Magazines - A Learning Curve

My first magazine was Look and Learn when I was still at infant school. My father bought it for me because I was captivated by a story my school teacher read to the class. I pestered him to ask her about it, which he eventually did, and I was delighted to have the story for myself. I think it was The Borrowers, or something similar.  As I got older, I read comics and books more than magazines. It was the usual ones, Beano and Dandy. We moved into a pub where a box of children’s books had been left ‘For the little girl’, me. Included was ‘Oor Wullie’ and ‘The Broons’ annuals. I loved them. They became my favourites characters and they still are. I’ve got many more of their annuals. I still have the collection of books that was left for me. It was my introduction to Enid Blyton and a lifetime of reading and writing.

September 1967.  I started high school and made a conscious decision to hate it because it wasn’t the school I wanted to go and I had to take two buses to get there and back.  I had a couple of friends with me from primary school, which was good, but I got picked on a lot and I was constantly bullied on one of the bus rides by girls from another secondary school.  It was a miserable time but I discovered something that opened my eyes and took my mind off my worries.  It was my mother’s weekly magazine, Woman’s Own.  It offered a wealth of important information to me, a curious eleven year old.  I read all the adverts for Tampax, Lil-lets, Kotex, et al and decided that I would have Nikini when this ‘period’ thing happened to me.  I learnt a lot about life from the Problem Page. I think Claire Rayner was the agony aunt at the time. The most fascinating read was her serialised articles which I remember clearly as being titled ‘What to Tell Your Children About Sex’.  This is where I discovered what was called The Facts of Life.  It might have taken my mind off school worries but such knowledge gave me other things to fret about.  I wasn’t ever going to do ‘that’, certainly not.  I don’t know if my mum noticed what I was reading.  She might have left the magazines out on purpose, hoping I would read those articles.  At the time, it felt like I was reading something forbidden and scary. Nothing was ever said. Years later, I had the book of ‘What to Tell Your Children About Sex’ and ‘The Body Book’, another of Claire Rayner’s.  She was a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, a former nurse and midwife and I think she was a TV agony aunt at some point.  She passed away more than ten years ago.  I hope it is true that she actually said, “Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I’ll come back and bloody haunt him.”

Into my teens and off to the newsagents every Saturday morning to pick up my ordered Jackie and Fabulous 208 magazines.  Jackie was great.  I covered my bedroom walls with pictures of my favourite pop stars.  Those treasured pictures and posters were saved for decades until they got binned in a clear-out, probably when we emptied the attic for the loft conversion and I had to be brutal. Oh, how I wish I’d kept them.  I would have found somewhere safe to stash them.  Fabulous 208 magazine was connected to Radio Luxembourg. I liked to listen to DJ Tony Prince in the evening.

Magazines aren’t something I read regularly, but Woman’s Own is still as good as it ever was and I buy it occasionally.  Apart from that, if I notice an interesting article, an unusual knitting pattern or someone I know has contributed, I will buy it.

My Haikus,

I loved story time,
My teacher made it such fun.
Thanks for Look and Learn.

Woman’s Own page five
Now I know what they are for.
Is it a secret?

Is that really true?
I wish I dare ask my mum.
No, I’d better not.

Hooray! Saturday!
I will go out in the rain
To get my Jackie!

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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An Idiot Abroad - Boots In Manhattan

 

It wasn’t my intention to be an idiot abroad. It’s never my intention to be an idiot anywhere but things happen sometimes and the only way forward is to go with it. February, 1980 I was sight-seeing in New York at the end of a month or so spent with family who live in Virginia.

I was flying home from JFK later that day so all my luggage had been taken for storage to the airport, leaving me with my handbag and what I stood up in.

What I was actually standing up in, just about, was a pair of supposedly made-to-measure, authentic cowboy boots from a specialist shop. It was my first time of wearing them and in spite of my companion’s warning that they would still need ‘breaking in’ I insisted that they would be fine and it was easier than trying to squeeze them into my packed bags.

I had enjoyed a fabulous time catching up with my cousins and everyone. They lived in a rural area of open countryside where everyone rode horses. Well, not me, of course not but it was the normal thing for my family. I blended in with my attire of jeans and checked shirts and kept smart trousers and skirts for evenings out sampling local restaurants – local was about 20 miles away – and going to the nearest shopping mall, the same distance.

I bought more jeans and checked shirts, cheap compared to the UK at the time. I really wanted some proper cowboy boots and was delighted when a friend of my cousins recommended a boot maker close to a saddlery and tack shop that they were visiting and offered to take me. It was perfect. Measurements were taken, leathers and suede chosen and payment made, while the middle-aged gentleman was fascinated by my English accent and kept me talking. I was treated like a princess. He would do his best to have them ready before I returned home otherwise he would send them parcel post to the UK at his own expense. At twenty-five, I was impressed by the celebrity status he gave me. It was excellent timing and I collected them a couple of days before my homeward journey began.

With more stuff than I realised and bags packed, I decided to wear the boots rather than try to fit them into my luggage. They were slightly tight with new-ness. Also, I thought I might be glad of them in New York, where it was freezing and the weather forecast expected snow, unlike the more spring-like climate in Virginia. My uncle, who was to accompany me, voiced concerns about it being a long day in the wrong footwear and I needed something comfortable. There would be no opportunity to change until I arrived at Heathrow. I’d be fine, really. If only I had been fine.

We left Virginia for a very early flight from Washington D.C. to La Gardia, New York.  My luggage was transferred to JFK and we went to Manhattan. In the icy wind I shuffled through busy streets, almost falling backwards to see the sky above the giant buildings. I spent ages at the top of the Empire State Building, looking down at the roads I’d been looking up from. It might have still been the tallest building at that time. I tried not to let the agony from my feet spoil my day.

Yes, I really was an idiot abroad. An idiot trying to walk in New York with my feet absolutely killing me and me insisting that it was my legs and not my feet that were hurting, rather than admit to my uncle that he was right.

To make matters worse, my flight was delayed due to a late arriving connection from snowbound Chicago. I suffered the boots until I was on the plane then off they came.

I didn’t wear them again, but kept them for ornamental purposes and as a reminder of the importance of comfortable shoes.

 

One of my favourite poems, Home Thoughts, From Abroad

 

Oh, to be in England

     Now that April’s there,
     And whoever wakes in England
     Sees, some morning, unaware,
     That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
     Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
    While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
     In England – now!

 And after April, when May follows,

      And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
      Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
      Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
      Blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge –
      That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
      Lest you should think he never could recapture
     The first fine careless rapture!
     And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
     All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
     The buttercups, the little children’s dower
     Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

             Robert Browning  1812 - 1889

 

     Thanks for reading, Pam x

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