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What's your magazine history?

167 replies

Shetlands · 31/01/2025 10:59

Mumsnet has a wide age range so I was wondering which magazines have featured in your lives at various stages. I don't mean the magazines that you might pick up at the Dentist but which ones you have actually bought regularly. Here's mine:

Early 1960s - Bunty
Late 1960s - Petticoat
1970s - Cosmopolitan
1980s & 1990s - Good Housekeeping, Various House/garden mags
2000s onwards - Country Living, Ideal Home, Private Eye

OP posts:
Pinkfluffypencilcase · 31/01/2025 22:51

Husband’s Mens Health too

StormingNorman · 31/01/2025 22:52

WilfredsPies · 31/01/2025 12:46

Oh my God, I forgot Sky! There was an agony aunt, wasn’t there? An American called Karen and a really long surname. They always had brilliant photos and I’d use them to decorate my folders at school. I always had kids asking me where I’d got them from.

And Twinkle! How could I have forgotten Twinkle?!

Nobody ever remembers Sky! I loved it.

StormingNorman · 31/01/2025 22:58

80s/90s:
Smash Hits
Just 17
Sky

Late 90s onwards:
Vogue
Grazia
Tatler
The Economist
Vanity Fair
Town & Country

Now I rarely buy magazines but do still enjoy a proper paper on Sunday.

Interested in this thread?

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Greengagesummer65 · 31/01/2025 23:01

Twinkle
Bunty with the dressing up dolls on the back
Diana
Mandy
Didnt like Jackie, did like Fab 208
There was some careers magazine for women that I liked in the 80s, it was apparently ‘groundbreaking’ with women at suits at tables instead of in the office kitchen 😮
Cosmo in the 80s with Tom Crabtree and Irma Kurtz
Used to buy Prima for the free dressmaking patterns
A long love affair with the Hollyhocks and crumbles of Country Living, had several subscriptions
Happinez magazine, rather new age and Dutch, nice photography, it cheered me up

Have long liked a magazine although current offerings dismal. Simple Things quite nice, but the same old stuff being recycled over and over really. I sometimes take a deep breath and shell out for something fancy like Faire or Flow, which has recently started up its English edition again. Very expensive. I see them as special treats like good chocolate or something.

mothra · 31/01/2025 23:02

I'm Australian, but my mum had subscriptions for both my DB and I to get comics delivered from the UK, from the late 70s, for at least 10 years. They were delivered to our local newsagent. I loved it, it was a huge treat. I think they were delivered fortnightly. Sometimes the mail would be held up for ages, so you'd get a stack all at once. I started with a very kiddie one, it had The Magic Roundabout as the cover story, then went through the Beano, Dandy, Whizzer and Chips. But my favourite was Tammy, I adored it. I graduated to Girlfriend, which was my last UK comic. I then started getting an Australian magazine, Dolly.

OneWildNightWithJBJ · 31/01/2025 23:05

1980s - Bunty. Also Discovery, where you got something to make each month.
Late ‘80s/early ‘90s - Jackie, J17, Smash Hits
Mid ‘90s - More
Late ‘90s to 2000s - National Geographic, House Beautiful, wedding mags, photography magazines.

Haven’t bought any for years now. I did use to like reading magazines though.

Edited to add I forgot Fast Forward, but can’t remember how old I was. Think I was probably a bit old for it when it came out. Also used to get the Early Times, which was actually a newspaper, but for kids/teens. I wrote a few things for them as part of their press gang!

TheScottishPlay · 31/01/2025 23:06

1970s Twinkle
1980s Mizz, More and Just 17
1990s Cosmopolitan
2000/1 Every bridal magazine available
2000s Red, Elle, parenting magazines
2010s Country Living, Good Housekeeping
2020s Whatever takes my interest on Readly, especially Southern American states lifestyle mags

Isitasquid · 31/01/2025 23:08

@QuaterMiss
I too had forgotten about Diana! I went to reply originally to suggest Frank as your missing style mag. 1990s, great writing, stunning photography. I do miss that.

other than that our list would be almost identical!

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 31/01/2025 23:09

In present time -
I buy Good Housekeeping December edition for Christmas though I shouldn't as it the same old shite as the year before and the year before that .
"who will win the blind taste tests?" I ask myself and before I even find the page I know it is Aldi . Every bloody thing is Aldi .

I used to buy it every month until I read it through and realised its all just adverts and a few articles that don't interest me .

She - anyone remember this , late 90s .
Not a Cosmopolitan fan , never liked Red or Marie Claire .

As a teenager Just 17
Before that Blue Jeans /Jackie

Judystilldreamsofhorses · 31/01/2025 23:11

I’m 51. Love a magazine still. My “journey” was:

Twinkle
Blue Jeans - my friend got Jackie and we used to swap
NME
Cosmo/More
Shine/Red/New Woman/Elle/Marie Claire
Grazia/Closer
Woman and Home/Good Housekeeping via a neighbour

I still have Grazia and Red on subscription. Occasionally pick up W&H or GH.

