Take a Break magazine - guess the story.

[GrapevineFires]

My mum used to buy it weekly. I haven't read one since my teens, but I had the urge this week to do some of the puzzles. I had forgotten all about the sensational, misleading headlines.

This week's cover headline: "Mum wanted a baby so she took my TWIN GIRLS. Only ONE came home ALIVE" (Capital words all TAB).

What do you think actually happened?

Anyone got any other 'gripping' headlines with a very different story?

'In time, I had some news for him.' That always meant a pregnancy.

One thing I've noticed is that everyone is either really pleased for a new couple or dead set against them.
There is never ambivalence

OH and I would try to get through thew puzzles in record time, I think our best was 11 minutes, I rarely read the 'stories'. Has anyone ever won anything from TAB?

I won £10 on two occasions and £50 once. I obviously 'shrieked to my fella' when I got the letter.

I was given £50 by TaB for a picture of my nephew that they published in their pictures page (I was 18). I always meant to send in a picture every couple of months to cash in but never got round to it again.

Top Tips is the best bit of the mag. There's been some real classics!

1 - slippers made from sanitary towels
2 - Dinner party treats made from frozen toothpaste
3 - tampons as halloween decorations

The stuff of legend!

@ReallySpicyCurry

I dread to think . I had so many questions that I couldn't ask !

Has anyone mentioned the infamous slippers yet?

A mother in my DD’s primary school class did a tell all for one of these magazines - she’d left her ( admittedly dull ) husband for a passion that could not be restrained. Her husband worked on the fish counter at Waitrose and Mr New And Exciting worked in the bakery of another supermarket. He could have been the twin of the DH ( which would have made the story a bit more exciting) - instead it just looked like she had a thing for boring looking men in white catering hats.

Her daughters were absolutely mortified by publication - it was the elephant in the room ( wearing a white hat) at many a school event for ages.

Dear God, the sanitary towel slippers! Surely, unless you were living in abject poverty, on the bare one-off your arse, you'd just get a pair from Primark for a few quid. I mean how bad can things be?

I'm imagining Cathy from Leeds fashioning that pair of 'nice, fluffy' slippers as an act of pure passive aggression after receiving a less than pleasing pair from her family and wanting them to know how pissed off she was about it but then ending up really impressed with herself (why am I thinking so much about this?!)

@FredaFrogspawn

I loved the top tips. Especially the woman who made slippers out of sanpro.

Thank you!! Couldn't believe I was half way through this thread and no-one had mentioned the millions of uses for sanitary towels!

Those slippers were query ten or more years ago and yet enough of us were scarred by it to remember. And someone still has the clip. Bet none of u recall the lady who used unwanted slippers as sanitary towels...

Bet none of u recall the lady who used unwanted slippers as sanitary towels...

Dear God, the sanitary towel slippers! Surely, unless you were living in abject poverty, on the bare one-off your arse, you'd just get a pair from Primark for a few quid. I mean how bad can things be?

Or indeed just do without. No one died of hypothermia by having chilly toed

I remember a tip sent to ‘Chizzy’ in Love It! which suggested putting sanitary towels on your hips to create Shakira type curves

There was definitely a period in the 1990s where the cover of TaB alternated "I thought I had CANCER...but it was a BABY! with "I thought I was pregnant...but it was CANCER!".
Tbf, this was also how I learned potentially lifesaving info about how ovarian cancer presents, so good on them.

(I have not personally had to put said info into practice, but it seems like the sort of thing that everyone should know about)

"I lost 20 STONE and found LOVE": She dumped her man and got married to someone else

Or indeed just do without. No one died of hypothermia by having chilly toed

I used to live in a house with no heating to speak of in the kitchen. I used to spend all winter with chilblains on my toes due to a lack of slippers.
That said I just bought some slippers.

Haha I saw that headline when I was covering for the news and mags guy at work today. Didn't read it as I knew what it would actually be. I'm a sucker for reading articles like that and I swear I am going to get into trouble at work for reading them instead of putting them on the shelves one day 😂😂

@ReallySpicyCurry

I quit my job as a bingo teller so Dave worked all hours, providing for me and our triplets, LelliKelli, 4, and Rekjavik, 2.5. So I wasn't suspicious when he said he had to work that Saturday.

"I'll get that carpet slotted right in, good and hard" he said "Keep some of that takeaway for me, eh love"

I suspected nothing as I plated up his chicken balls and texted my best friend Val, 59, inviting her round for some cheeky fizz and a giggle. But Val didn't reply. That wasn't like her, I wondered

My favourite TAB story ever was the mum whose adult son made her stand in a bucket of water to change a lightbulb and ordered her to go to Skegness for a Crest toothbrush. Worthy of Viz.

just looked like she had a thing for boring looking men in white catering hats. Her daughters were absolutely mortified by publication - it was the elephant in the room ( wearing a white hat) at many a school event for ages.

That has given me a proper laugh, thanks!

Surely the "Top Tips" are made up by staff to see how far they can push it.

At least, I hope so. Otherwise there really are people out there who think it's ok to wear sanitary towels as slippers

I haven’t read TaB in ages, it was at its zenith up to about 2012 then went too far down the violence road (‘my fella held me at knifepoint on Christmas Eve’) as opposed to ‘my sister was marking my husband’s card whilst I was at the bingo’ stories, which are my favourite.

However, I remember being entertained by a page they used to have called ‘My Operation’. Not that I ever read the stories, and nor was I laughing at the unfortunate subjects of the operations.

No, it was because the magazine became a proxy for the elderly neighbour or friend of your mother’s who likes to stop you in the street and tell you, unasked, at great length, about her operation whilst you are expected to stand there for 20 minutes going, “ooh” or “that sounds painful” etc.

So I think that the ‘My Operation’ page was devised solely to provide an outlet to this type of old lady. If so, it provided an excellent service to people like me.

Oooh and I've just remembered the top tip of putting your shopping in an old pair of tights! That was years ago but still makes me laugh at the image of potatoes stretching the nylon.