Reading comics and magazines in my youth

Judy and Bunty comics. Later on Jackie was my favourite.

Enid Blytons 'Famous five' book were much loved by me and my friends. We used to spend all day outside acting out the stories in the fields and woods. Soggy sandwiches and lashings of lukewarm squash kept us going.

Oh happy days !

Princess comic and later The Romeo also used to read my Mums Weekend and Reveille

My dad used to buy us Topper, Beano and Dandy when we were little. Later I graduated to Bunty. I also used to love reading his Revellie and Tit Bits.

I progressed from Robin to Girl and when at boarding school was allowed to have Look and Learn - yawn, boring - I didn't want to look and learn. I wanted racier publications like Bunty! I once went on a riding holiday for 'Gels' which was organised through the Girl comic

I wasn't allowed comics and had to put up with "Look and Learn". Sadly it didn't make me any cleverer. It wasn't until I was earning my own money, (from my Saturday job in Woolworths) that I bought "Jackie".

I read all the "Famous Five" books.

Mum had "Woman's Weekly" which I used to read occasionally.

I had "Girl" (Belle of the Ballet!) and "School Friend". I remember being told that I sould read the "Children's Newspaper" ( or something) and it was so, so worthy and so, so boring!

Then, yes, "Valentine" with the pull out centre folds of Elvis, or Vliff, or Billy Fury which my mother wouldn't let me pin up on my bedroom walls, which everyone else was allowed to do.

And I read, and read, and read. Every Enid Blyton, every Elinor Brent-Dyer - remember the "Chalet School" books? And those ones about ballet - "so and so at the Wells"!

Then I graduated to those prolific but gripping (for a thirteen year old) historical novels - Jean Plaidy and co. Looked at one recently and shuddered, but they were good stories. Oh, and "Forever Amber" which was quite racy..

Then my English teacher gave me the keys to the English stockroom, because I read very fast and she recognised I needed more than the class novel. And thence my career in English! (And my ability to go on, and on about books. Sorry!)

Ariadne that was the story of my reading life too! Those historical novels taught me so much about everything!
I find it hard to read now just can't seem to get going.

I am another Girl reader, my brother had the Eagle. As stated in the 'snob' thread, my mother was one, and she wouldn't allow us to read the trashy comics. I made sure my daughters had no restrictions, so they chose Whizzer and Chips (known to us as Chizzer and Whips). I am not a magazine reader myself, prefer the Screwfix catalogue - oh how those neat pack of nails, tools etc make me want them!

I loved School Friend and my sister loved Girl. We also had Dandy, Beano and Topper. Then later on Jackie or anything with pictures of the Beatles in them. My brothers liked Eagle.

At my boarding prep. school we were only allowed The Eagle, probably because it was edited by a clergyman (although I learned later that his behaviour towards female members of staff was far from saintly).

Then the son of the artist who drew Captain Condor on the front page of The Lion joined the school, and that had to be allowed, and after that it was downhill all the way.

My Oxford college JCR was still taking The Eagle in the mid-sixties.

Girl, School Friend and Children's Newspaper. Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series, plus all the usual Enid Blyton and Elinor Brent-Dyer books. Later, Georgette Heyer's Regency romances, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and the entire contents of my parents' bookcase.

I might have guessed, anno!!

Anybody got the "readly" magazine app? Don't want to launch and advertisement, but I do like it.

I adored Enid Blyton and my mum used to buy me a little magazine written by her that was titled 'Sunny Smiles'. ( I think!) Mum ordered Look and Learn for me as it was 'educational' and I am ashamed to say that I used to pretend to read it! I also read Bunty and Judy which my mum loved too; she especially liked the Four Marys and tried to encourage me to continue receiving it even though I had moved on to Jackie and Petticoat. I lived for the days that Jackie and Petticoat were delivered with the newspapers. Grandad used to buy me a Bounty or Crunchie on those days so it was sheer bliss!

Teddy Bear comic, featuring Teddy Bear and his family (I think he had both sets of forebears (ha ha sorry), and also featuring Paddy Paws the Puppy AND Walter Hottle Bottle... (As per Jings in other thread).

Also Bunty, Judy, Jackie.

Books - many, including Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine Series.

Another one who read Bunty, Judy and Jackie here and as a young child (taken on weekly trips to the library), I would always get Hans Christian Anderson or The Brother's Grimm books out to read. At the age of 16, I switched to Dennis Wheatley books - not sure what happened there

Girl, School Friend, Girls Crystal, were my favourites. Before that was Dandy and Beano. I loved Dennis the Menace and Beryl the Peril. Rupert Bear. Going back even further I remember Enid Blyton's Sunny Stories and also the very small Mary Mouse booklets- Here Comes Mary Mouse; Mary Mouse and the Dolls House, Here Comes Mary Mouse again. Oh dear..
But thanks to them I did learn to read!

I used to love School Friend and have memories of a Free Gift, very exciting in those days, I think it was a very tinny charm bracelet.
I too used to read incessantly and just loved E Nesbit, without any realisation that she was Edwardian. My theory is that good children's books can be read at any age, whereas less accomplished authors make you cringe when you reread them as an adult. Anyone ever tried Enid Blyton in later life? Yuc!

Robin, Bunty,Beano, Jackie.
I always envied more up market friends who had Rupert annuals and, as an adult, I started collecting them. I have lapsed a bit in recent years but did buy an old one in a box of oddments from an auction recently.

Oh! Mary Mouse!! and at my Aunts house in one of her dining room cupboards were comic books with Felix the cat - written during the 20's and 30's I think. Also can any one remember the artist who wrote young children's books just before the war? The characters were fat chubby little souls very characteristic of the artist - I am not explaining it very well but they were lovely. Very collectable now.

All the entries above brings back wonderful memories

As I got older I got books from the local penny library they were a bit racey and I can't remember what they were called but they were set in France and it largely centred on the heroine and the affairs she had with various aristocrats Oh! I know "Angelique" I thought them very rude at the time which of course why I found them so good.

Lucy Attwell!!!

Mabel Lucie Attwell

Dandy, Beano, Schoolfriend, the Enid Blyton Magazine, and later on, in my teens, Reveille and Valentine. My brother read Eagle, and hubby`s mother had to buy it until the last of her sons married and left home.........aged 32!

Am I the only person who enjoyed Look and Learn? Topper was one of my favourites and my parents liked a lot of the cartoons in it. I originally started with Robin and then moved on to Swift and later Girl. Usually had the Dandy and Beano too. When not reading comics I devoured every pony book known to man.

I spent all my summer holidays at my grandma's in Devon when I was a child and vividly remember the summer activities organised by the Robin/Girl/Eagle comics on Exmouth beach. I do not know whether this happened in other seaside resorts, but remember the kind lady saying "Come along all the little Robins!" I loved it.