Songfacts®:

• "Stainsby Girls" is Chris Rea's nostalgic look back at the girls, streets, and teenage folklore of his youth in Middlesbrough, northeast England. The title comes from Stainsby Secondary Modern School (later renamed Acklam Grange Secondary School), located just south of Middlesbrough, which Rea's future wife, Joan, attended.
• To the local lads, the "Stainsby Girls" were the older, glamorous teenagers who seemed impossibly sophisticated. "They were only about 15 or 16 but they looked about 10 years older and they were very sophisticated," Rea explained to music historian Jon Kutner. "Everybody fancied them and we all put them on a sort of pedestal. We didn't stand a chance with them really, so we had to worship them from a distance. They had flashy boyfriends and went to clubs like The Twisted Wheel in Manchester on a Saturday night."
• The Stainsby Girls had impeccable musical and aesthetic taste. "To this day, still... she was just a Stainsby Girl," Rea aid of Joan. "Stainsby Girls were Marianne Faithfull types, you know, that kind of Jean Shrimpton. They all had long hair, they were all a little bit scruffy, a bit Rolling Stones, and we looked up to Stainsby Girls, all of us."
• Rea first met Joan Lesley when he was 17. The couple remained together for 57 years until Rea's death in December 2025. They had two daughters, Josephine (b. 1983) and Julia (b. 1989), both of whom inspired Rea tracks named after them: "Josephine" (which appears on the same album as "Stainsby Girls") and "Julia" (from 1993's Espresso Logic).
• Rea co-produced "Stainsby Girls" with David Richards, best known for his work with Queen and David Bowie at Mountain Studios. Alongside handling vocals, Rea played guitar, slide guitar, organ, and synthesizers. The studio backing band was:
  
  Eoghan O'Neill: bass
  Mel Collins: saxophone
  Dave Mattacks: drums
  Kevin Leach: keyboards, grand piano, Rhodes
  Max Middleton: keyboards, grand piano, Rhodes
  Robert Ahwai: additional rhythm guitar
  Simon Nicol (of Fairport Convention): additional rhythm guitar
  Martin Ditcham: percussion
  Annie Whitehead: trombone
  The Sultanas (Ian Barnett, Donnie Hilstad, Jesse Lortz, Kimberly Morrison): backing vocals
  
  Two of the session players, drummer Dave Mattacks and guitarist Simon Nicol, were active members of the legendary folk-rock group Fairport Convention at the time. Mattacks had returned for Fairport's 1985 reunion, while Nicol, a founding member, had permanently rejoined that same year. Their work on "Stainsby Girls" and another Shamrock Diaries track, "Steel River," was recorded right alongside their Fairport duties.
• Written during an extended stay in Ireland, where Rea noted Dublin felt just like his hometown of Middlesbrough, Shamrock Diaries was Rea's seventh album. It marked his major commercial and creative breakthrough across Europe, reaching the Top 20 in Ireland, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and the UK (peaking at #15). The record was a huge hit in the Netherlands, climbing to #3 and spending 42 weeks on the charts.
• Rea re-recorded "Stainsby Girls" for his 1988 career retrospective, New Light Through Old Windows. The project comprises re-worked versions of his back catalog alongside the hit "Working on It," giving Rea a chance to revisit his early material with the benefit of hindsight.