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iisn't it a wonder that any of us brought up on Bunty and Jackie turned out vaguely feminist.

64 replies

hatwoman · 15/09/2009 10:23

free in the Guardian on Saturday and today. I'm still in shock. The pathetic look that we should use at the disco to bring out the protective instincts in boys; and the story today of the deeply misguided Mrs Ponsonby who wanted to turn her little girl into a boy. on the one hand it's no wonder that I felt deeply inadequate for not having a boyfriend aged 12 but on the other hand I guess I turned out ok in the end...

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TheBalladofGayTony · 15/09/2009 10:25

bunty - designed to nurture the victim inside all of us.

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hatwoman · 15/09/2009 10:27

yes - I remember spending rather too much of my childhood being a cruelly treated housemaid/adopted daughter/poor person

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LadyGlencoraPalliser · 15/09/2009 10:30

Unbelievable isn't it. And while I was nurturing my Cinderella fantasies with the aid of Bunty, Judy etc, my brother was refighting the second world war courtesy of Warlord.

TheBalladofGayTony · 15/09/2009 10:31

do they still do warlord?

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 15/09/2009 10:32

I'm guessing not. But you can still get those mini comic books about the second world war in Smiths.

duelingfanjo · 15/09/2009 10:33

I was a Jinty and Misty reader. Much more my kind of thing. I steered well away from anything like Bunty!

TheBalladofGayTony · 15/09/2009 10:34

i was only allowed the bunty - my evil mother would not let me have the glamourous comics.

SolidGoldBrass · 15/09/2009 10:35

Oh bugger, am sorry I missed that freebie, would have been fascinated.

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hatwoman · 15/09/2009 10:35

I like the comment from one of the Marys. Having been told she's "super with kids" she replies "advantage of being what Mabel calls utterly working class. We have to look after our own children." my my how far we've come...

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TheBalladofGayTony · 15/09/2009 10:35

i thought photo stories where just FANTASTIC but i was stuck with crappy drawing of parlour maids looking sad in attic rooms

admylin · 15/09/2009 10:36

I used to read Misty and was very upset when they stopped/merged it, went straight on to Smash Hits.

hazeyjane · 15/09/2009 10:39

I was a comicaholic when i was little, Bunty, Tammy ,Jinty,Commando, Misty, Warlord, Victor, Jackie, My Guy, Starsky and Hutch and John Travlota fanzines . I was truly obsessed,I joined all the fanclubs, and a lot of my games revolved around being one of The Four Marys, or other totally un seventies character (everything in Bunty seemed to exist in a world stuck between the 30's and 50's)

My favourite character of them all was Bella the cockney gymnast (Tammy I think?), I guess at least she was a pretty feisty heroine.

Sadly her outfit of turned up dungarees and bunches influenced my 'look' for far too long

Rindercella · 15/09/2009 10:40

My mother used to write stories for Misty

I was seriously freaked once though when she used my sister and my names for one of her tales!

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 15/09/2009 10:44

Commando! That's what those mini-books are called! My brother had stacks of them.
I used to get Judy. My friends and I all got different mags and then we would swap them. Misty was the one the mothers looked on with suspicion - how glamorous to have a mother who actually wrote for it!

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hatwoman · 15/09/2009 10:44

I used to get Bunty and then aged about 10 (?) started agitating for something more grown up. I can remember going to the newsagent with mum whilst she checked Jackie out, desperately praying she'd say ok. I do remember being incredibly excited each week when Bunty arrived - because the stories carried on from one week to the next I couldn;t wait to read it.

dd used to like the Guardian comic on Saturdays - she was really annoyed when they stopped it.

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angelene · 15/09/2009 10:53

I was reading the Jackie supplement last night and it was really dreadful - especially an ad for Anne French cream about a girl who was 'always the bridesmaid' until she started using said product, whereupon she was fighting them off with a shitty stick and she became a 'beautiful bride'.

The Cathy & Claire advice about going to discos and using the less popular and less attractive boys to build up your confidence and get the good looking popular ones flocking was incredible.

And it was only 1975!! It was like something out of the 50s!

Pyrocanthus · 15/09/2009 10:55

DD1 was extremely unimpressed with Jackie, but DD2 read the 1980 Beano which was in the Observer and said, 'Can we get this every week, it's only 8p'.

She loved the Guardian comic too.

duelingfanjo · 15/09/2009 11:01

"I used to read Misty and was very upset when they stopped/merged it, went straight on to Smash Hits. "

Did they merge Jinty and Misty and then Tammy before joining tammy with Girl? I remember when Jinty disappeared and I spent almost a whole day going from newsagent to newsagent on a fruitless search. I managed to hold of a load of old issues on ebay a year or so ago

EvilEdnasTwinSister · 15/09/2009 11:02

Ah the days of my youth, I used to read Bunty then Tammy. Finally managed to persuade mum that Jackie and Just 17 were OK.

God knows that took long enough (you know she was checking for "unsuitable content "- etc). Looking back now though the advice columns were priceless!!

IdrisTheDragon · 15/09/2009 11:08

I got my Bunty today and am looking forward to reading it later .

I won two Bunty competitions - one got me a wildlife poster and the other was Mike Read's Pop Quiz Game

Mybox · 15/09/2009 11:10

There waere lots of good mags

Remotew · 15/09/2009 11:13

I remember Bunty for the cut out clothes with tabs. Did read Jackie, but had a subscription to 'Pink' anyone remember this?

TBH my DD has bought Sugar and it's obsessed with Boys so not much has changed.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 15/09/2009 11:20

I moved from Judy to Jackie and then on to Fab208 - anyone remember that one? My bedroom walls were covered in posters from Fab208 - mostly of the Boomtown Rats and John Travolta, I seem to recall.

ginnny · 15/09/2009 11:31

Does anyone remember GIRL magazine. I remember my dad bought me a copy once (it had a free heart shaped lip gloss on the cover, which was unusual back then) and my Mum censored it and banned me from reading it again
I'd love to get hold of a copy now to see what the fuss was about.

Bucharest · 15/09/2009 11:35

Roffling at the idea that Jinty might be the more glamorous version of Bunty! My best friend had Jinty because her mother didn't want her "going mad on clothes" from the cut out dolls on the back of Bunty....

I went from Bunty, to Debbie (which I believe then merged with some weird pre-Harry Potter/Buffy thing called Spellbound) to Jackie and Blue Jeans (which I had to buy myself as my mother loathed the idea of denim even in paper form) I did get a lip gloss free once with something called Melanie which told you how to decorate your bedroom with second hand knick-knacks and to buy Aqua Manda perfume to get a husband.