Would you expect to see a People’s Friend annual 1998 in an expensive holiday home?

[ThePieceHall]

As per the title, DD2 and I are staying in an expensive holiday home on the coast in North Yorkshire. The bookshelf is the tiredest and saddest I have ever seen. There is actually a People’s Friend annual from 1998. The weather has been glorious and we have been on the Blue Flag beach for hours every day so we have not had to open the really tired and dated jigsaws. Thankfully. Would I be unreasonable to point out to the hosting company that a little bit of investment and a little bit of respect for paying holidaymakers would not go amiss?

@Pyew do you think that’s the case ? I’m very disappointed, but at least the dog is innocent and pure.

I thought it was all innocent too until I realised there's only one set of footprints and I began extrapolation from there.

Now this sounds like my sort of magazine. The Whitby Gazette?

Quite.

Looking these up. Were these on a par with Jackie magazine? Mine used to be confiscated by my physics teacher on a regular basis. As you may have guessed, I did not enjoy physics lessons.

The dog is a banned XL bully type crossed with the DNA of Noel Edmonds.

You have the imagination to be able to write for The People’s Friend. Provided the dog is not GAY.

They were more stories focused on girls than teen romance IIRC.

The Four Marys is one I remember, so I must have had Bunty as well.

girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2013/03/the-four-marys/

Unless it was advertised as having a library, YABVU.

Despite not being the target demographic, I'm now invested in The Farmer and his Wife and what's waking John up every night. I'm thinking it could be prostate related since he's 80. I also want to know what Marjory is up to that requires the hurried application of lipstick and a quick hair brush, but that's another story. It literally is, it's the one underneath the John and Anne story...

Eh? Don't you take stuff you actually want to read with you?

If you've paid for a high-end place and the bathroom / oven / anything else that matters is from the last century and tatty, YANBU. But the bookshelf...?

I actually read Secret Diary of a Call Girl in a holiday let. It was never a book I would ever get myself but was quite tempting in the shelf on a relaxed holiday after we got in and when I’d be waiting for everyone else to get up. So yeah, maybe more easy reads and smut is the way to go.

Knowing how people are, anything decent probably got nicked.

love the stories in People's Friend. As a luxury holiday place maybe it is catering for adults and its probably older people who go there, not to mention not many people spend time reading, usually bring their own books or kindle.
For a lot of people a book like this is a memory trip and very enjoyable.
I also think re the jigsaw puzzles they are very expensive and you can be certain that people will lose pieces from them. They cannot really afford to keep renewing puzzles and also like I say pieces may be lost. Its only a stopgap for wet days after all

Bloody hell, decluttering a holiday cottage, talk about a bus man's holiday.

Do you pull the furniture out and vacuum behind it too? Deep clean the bathroom grout?

I’d enjoy it, even though the stories would probably all be rosy-tinted sweet. I have zero objection to old reading matter, as long as it’s not paperbacks falling to bits.

Only a few years ago I was delighted to find in a 2nd hand bookshop, the exact same SchoolFriend Pets Annual I’d been given for Christmas in 1959! I loved that book!

I used to love reading my mother’s peoples friend magazines. It would be a lovely thing to discover.

Sorry, but I think your attitude is ridiculous and it sounds a little entitled. I would love to have Ppl‘s friend annual from 1998 to read. I love a vintage book as to a lot of people Ppl and Ppl’s friend has really good stories! A lot of people also like to read on the beach. Don’t be so stuck up..

Just goes to show money and taste don’t go hand in hand. What did you want - a load of this year’s top ten morning tv paperback recommendations?! Maybe the owners assumed people might like something a little more individual and quirky- and as others have said , people often leave their books as well. I cannot get my head around anyone seriously moaning about old reading material and old jigsaws. You do know it’s not against the law to buy your own if you are so pernickity ? How sad that this boils down to how you judge a holiday !!

I would love that! If I want to read on holiday I take my own books but generally don't get chance/DC. Xx

Bloody love the bookshelves in holiday lets. In Tuscany last year there were dozens of them, mainly English.

I always leave a couple that I've brought and finished and take a couple with me.

Vintage or otherwise. It's the joy of a holiday.

Haha I wonder if they are their family feature in the magazine. Or else are they being retro. To be honest if the place is clean and well equipped it would not bother me. I bring my own books etc which I would stock the library with if I am finished reading

I love reading Readers Digests, old and new, but People's Friend is pushing it . 1998, that’s almost 30 years old, so the people who it was intended for are probably dead now! I’d probably look at it out of curiosity, after brushing the dust of.

If you’re whinging about something as petty as this, I can imagine you really suck the fun out of everything…

A decent selection of books is always a nice bonus, but then you've suggested that this should include cookery books? I'd rather read People's Friend annuals than cookery books on whilst on holiday.
I think the supplying of books for holiday-makers is becoming a thing of the past, sadly. Back in the day there would always be trashy novels on the bookshelves. I would never have read Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon, Sven Hassell, Dick Francis or Barbara Cartland had they not been on offer in holiday homes, let alone Flowers in the Attic! These days it's a decade's collection of Antiques and Country Homes magazines, and a couple of Arthouse glossies.