Womens Magazines of Yesteryear.

My mother took Woman's Weekly. She always read 'The Robins' to me!

I read Marje Proops in my mum's Woman's Mirror and then bought various women's magazines myself while still a young girl and then teenager.
It was years before I understood what was meant when someone referred to their 'lover' in an agony letter.
I was determined to use tampons, not towels, when the time came, based on persuasive ads in the magazines - although I was still a bit vague about why I'd need them.
And I became quite good at pairing up town & county names from reading the addresses at the foot of readers' letters.

I read Jackie as a teenager. My Mum liked Woman's Weekly and Woman. My Step gran used to read Red Star and Family Star. I used to read them all when they had finished. Loved them all.

my gran got the my weekly and peoples friend every week, i was 13 in 1976 and would take them to bed and read the stories, i felt so grown up, she also got the weekly news and the sunday post (i love the broons and oor wullie) she would post them so my uncle in australia could read what was happening in the uk.

My mum used to have Woman and when she’d read it would exchange it for Woman’s Own with a neighbour. My auntie used to bring Woman’s Weekly when she visited and that would then be exchanged for the Woman’s Own. I was always given the children’s page with a story about a family of robins but never very impressed with it!

My Nan used to have a monthly? needlework/craft magazine, can’t remember the name. They gave away a dressmaking pattern with each issue. She used to cut them up and put string through to hang up to use as toilet paper. Such a treat! It was so much softer than the normal newspaper ?

My Mum only took Woman's Journal, a glossy, monthly periodical which had excellent serials which I usually read as soon as she had finished with it. A number of Georgette Heyer's Regency romances were serialised in the Journal as well as novels by Elizabeth Goudge and - I think - crime stories by Ngaio Marsh. Mum and I devoured all these stories. There were also excellent knitting patterns. I took to knitting in my teens and at least two very successful jackets came from WJ patterns. Looking back, I realise that the WJ was quite self-consciously up-market and aimed itself higher than the other - weekly - magazines. It suited my mum down to the ground! Another monthly mag in our house was Stitchcraft, full of exciting...knitting patterns. The People's Friend was a family tradition as my grandfather and great-grandfather had both been editors of that venerable publication. Its cosy fiction and useful home hints made it an essential and very popular magazine and apparently it still is.

Mum and a friend used to swap. Mum had woman and her (richer) friend passed on woman's own, woman's realm and My Weekly.

I dont really like many of the current magazines. I usually go for special interest ones (eg family history or cookery) and occasionally something like Coast.

In the late 1960s we had The Book of Life - a very dareing encyclopaedia of the human body, it came every month rolled in brown paper then later Golden Hands - another encyclopaedia, of knitting and sewing , they were intended to be sent for binding but that never happened. Also for years it seemed to me, my Dad ordered a magazine for me called Look and Learn it was a floppy newspaper type material, all black and white, few pictures and extremely boreing.

Yes Grandmarderbey I also hated the Look and Learn educational magazines. The school swots always seemed to take them.

My Mum took The Lady (heaven knows why) The Mother’s Union magazine and latterly Woman’s Weekly, Woman & Saga which actually had some really good content. As I was away at school I never got past Robin & Girl at home and was allowed the Children’s Newspaper & Look & Learn to be sent to school. I thought them boring ….
I gave DH a lifetime subscription to Saga as a joke for his 50th birthday. Best move ever; it still arrives each month. Think it probably works out at around 5p a copy, if not free by now ?

Marmight mention of “ The Lady” mag, always brings to mind the comedic character portrayed by David Williams… I’m a Lady
However apart from being a well known must read for those seeking jobs as Nannies/au pairs/ and those looking for companion/housekeepers they advertise Holiday Cottages and my Mum got our first cottage holiday in Devon from there, really gorgeous and lovely thoughtful owners. This was, of course before it became as expensive as San Tropes (sp?)