Greengagesummer65 · 31/01/2025 23:12

Oh yes, She magazine! It was quite big wasn’t it? Not standard format. I really liked it. My mother knew someone in Australia and they sometimes sent the Aus edition over. In 1978 that was very thrilling ☺️ Haven’t thought about that for forty odd years!

HappyHappyy · 31/01/2025 23:16

Pollyanna87 · 31/01/2025 12:36

1990s - Girl Talk
2000s - Teen Vogue (US) and Elle Girl (UK and US), sometimes Seventeen (US). Borders was great for US magazines
Late 2000s to 2010s - British Vogue and Tatler

Elle Girl was brilliant

Ahhh so happy I spotted Girl Talk on this thread. This was one of my favourites too. Random, but I once entered one of their competitions and won a box of 12 Yoplait jungle tube yoghurts, a substantial win back then 🤩

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 31/01/2025 23:16

Also one called New Woman , it stopped around 1995 ish .

AlienAdvancedCivilisation · 31/01/2025 23:24

A relative used to buy these for our family

Beano
Whizzer & Chips

Once I had my own wages

Viz
Back Street Heroes
National Geographic
Comics with courful graphics (not super heroes)
Cookery

Recently

I have a couple of vintage ones with old graphics & adverts in them from 50s or 60s

Assorted various magazines from car boot sales, some have been given to me for free
I usually pass onto someone else to read

Pollyanna87 · 31/01/2025 23:26

HappyHappyy · 31/01/2025 23:16

Ahhh so happy I spotted Girl Talk on this thread. This was one of my favourites too. Random, but I once entered one of their competitions and won a box of 12 Yoplait jungle tube yoghurts, a substantial win back then 🤩

In one issue, they wrote that in the next issue there would be an article on the Titanic. Said article didn’t materialise, so I wrote a letter of complaint and received a response! 😂

coralsky · 31/01/2025 23:32

Great thread !
Smash hits
Just 17
Bliss
Sugar
Heat (urgh)
Grazia
Then stopped buying them around 2010

coralsky · 31/01/2025 23:36

What was the mag which had 'position of the fortnight'? I remember buying it as a teen... very weird

PickAChew · 31/01/2025 23:36

Starting in the 70s, sometimes more than 1 at a time.

Twinkle
Emma and Judy (not for long - started with Emma which merged with Judy and they repeated stories)
Jackie
Just 17
19
No1
New Scientist
Cosmo
Marie Claire - English or French if I could get it.
Company, briefly. Elle.
Prima

I've had subscriptions to various knitting and sewing magazines, British and the American Interweave plus delicious and good food.

I mostly read magazines online, now, via the library, and have an active subscription to the Aussie digital quilting magazine, Make Modern, but I did pick up a copy of the 75th anniversary Burda mag, today from the one remaining WHS in the area that still stocks it.

Kilroywashere · 31/01/2025 23:45

Bunty and Eagle
Kerrang
SFX
New Scientist

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 31/01/2025 23:51

Twinkle

Bunty/Judy

Jackie/Mates/Fab208/Blue jeans/My Guy

Look now ? - not sure of title but it was kind of in between the younger teen magazines and Company/.Cosmopolitan which I read late teens / 20s

In my 30s/40s/early 50s I read so many different magazines, glossies and weeklies plus all the diet and health ones - Woman / Woman's Own / Essentials / Prima / Good Housekeeping / Woman and Home / Red / Top Sante and probably loads more that I've forgotten the names of.

At some point I realised that for the price of a glossy mag I could buy a paper back which would last me a lot longer and stopped buying them. Now I just get Take a Break monthly on subscription.

Absoluteunit · 31/01/2025 23:55

Sugar
Just 17
Mizz
NME
Psychologies
New Scientist
BBC Good Food

CrushingOnRubies · 31/01/2025 23:55

coralsky · 31/01/2025 23:36

What was the mag which had 'position of the fortnight'? I remember buying it as a teen... very weird

Cosmopolitan?

Absoluteunit · 31/01/2025 23:56

coralsky · 31/01/2025 23:36

What was the mag which had 'position of the fortnight'? I remember buying it as a teen... very weird

I think it was Mizz?

Overratedpose · 31/01/2025 23:57

TheBoysAndTheBallet · 31/01/2025 11:02

I don't know anyone under the age of 70 who still buys magazines.

Really?? I'm in my 50's and love a magazine still. Red, Period Living, Breathe, Simple Things, Private Eye, New Scientist etc.

PickAChew · 31/01/2025 23:58

coralsky · 31/01/2025 23:36

What was the mag which had 'position of the fortnight'? I remember buying it as a teen... very weird

More
https://fionagibson.substack.com/p/remember-position-of-the-fortnight

Remember Position of the Fortnight?

Getting ourselves in a tangle...

https://fionagibson.substack.com/p/remember-position-of-the-fortnight