Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Did I dream this? Does anyone else remember?

102 replies

OldEnoughToHaveReadBunty · 30/08/2022 23:55

I first joined MN 12 years ago (have had maybe 4 accounts since due to changing e-mail addresses etc).

Back then, did DS12 mean my 12 year old son or my 12th born son? I'm absolutely convinced it was the latter.

Somehow over the years, and I'm not sure how, the number seems to have morphed into the age.

Just returning to MN after a gap & it's really noticeable.

OP posts:
MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 31/08/2022 08:06

You're right OP, I remember it like that too.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 31/08/2022 08:06

MumofSpud · 31/08/2022 08:03

I still have a Twinkle from 1976 - loved it!

Show quote history

Nurse Nancy 🤣

PermanentTemporary · 31/08/2022 08:08

I've been on MN since 2004 and I think the change to it meaning age most if the time happened around 2016. Must be Bowie70 dying that did it

We only had Just 17 in the sixth form common room but thank goodness we did as it was the only good quality sex education I ever got. I had Jackie annuals from jumble sales but didn't have the cash to buy them otherwise.

Louise0701 · 31/08/2022 08:10

I still write DS1 & DS2. They’re 5 & 3,

EluneBePraised · 31/08/2022 08:13

Does anyone else remember the Bunty, Judy etc Picture Story Library books? I've bought a couple of the 80s ones via ebay, perfect nostalgia!

User354354 · 31/08/2022 08:30

ThatsRoughBuddy · 31/08/2022 00:05

Yes, we'd write DS2(7) to indicate second son who is 7. No idea why it changed.

This is how I would write it

Arnaquer · 31/08/2022 08:32

OP this has been confusing me too. I joined in about 2003. Took a bit of a break and recently returned and thought some people must have some huge families!

FlibbertyGibbitt · 31/08/2022 08:40

Yes buuuutttttt… Bunty had cut out paper fashion dolls on the back page. I had loads at my gran’s house. Was gutted when they got thrown away ( must have been 14🤣) …. Misses point of thread

maddiemookins16mum · 31/08/2022 08:46

Hated Bunty (The Four Marys), much preferred Mandy.

WeDoNotTalktoPennilynLott · 31/08/2022 08:49

Yes! When it first started morphing I had terrible trouble with it, DD14 and was thinking "You have 14 children? Wow" 😂

MatildaJayne · 31/08/2022 08:59

I think new posters just misunderstood the birth order nomenclature and just thought everyone was writing about their young children, DS1 being 1, DS2 being 2 and DS3 being 3 etc. They probably had a similar concerns that you’d had your DC very close together! My DS1 is 25 now, so it would make for strange reading if you thought he was a 1yo.

MatildaJayne · 31/08/2022 09:01

I had Bobo Bunny comic back in the late 1960s. Beano, Dandy and the delight that was Look and Learn.

Freedomfighters · 31/08/2022 09:11

watcherintherye · 31/08/2022 00:41

Does anyone remember June and Schoolfriend?

Yes. I remember being given a bundle of these as a child. I loved them.

FlibbertyGibbitt · 31/08/2022 09:15

MatildaJayne · 31/08/2022 09:01

I had Bobo Bunny comic back in the late 1960s. Beano, Dandy and the delight that was Look and Learn.

Wowzers forgot Bobo Bunny ! 🤣

MrsLargeEmbodied · 31/08/2022 09:23

yes and i was pulled up on it i believe.
confusing because dd is second born

HaveringWavering · 31/08/2022 09:39

maddiemookins16mum · 31/08/2022 08:46

Hated Bunty (The Four Marys), much preferred Mandy.

Me too. I never got on with Bunty. There was a character in it who used to say "Natch' all the time and it frustrates me that I couldn't find it in the dictionary. It was slang for "Naturally" I found out years later.

Mandy had Angel, a lady who went round Victorian streets with a lamp doing Good Deeds, Valda, a sort of Xenia Warrior Princess Superheroine who needed a green crystal to recharge her powers and usually some sort of horse-based character.

Mandy Annual at Christmas was a huge highlight! I used to love visiting the older girls next door who had Mandy annuals from before I was born.

Was it Twinkle that had Shona and her Sheepdog Sam?

Between Mandy and Jackie I used to get Suzy, which was a pre-teen transition one to first photo stories. I once got a letter published in it and received £5 and a T-Shirt saying "I'm a Choozy Suzy Fan".

TheSoundOfMucus · 31/08/2022 09:47

I have all the 70s and 80s annuals still - Bunty, Mandy, Judy, Girl and Misty! Some From when I was a child and more recently purchased from EBay! I re read them every year or so!

HaveringWavering · 31/08/2022 09:47

EluneBePraised · 31/08/2022 08:13

Does anyone else remember the Bunty, Judy etc Picture Story Library books? I've bought a couple of the 80s ones via ebay, perfect nostalgia!

Yes! I had a lovely Great Aunt who had no children of her own and she always brought me one when she visited, or would sometimes post them to me. I lovingly curated my library of them. They were extended stories of the characters in the comic, or new standalone ones, right?

AlexandriasWindmill · 31/08/2022 10:55

Valda! I always remembered her as Velda - I loved her stories. I really loved the way they were illustrated too.

I remember the girl who gave away all her siblings and then died. Also one where the parents were killed in a car crash but the girl survived because she had bent down into the footwell to pick up her doll. I spent years wondering if that would work.

Thinking about all the sad (Mandy and Bunty) and ghostly horror stories (Misty) - if those comics were produced now, they'd be covered in trigger warnings!

ShirleyPhallus · 31/08/2022 10:57

Missmarps · 31/08/2022 00:03

My grandad used to take me to the shop to buy Mandy and a 10p mix for a treat sometimes after picking ne up from school 😁

Your granddad used to buy you drugs??!

JestersTear · 31/08/2022 12:32

@MumofSpud No that wasn't it, although I can completely see why you got nightmares from it!
Mine was something about a girl just generally being nasty, I think. I have managed to forget the details, thank goodness.

Snazzysausage · 31/08/2022 12:44

I'm never sure which it means,age or birth order so the posts don't always make sense to me until I've re read them. I'm old enough to have had the Twinkle comic and was in the Twinkle club with a badge and everything!

HaveringWavering · 31/08/2022 14:06

AlexandriasWindmill · 31/08/2022 10:55

Valda! I always remembered her as Velda - I loved her stories. I really loved the way they were illustrated too.

I remember the girl who gave away all her siblings and then died. Also one where the parents were killed in a car crash but the girl survived because she had bent down into the footwell to pick up her doll. I spent years wondering if that would work.

Thinking about all the sad (Mandy and Bunty) and ghostly horror stories (Misty) - if those comics were produced now, they'd be covered in trigger warnings!

Gosh I don't remember any of those! Just Victorian orphans, horses and superheroes. Maybe a boarding school tale or two.

Off to eBay to find a Mandy Annual now!

QuebecBagnet · 31/08/2022 14:09

12th born.

BertieBotts · 31/08/2022 14:13

I didn't even notice it had changed Blush I had noticed people use DD8 etc sometimes for age but I didn't realise that had become the main usage.

I had a ten year gap between DS1 and 2 so it was very very strange and lovely to change from writing DS, as I had done for approx a decade on here to writing DS1, even before DS2 was born.