Reading comics and magazines in my youth

I was a tomboy so I loved 'Swift' which came between Robin and Girl. I cut my hair short because I wanted to look like Tarna the jungle boy.

I used to read my brother's Eagle comics and I loved Girl because of the historical stories on the back page. Gladys Aylward was my favourite. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness will always be one of my favourite films and The Small Woman is still on my bookcase.

Well I read the Victor , Hotspur Eagle and (can you remember?)the Buster like Andy Capp's grandson
. . . .and when I was a COOL LAD, I read Fab 208 !

A friend of my parents used to visit every Sunday morning for coffee and a chat. He always brought comics for my sister and me. I started with Robin, progressed through Swift (and that was a swift progression) and then on to Girl and School Friend. Eventually, I used to read the Young Elizabethan which included wonderfully funny and revealing articles about being a teacher by Edward Blishen. My ma would never allow the trashy stuff, although once or twice I did manage to buy and hide something pretty dire that I think was called Boyfriend. However, when I got my first job after leaving university, my father bought me a lovely briefcase. Inside was a copy of the Beano.

Starling I had forgotten all about Malcolm Saville. I bought one – called something like The Gay Dolphin Adventure, at a school jumble sale and was firmly hooked, getting all the remainder of the series out of the library.

I also remember being hooked on a series of stories about a theatrical family by, I think, Pamela Brown and was thrilled when I found one in a Christmas stocking, having, as before, got all the others out of the library. I also loved Noel Streatfield's ballet stories and Paul Gallico was another favourite author.

As soon as he got back from the War my DF bought us Dandy and Beano and the Mickey Mouse comic, which DS and I loved but I suspect they were bought more for him than us! We also got the Children's Newspaper, which I LOVED. I have always, generally, preferred fact to fiction. Later I read Girl, School Friend. Does anyone remember 'Honey', the first beauty/fashion magazine for teenagers. I read this from the start and loved it.

I was an omnivorous reader, it used to be said that I would read the back of a bus ticket (they were right). I loved any Enid Blyton book, and even though I had no interest in horses I loved the Pullein-Thompson books, Angela Brazil, anything, anything, anything, my nose was always in a book. But the book (and series) I fell in love with and changed my life was Swallows and Amazons and the rest. I desperately wanted to learn to sail. As soon as I went to university I joined the sailing club and as a result met DH.

By 11 I read a mix of children's books and classics. I had started on Jane Austen, the mad woman in Jane Eyre gave me nightmares and I started on John Buchan, D K Broster, and, of course, Georgette Heyer, I still love her books.

I started off with Jack and Jill comic when I was about five. I also loved my brothers Topper. I then went on to the Judy, loved the free gifts, especially the ballet cards you could collect. I also liked June and Schoolfriend. As a teenager I got Jackie and Romeo. At the same time I was reading mum's Woman, Womans Own and Womans Realm. I always loved magazines but sadly they've gone too trashy for me.

Bunty and Judy for me with occasional forays into my mother's Woman's Own. But oh how I loved the Chalet School! I just wanted to be there with them and drove my parents mad demanding to go to boarding school!! I also scared myself witless reading 'The Speckled Band' and 'Hound of the Baskervilles' under the bedclothes by torchlight!

Hmm....overuse of exclamation marks methinks.

I was a compulsive reader and I still am. Fortunately we lived very close to a public library and would visit every day if I could, as we could only borrow 2 books at a time!In the children's section they would have children's magazines in heavy celluloid covers for us to read. I can only recall "the young Elizabethan " and I got so well known to the librarian that he would let me have old copies. My personal favourites were Enid Blyton, especially Mallory towers! Also The Bobbsey Twins, about a family in Canada, they didn't take long to read!! School friend and Girl were early favourite comics. Also Sunny Stories and my mothers Woman's Weekly. The Readers Digest occasionally came my way, they were saved by me to read in bed, easy to handle!!
I would read any thing that I could get my hands on especially daily papers!! Sunday papers were great! My parents could not afford them, and I would collect them secondhand from neighbours! One of our neighbours had a daughter who was very keen on the cinema, and I would collect her old copies of Picturegoer to read! Many of the stories in News of the World, The People and Titbits were highly unsuitable but great for a 9 year old!
I still read when ever I can, either on my Kindle or regular books. Working my way through JR Tolkein and Elizabeth Jane Howard (a match made in Heaven!) at moment! Loved Miss Carters War, got better as it went on!

I`d forgotten about Photoplay, the film magazine, where I obtained all my information on the film stars. Talking about reading the Sunday papers, I can remember avidly devouring the News of the World reports about Christie, the murderer of Rillington Place, and my mother taking the paper off me, but too late!

How nostalgic reading the names of all the comics - I think I read them all as a child. Since I had an older sister and younger brother there were plenty to choose from. Like lots of gransnetters I was and still am an avid reader and I think my parents ran out of books for me. In those days where I was brought up, you couldn't join the public library until you were 8 and even then I remember it as being a very hushed and rather unwelcoming place. My parents bought me a subscription to Boots library (does anyone remember that?) and I used that until I was old enough for the 'big library'. I used to love staying with older cousins and reading their books and that's where I was introduced to Pamela Brown, Angela Brazil and lots of boarding school stories. Loved Enid Blyton - and Valbeasixties the little magazine was Sunny Stories as I still have some which were passed on to me having been bound into a hard cover.

Woman's Realm! Gosh, I haven't heard of that for years. My mother got it and made me several 'cut out and ready to sew' dresses from it. I particularly remember a really nice one which I ripped climbing over a barbed wire fence the first time I wore it.

I've just sent away for a film annual that [I think] I had as a child. The cover looks familiar anyway. I still remember the little gifts we sometimes had with Bunty [little Scottie dogs one year ].

Heidi and Heidi and Peter. Loved them. Envied Heidi her loft bedroom.

And yes I remember being frightened of the mad woman in Jane Eyre. Rochester also worried me.

I am sure we were more widely read than today's children - may have been lack of television and computers? But what glorious memories they are.

I did like the Beano and remember saving my copy to read in the "sidecar" on the way to a holiday in Scotland. (Ten hours on a bike and sidecar!)

I enjoyed "Judy" dropping through the letterbox. I always did the competitions to win a "leotard, hockey holdall or rolled gold locket and chain". I don’t think I ever won anything but I did win a knitting set from "The People's Friend" children's page.

I loved Look and Learn and still remember some of the science stuff in it.

Later on I liked "Petticoat". I always tried to make the clothes -a disaster usually!

I've got boxes full of old Beanos [before they changed to a more glossy paper]. I'm still thinking of things to do with them.

I loved Petticoat! The clothes and make up they showed always seemed to be affordable for a teenager and I got lots of ideas from it. My father brought home some silver lame left over from a window display and I used the Petticoat pattern to turn it into a cool little disco dress.

We were started on Chick's Own, and Playbox, then moved onto Mickey Mouse Weekly (2d). Later there were Radio Fun and Film Fun and Knockout. Then came Wizard, and other boys' copies of Hotspur, Adventure and Rover.

Dandy and Beano were in the mix somewhere too...

Did anyone buy the last ever edition of the Dandy? It went on sale last year I think. I was hoping it might be worth something in years to come.
My idea do a good investment!!

I had Twinkle and then Once upon a Time. It didn't run for that long but I've still got them all!!! Progressed to Jackie at 'big' school!!