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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Worrying about Epigrams and Epigrams about Worrying

I have to confess that when I opted to do a guest blog this week I got my epigrams and my epitaphs in a bit of a twist.  There I was, all ready to write about what I’d have on my gravestone, what my mum wants on hers and what we inscribed on my dad’s newly installed bench in the local park. Now, dear reader, sadly you will never know. It was only because I started thinking the word didn’t sound quite right to this old and muddled brain that I googled it.  Just in time.

So……..Epigrams.

I’ve always been a worrier. My dad was a worrier, my mum is a worrier, one brother is but the other not so much. All my children are worriers, to various degrees. I worry about them worrying, and they worry about me worrying.  Our lives are one big wheel of worry.  The thing is, our worries are all different, generally individual and pertinent only to the worrier.  One person’s worry can be someone else’s ‘no probs.’  How I would like to be one of those people, like my other half, who sails through life without a care in the world. To him, my worries are often ridiculous, "but, what if...." kind of worries.  Even I know I'm ahead of myself but I can't seem to help it.  I do wonder if it comes with having a vivid imagination.  Whenever anybody is late home, or I hear of an accident within ten miles of where they are, before I know it I've already planned their funeral music and bought myself a black coat.

I remember, many years ago when I was about twelve, confiding in my dad that I was worried about something. Now, dad was usually pretty good at listening and trying to solve anybody’s problems. He would always offer support, either in the form of a letter (I still have several of these, in a drawer next to my bed, from various problematic times of my life. It seems there were quite a few, but his advice was always practical, thoughtful and relevant) or financial (there were a few of those back ups too). On a couple of rare occasions (under my mum’s influence, I’m sure) the two of them actually turned up on my doorstep: once when I was seventeen and working the summer season in Devon I had sobbed down the phone that I was homesick. By the time they arrived in Seaton the following day I was absolutely fine, and if I remember rightly, was found lying on the beach in a bikini, eyeing up boys, giggling with my friend and eating ice cream; the second time it really was a problem - I was going through a very bad period of depression - and I welcomed them with open arms. 

Anyway, back to my twelve year old self. I don’t remember what the worry was but I do remember my dad dismissing it fairly rapidly, ‘That’s nothing,’ he told me, ‘that’s not a big worry.’  I remember feeling a bit hurt that my problem had been waved away so casually. I went up to my bedroom, still thinking about it.  I understood that the worry was irrelevant to my dad, but I knew it was huge to me.  I marched downstairs and confronted him. 

‘There are no big or small worries,' I blurted out, 'a worry is as big as you think it is.’ 

I’m not sure if this is an epigram but fifty five years have passed and I do try to be sympathetic to other people's worries, however small and insignificant they appear to be.  Of course, there's always an exception to the rule.  I'm afraid my other half gets short shrift for football, Emmerdale or Coronation Street worries.  After all, he, himself has been a worry to me for forty odd years.  He needs to realise that worry is a lot bigger than a lost match or a missed episode.  

Or is it?  I'll have to ask him.

 

I went looking for my worry dolls.  I must be bad - I have two sets.

Looking for an epigram poem to go with this post, I came across the following which I thought was quite appropriate.

Sir I admit your general rule
That every poet is a fool
But you, yourself, may serve to show it
That every fool is not a poet.

Samuel Coleridge

Thanks for reading, and happy worrying....... Jill Reidy

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