Cathy and Claire - Jackie magazine

[Redvelvet73]

Inspired by another thread.

Does anyone remember this advice column? Did anyone ever write to them and actually get their letter published? Always wondered if the letters were genuine.

I loved Jackie. I think it was delivered on a Wednesday and I first got it in summer 1976. There was a girl in a gingham shirt on the cover! Anyone remember “Dial Your Own Destiny”? It was a black booklet, white text I think (or maybe pink), that you cut out and put together yourself. You then used it to gain mystical insight - all tame stuff like does he fancy me. I loved that booklet, totally bought it - it was very well-used!

I'm another blonde who accidentally used toner and went pink. Frantic washing removed the worst of it. I had a Saturday job on the deli counter in Woolworths and half my class trooped in during the day to check out the rumour that I was sporting bright pink hair!

Didn't the author Jacqueline Wilson work for Jackie magazine when it first started?

That's pretty slack. With such a big readership you'd think they would have been more switched on to this sort of thing..🤔

I used to enjoy reading Patches too. Anyone remember that?

I bought the very first Just Seventeen. It had a plastic necklace on the front as a free gift .. a mouse on a piece of cheese

I read all of these including Mizz.

The photo stories were hilarious.

Going all the way was called getting it off, in my schooldays.

But so, somehow not too confusingly, was kissing.

Conversations went:

And then she got it off with him ...
What, really got it off?
No just got it off, you know ...
Not got it off got it off?
No but he wanted to ....

lol no..........
Cathy and Claire were never real. Just alliterative names for the purposes of the magazine.

I remember it. Never wrote in but obsessively followed all the advice.

Was 'A Reader's True Experience' a regular item too?

@Quinque yes Jacqueline Wilson worked at the publisher (DC Thomson) and worked on Jackie. The story is she was told that they were naming their new magazine after her - although she spells her name as Jacky.

I lived with someone who worked on Jackie for DC Thomson and she used to make up horoscopes for them. They used to have knitting patterns in them too and I would knit the one the model would wear. Got paid for it as well.

@Quinque although Jacqueline Wilson herself has said it is a bit of a myth and the name was just a coincidence.

Yes. I once won a competition in a different magazine and got a years supply. My mother was horrified 🙃

I loved Jackie magazine, and I was usually gifted the annuals for Christmas. I wrote to Cathy & Claire once but never received a reply 🥲 Does anyone remember that Leslie Ash was a regular cover girl?

My brother worked on Jackie for many years and for a time , one of my school friend's sisters wrote the replies to Cathy and Claire ( she then moved in to writing horoscopes)

God,I feel old!

My late Nan used to go to WH Smiths every week and buy it for me, roll it up with paper round the middle and send it to me. I think my sister had Twinkle. She did it for years. There's no way she looked inside at the content as she'd have been horrified 😂

Gosh I had forgotten about that ! I used to love it!

Surely someone on here had their story published?

Oh I remember that booklet - weren't there pictograms like little stars that you put your finger on after closing your eyes and waving your hand about a bit?

@Redvelvet73 I never had anything printed but I did write a letter to Bunty pointing out that in their cartoon about Bunty celebrating fireworks nights she was seen carrying fireworks in a cardboard box which is dangerous and against the Fireworks Code.
They sent a letter back saying I was correct and thanks for pointing it out 🙂
When Bunty stopped being published I wanted the last issue but missed it so I wrote to them again. Mostly to say I was sad they were going.
They replied again - with a copy of the final issue (I was 25 when the final issue was printed - they probably thought I was 10 of something 🤣).

The thing I always found amusing about Jackie and all their other magazines/comics is that their postal address was Fleet Street in London but it was actually published up in Dundee in Scotland.
DC Thomson do have an office in Fleet Street but I walked past its once and it looked really small.
In my imagination in the Jackie era days the staff was just one little old lady in there opening all the post and decideing what is worth sending up to Scotland 😂

I loved Bunty too. Especially "The Four Mary's". My sister used to get the Annual for Christmas.

Also liked Debbie, Twinkle and Girl magazines.

I still have a Twinkle annual 😂

Leslie Ash was the model they used ALL THE TIME for their covers. She was SO pretty.
I remember the ads for Ann French cleansing milk but it was years before I actually bought any. It smelt revolting. I saw some on sale relatively recently and bought a bottle, just for old times' sake.
My aunt and uncle featured in a My Guy photo story once. They were acting as concerned parents and it was photographed in their sitting room.

Yes I think so! I can still feel the excitement now, decades later, of getting the response you yearned for!