The Lady

I used to enjoy looking at it from time to time . It was another world.

After 10 years working in the City for Insurance, Shipping, Merchant banks etc. aged 26, I fancied a change of scene and found a job in the Lady as a nanny/housekeeper in Catania, Sicily. It was great. My boss was a university professor of English and a bit upset that I was studying Italian but we were both flexible and she wanted me to teach her teenagers English and to cook them English food. My room overlooked Mount Etna. And a lemon grove. She shared the ironing with me as there was so much as they required a bed change every day. I was given a Fiat 500 to ferry her children to the beach house they owned about 30 minutes away. Her husband, an airline pilot used to come with me and asked me to put my foot down and use the horn. They were kind to me and were going to the USA for six weeks and asked me to stay in the house alone, promising that they would take me to Paris for Christmas and America next summer. I loved it. What went wrong? My 16 year old sister asked me to find her a job so she could come with me. My boss found her a position as a nanny with a couple of dentists with very young sons. They took her on a cruise to their holiday home on Lipari. She was on the phone crying because they expected her to work and rang our parents begging them to get her home. Guess who got the job of taking her home? Oh well. I moved on and continued to use the Lady looking for au pairs when I started my own business and had my one and only son. Happy days. It will be missed although I’m no longer a regular reader due to the price.

I read it in my hairdresser’s!

A friend’s DS edited it at one time.

I’ve always bought it at holiday times to tackle The Ladygram, The front covers are wonderful. I shall miss it.

I think the holiday properties and the jobs section were excellent.
We bought it about twice a year for the classifieds.

I found a job in the Lady when I was about 17 (76 now). It was working at a non-residential Inn in Friday Street, Abinger Hammer, near Dorking. I made a good friend there, Chris Dallimore, who lived near Mumbles Beach in Wales. We spent a lovely time in Carnaby Street and visiting my Aunt in West Byfleet, she stayed at my flat near Nottingham at the time and remained friends for years. Amazing what answering a magazine ad can result in.

I love The Lady, and after years of just buying the odd issue a few times a year, I finally decided I could afford a subscription - just! It's gotten so expensive, but I love the articles, columnists, and as everyone says, just reading the adverts for amazing jobs. One can go off into a real fantasy world, imagining being a house-mother (?) at Eton, running a household in a fancy country house, etc etc.

Perhaps somebody will buy the magazine and relaunch it?

I read it in the library from when I was a teenager. We booked a number of holiday properties through their ads. Once, we booked one in Prague, and drove there from NE Scotland. When we arrived, the lady I'd been in touch with wasn't there, only her mother and husband. They didn't speak English. We were treated to coffee and home bakes. I started to worry that there'd been some mistake, and that we were going to be living with them. However, the lady finally arrived. The couple were going to stay with her mother while we were there. I had paid a deposit previously, in the requested dollars! She didn't want the balance until the end of our stay. Very trusting.

Yes, found a lovely mother's help who was with us for 3 years. We're still in touch.

I had a subscription to The Lady magazine bought for me every year by DH. It was a great read and afterwards it was passed to my mum who, in turn, passed it to her neighbour.
Loved reading the jobs pages. I believe the Royal family used to advertise for staff in the magazine at one point.
After my mum died, I decided to stop the subscription.

It then became a fortnightly/monthly(?) magazine

Yes I loved the lady too.

I've had a subscription to The Lady for many years and have always enjoyed reading it. It's not full of all the celeb gossip like so many publications. Just interesting intelligent reading. I for one will be so sorry to lose it.

I used The Lady to find a General Assistant position in a lovely hotel just outside Reading, Berkshire.
This was in 1977 and I was paid £45 per week with food and I lived in a bedsit above a launderette across the road.
There were six bedsits sharing one bathroom and the boys house (chefs etc) was down the road - great parties I remember…!!!
Lovely magazine of a bygone era …. 😊

I had some short stories published in The Lady, years ago. I believe that they stopped including stories when Boris Johnson's sister was editor, but I don't know if that's true. To be honest, I can't say that it was a magazine that I ever bought.

My Mum in the mid 70s answered an ad in The Lady for a holiday cottage to let in a seaside village called Beer in Seaton, Devon.
There were seven of us including my brother, sister in law and their three children.
We were the owners first let, it was gorgeous and they were lovely genuinely kind people. One of the most memorable holidays for me as a teenager.
My mum had a knack for good holiday choices.
Would most likely cost an arm and a leg to rent the same these days🥹

I’m loving these stories. 😊 I can’t say I’ve ever read an issue, but remember our headmistress recommending it to any of her girls wanting to spend some time abroad as an au pair.

Deedas post made me chuckle! I hope he didn’t have a daughter like on another post on here!

Although I don’t think the fella that Deeda refers to was wanting a “lady”.

I’ve never seen The Lady in any of the bookstores I visit ie Grocery Stores 😂

I used to read it when I was babysitting as a teenager and dreamed of getting a live-in job with animals. My father wouldn’t let me, so it remained a dream. My friend did leave home at 16 to take a live-in job as a mother’s help, and now 70, apart from the years married and raising her own children, she has always worked as a live-in carer.

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For decades our family villa accommodations were always found via 'The Lady' or the 'Sunday Times'.

Always private ads and always helpful friendly owners - and all holidays mega successful. Cote d'Azur, Catalonia, Crete and even Barbados eventually.

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My only experience of the Lady was being given a copy by a great-aunt when I was fourteen.

I read it in surprise, as it seemed to me to be talking about a world that did not exist in my part of the west of Scotland.

It struck me then, in 1963, as so out of date, that I am amazed to hear it has only just gone into liquidation!