Nowadays Jo says she has a more settled approach to life but maintains her young outlook.

The documentary traces the revolution from military service to the mini-skirt and has been put together by Testimony Films. Rare colour footage is interwoven with first-hand accounts.