Kristine Sparkle (Christine Holmes to her mum) seems to have been a serial underachiever on the fringes of fame- popular for her blonde Sixties dolly-bird looks but not talented enough to be a star.
This seems to be the closest she ever came to a hit – a Beatles cover sung over a near-replica of Gary Glitter’s first hit Rock’n’Roll – from her failed bid to become a female Glitter (hence the name change to Kristine Spakle).

She had appeared on the children’s show Crackerjack and worked as a session singer in the Sixties, most notably in a Sixties group called The Family Dogg, but characteristically missed out on their solitary hit, A Way Of Life, in 1969.

She joined after they released their debut, an album that’s notable not so much for its music but its cast of session musicians including a pre-Led Zeppelin trio of Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, and a pianist called Reg Dwight.

Christine also missed out when she tried to reinvent herself as Kristine Sparkle, recording a 1974 album filled with Glam retreads of Sixties girl group classics like Baby I Love You.

There was also a novelty single, King Of The Kops, in tribute to TV tough guy Kojak, released under the name ‘Kristine.’ Sample lyric: “I’ve had a crush on you since the day I saw you on TV/and though you’re twice my age you’ve awoken all my sexuality/You shaved off your hair and you’re a little overweight…”

But her real career low-point came with a Glammed-up version of Hokey Cokey later, appropriating another old hit, in this case The Sweet’s Blockbuster, for its music.

The solitary high point was when Cliff Richard had a hit in 1976 with Devil Woman, a song she co-wrote with Tony Britten.

Typically, Christine failed to spot its potential, consigning her own version to the B-side of another of her many flops, Pussycat Tiger, and ended up back on TV, doing impressions of real pop stars in a show called Who Do You Do.