My Life In Magazines

A post I originally wrote 11 years ago, updated with more pictures!

Were you a magazine addict, in the long ago days before the internet and the Kindle?  I adored and used to buy stacks of them, all through my teens, twenties and early thirties.  Seeing the new edition of Cosmo, Elle, Honey etc on the shelves in W H Smiths was always something of a thrill - that shiny, unread newness, with the promise of articles that would shape my life into something exciting and glossy.  I loved reading the beauty articles, hoping that if I did everything they said I would be beautiful, ignoring my suspicion that their purpose was merely to make you buy expensive products.  

Aside from glossies, a not-at-all guilty pleasure was the new copy of Slimming magazine, usually read whilst eating a bag of assorted toffees.  Loved all those obese-to-slim stories! 

I haven't bought any of these publications for decades; I don't know which ones still exist.  In the supermarket a while back, I took a look at one of those handbag-sized copies of Cosmo, and saw that it no longer contained long, interesting, in depth articles, but was filled with adverts and the magazine version of soundbites.  A nod to our dwindling concentration spans, perhaps, as more periodicals appear online only.

In remembrance of times past, I would like to share with you my magazine memories - did you read any of these?

 

When I was a child, my sister and I used to get June and School Friend every week.  I can't remember us ever arguing about who read it first - maybe it was automatically Julia, as she was the eldest!  I recall little about the contents, apart from one story called 'Swimming To Fame', about some girls who competed in swimming competitions. I was fascinated by all the different strokes, particularly the butterfly.  Didn't do me any good - I never got past half a width.

We also used to get those 'doll dressing' comics, where you could cut out the picture of a girl, stand her up on the flimsy stand, then cut out the clothes to put on her.  Julia and I used to make them, too.

From children's comics we moved on to Jackie, which we got from about 1968 to 1971. I was a bit too young for it (age 9 in 1968) but young teenage magazines in those days weren't as they are now; the most risque thing you might read about was whether or not to snog on the first date.  

What most people remember most about Jackie is The Cathy & Claire Page (the problem page).  How can I make him fancy me?  Why hasn't the boy I met on holiday replied to my letters?  How I longed to be grown up like those 13 year olds, wearing white lipstick and bell bottom trousers and going out with boys! Then there were the pin-ups on the back page - long forgotten names like Jack Wild, Ben Murphy, George Best... and David Cassidy, of course. 😁

By the time I was 12, I had my own magazine, all to myself.  Every Saturday evening, the wonder that was Fabulous 208! 

As well as being a mag for teenage girls, generally, it was all about Radio Luxembourg (the frequency of which was 208) - I used to listen to the station all the time, with DJs Kid Jenson, Dave Christian, Mark Wesley.  I adored this magazine.  Its arrival was the highlight of my week. My friend Sally and I used to ring each other up to discuss what was in it, cut out the pictures, etc... 😁 

In those days, teenage magazines often featured a column allegedly written by a pop star - there was a David Cassidy one in Fab 208.  Sally would insist it was really by him - even then, I knew it wasn't.  Was I was born jaded?

Another big favourite around this time was Disco 45, which, if I remember rightly, consisted of all the lyrics to songs in the Top 20.  And doubtless a column 'written by' Marc Bolan or Rod Stewart, I imagine.

There - it was all of 5p!!

I then moved on to more girly magazines, few of which existed after the mid 1970s: Valentine, Mirabelle, Petticoat, Romeo.  A new one came out in about 1972 - Look Now.  I think that one lasted a bit longer.

I must just take a step back for a moment; I remember going to stay with Julia's godmother in the summer of 1971, when I was 11 or just 12, and sitting in her conservatory sneakily looking at a copy of her glossy, glamorous Vanity Fair...

Judging by the cover, it must have been this very edition.  I sat on a sun lounger reading an article, furtively looking up to make sure no-one caught me doing so.  It was about a new book that had just been published called The Sensuous Woman, by some woman called 'J'.  In the interview with her she talked about oral sex - and I really, really did think that oral sex meant talking about it.  I hadn't come across the term before (as one would hope, at that age), and I couldn't work out why the practice was worthy of such discussion.  

When I was about 14-15, I used to buy the NME (New Musical Express), which fuelled my fledgling love of rock music.  That was back when everyone looked like this, of course.

On to the late seventies - who remembers those magazines you could buy in weekly parts, followed by all the binders to put them in?  I had a boyfriend who used to buy Supercook, because his ex had been really into cooking exotic dishes, and he carried on buying it; what a disappointment I must have been!  I think I made about 4 of the recipes in the whole collection.  Jiffy Tuna Surprise, Arroz Con Pollo, a thing with pork chops and wine ... and American Apple Pie, which was lush.

In the mid-late teens I read Honey and 19 ...

...and, of course, Cosmo!  That magazine taught me so much - I kid you not!  In this article I've tried to find issues with the covers that I actually remember.  I loved this one in 1976 of Jerry Hall; I believe it came out around the time she danced with Bryan Ferry in the video for Roxy Music's 'Let's Stick Together' - that was in her pre-Jagger days, of course.

In the 1980s I read Company (one of the best, I think), and Options...

and I was also introduced, by my boyfriend of the time who I later married, to The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.  He had piles of them.  I wonder if he's still got them.  

One day in the mid-late 80s, my brother came round with this brilliant new publication he'd discovered when he'd been working up north:

It was only about twelve pages long at the time, until it caught on and became available everywhere.  I bought it for many years.  My favourites were Modern Parents, The Critics, the Drunk Bakers, Mr Logic - and then there are the old favourites like Sid The Sexist, Paul Wicker the tall vicar, and the Pathetic Sharks. 

From about 1988 to 1992, going to see rock bands became a huge part of my life, and I used to buy Kerrang every week.  The gig guide!  I'd to read articles about bands and go buy their stuff if it sounded as though I'd like it.  Thunder, Faith No More, Dan Reed Network...

...and I discovered Aerosmith by reading Q magazine.  I was late to the party as far as they were concerned!

That's pretty much when I stopped buying magazines.  I moved onto Marie Claire for a while, but I found that, by then, I just wasn't very interested in many of the articles.  I'd feel like I'd read them all before - or just, quite simply, that they were aimed at people younger than me.  I'd buy one, finished reading it in about half an hour and think, well, that was a waste of £3.50, or whatever it cost. 

Recently I've discovered that people sell these old mags on ebay, and have bought a few copies of Jackie and Petticoat from the early 1970s.  A fascinating look back to a world that no longer exists, indeed :)

A final word - I remembered the other night that when we were about 12, friend Sally and I decided to make our own magazine to sell to our school friends.  It contained a problem page, pictures of pop stars, an article about someone famous, and a story.  Only problem was we didn't have access to any sort of printer or copier (did they exist in 1971???), so we wrote every page out by hand.  The idea was that the money we made would buy wool which we would knit into squares to make patchwork blankets for the cold and needy.  It never got past the first issue and the blanket was never made, but I remember sitting at the dining table of an evening, writing out that article about Rod Stewart, over and over again....