My life through magazines

Some magazines on my current pile

I had a random thought this morning (as I do) and decided to write about this while it's all in my head, even though I only posted yesterday.

The thought came as I finished reading a magazine I've recently started buying and it really suits me! That got me thinking about all the magazines I've known throughout my life and then I became all nostalgic. So, here goes....my life through magazines.

The first magazine I remember in our house when I was growing up was Woman's Weekly. I lived in a three generation household. There was me, my brother, mum and dad and my nana (my mum's mother). Both mum and nana read Woman's Weekly at different times and possibly shared it. I can still recall those early covers of line drawings with a touch of colour (usually pink, I believe) before techniques changed and printing became more advanced and got into full colour with real people (or models) on the front. I used to read some of the stories but I always looked first for Mary Marriot's Problem Page! My dad, bless him, read The Robins. That little family are still going and the children are still the same age they were back then when I was young..

My mum would sometimes knit jumpers featured in that magazine. Both my mum and nana were knitters as well as sheet repairers, dressmakers and good cooks. Most of that didn't wash off on me, though I can knit to a certain extent and I cook out of necessity, though I will go and bake cakes when I'm fed up or low! It's a phase thing with me, cooking!

Other magazines also made it into our house, like Woman, Woman's Own, Woman's Realm and My Weekly. I read them all. Still there comes a time when every teenager needs a magazine for oneself. That for me was Jackie. I devoured that magazine and cut out the pictures of bands to stick on my bedroom wall. I remember having Tyrannosaurus Rex before they became T.Rex, The Herd and The Monkees. I also got into pop magazines like Fab 208 and Look-in and I also used to buy Shoot magazine and sometimes Match for my football leanings!

Then there were two other magazines I read avidly, Loving and True Romances (my first ever poem was published in Loving!), but as I got older I decided to delve into the risque Cosmopolitan magazine. My mother had something to say about that! I enjoyed it for a while but eventually found it boring and not relevant to me anymore. I'd outgrown it. For some years I bought Predition magazine when I was really into astrology and teaching myself to calculate birth charts (before the computer explosion and it was all down to books and maths). Still in the background Woman's Weekly was there with The Robins, a serial or two and love stories to be read.

After I married and was expecting my first baby it was Mother & Baby magazine that dominated.  Then I switched between magazines and couldn't find anything that really spoke to me. I had a period of not buying any magazines at all and then going mad buying Prima, Woman & Home, all those grown up monthlies until I got bored again. I dabbled with Focus, National Geographic, Wildlife but I only ever bought the odd one now and then.

I tied the gossip magazines but I soon lost interest in the scandalous and sensational stories, and magazines like Heat never appealed. I glance through them at the doctor's surgery or dentist but never feel the need to buy a copy.

In the last few years there has been a whole new section of magazines that I call alternatives - the simple life, mindfulness and for a while I bought Breathe, but even that after a while I found too self-indulgent. I think it is my restless nature, the fact that I get bored easily and need variety. Having said that I had a conversation with a friend recently and she said that she couldn't find a magazine that fitted with her life. I knew exactly what she meant. There was something being missed by the magazine market for 'ladies of a certain age' but certainly not over the hill!

I may have found that magazine. At least I've found one that I read from cover to cover and it's different. My latest find (from the alternative shelf) is The Simple Things, a monthly which seems to fit my ethos and current feelings about life. I love it.

As I look back on the magazines it's sad to see so many have disappeared yet the market is flooded with new ones and I guess people want different things. We live different lives to the ones we did back when we were growing up. Yet even now there are some that have hung on. Woman's Weekly, My Weekly and The People's Friend are still going, and yes I still buy them occasionally (I even have poetry published in The People's Friend - what a turn up!).

So, there we go. I hope reading this has taken you down memory lane as much as it has me in writing about it. I'm sure there will be new magazines to come and I expect I shall indulge in some of those, but the market is quite volatile and there is a struggle to maintain readership. I'd love to hear about the magazines you read growing up or what you read today. Please leave your comments.