Barrel girl rings into the High Court

There are plenty of news reports today that Virginia Bell (pictured) has been appointed as a justice of the High Court of Australia, and only the fourth woman ever to be appointed to the role.

Ms Bell has had a long and distinguished 30-year career in the legal profession, and is experienced in other matters, too.  With theatrical interests at a young age, and as a former ABC journalist and presenter, it was Bell as her alter-ego Ginger de Winter who was also apparently the self-appointed president of the mythical Australian Barrel Girls Association. 

Claiming to be a former TV barrel girl from the era of In Melbourne Tonight, de Winter would appear as a regular guest on the 1980s nostalgia program The Golden Years Of Television, a program that appeared first on Network Ten before moving with host David Lyle to Nine.

In between reruns of old black-and-white programs, Ms de Winter, with her fake eyelashes, gaudy earrings and strapless frocks, was one to share all the juicy gossip from some of TV’s early icons, whether it be from backstage on In Melbourne Tonight or propping up the bar at Norma’s on the night the bomb went off at Number 96. 

Ms de Winter also claimed to know whose bared breasts on Number 96 were real, and whose were fakes!