Old Teen Magazines ('Life's a Journey' Blog Hop, Week 18)

This post is part of a weekly series of ‘link-up’ Posts which reflect on life’s journey, old memories and family stories (see below for more info).

The long, hot summer of 1976 is about to begin. I have taken my 10 shiny English pence to the local Newsagent shop.

I peruse the shelves of neatly stacked Cherry Spangles and Aniseed Balls, but finally settle on a packet of Sweet Cigarettes. These are a more sophisticated sweet for a young lady of 8 such as what I am.

I still have a whole 6p left to spend. My Mother is not in the shop with me, so I can buy whatever I like. I glance around the shelves looking for the most grown-up thing I can find in this eggs-and-fags corner shop in a scruffy corner of 1970s Birmingham. My eyes fall upon the comics, which I quickly dismiss as childish and move on to the glossy magazines.

And there she is. Jackie. A teenage magazine with a dazzlingly ordinary, working class name. I must make her mine. I gingerly take my two prizes to the till with a face as guilty as if I were buying soft porn, half-expecting to be turned away. But the exchange is completed without drama, and from this moment onwards, Jackie and I are best friends.

With the fickleness that only a teenager could muster, she is eventually cast aside in favour of the awesome ‘Look-In’. With Posters, song lyrics and ‘so much more’, this was truly one of those early celebrity magazines that every teenager lusted after. This TV ad might jog  few memories!

Hands up if you ever spent a school lunch break fantasising that you were in one of those speech bubble photo-stories? Magazines like ‘Patches’ specialised in these real-life comic strips, with stories about boys cheating on girls, and girls being  too shy to do PE because they had boobs, and the ugly girl with the glasses really being a hot, rampant, raven-haired beauty underneath her acne (just like real life for me in my pink NHS specs). It certainly made boyfriends seem awfully complicated from where I stood….! 

I know there were other ‘rags’ out there too, some more suitable for an 8 year old audience than others – ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Bunty’, and ‘Tiger Beat’ to name but a few …….

What are your memories of these old Teen Magazines? Any others that were your favourites? Do get Posting your own nostalgia and share it here with us!!!

Post an entry to your own Blog  and use the Linky tool (link below) to enter your memories into the fray. If you like, just leave a comment and join in that way, but do join in.

If you feel sexy, grab the code too (just follow the link) and post it into your Blog entry – that way, everyone can pay it forward as they say – it’s good to share.

Please visit the other blogs on the list and leave a comment or two – it makes everyone’s day!

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In next week’s Linky we will take a look back at the memory of ‘First Time Motherhood’. It’s a big one, so I hope you will all take the time to write a Post about the feelings and changes which occurred in your life as a result of this incredible experience. No rules, just take the theme and write, then come back and join in with the Blog Hop on Tuesday…

More about the Life’s a Journey weekly memories series.

Other posts in this series:-

Week 1 - My earliest baby photo

Week 2 - Old School Portrait

Week 3 - Earliest Writings

Week 4 - Bestest Friends

Week 5 - Teenage Crushes

Week 6 - First Movie Memories

Week 7 - The Song You Snogged Your Hand To

Week 8 - Homage to Grandparents

Week 9 - Favourite Childhood Books

Week 10 - Tying the Knot (again)

Week 11 - Blue: Girl Guide Uniform Shambles

Week 12 - Cuddly Companions

Week 13 - A Rope, Some Pals and Jelly on a Plate

Week 14 - Pink NHS Specs, 1975

Week 15 - Regrettable hairstyles of the 1980s – The Mullet

Week 16 - The Lo-Tech Times of Childhood

Week 17 – Rollermania! 

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