STRANGE THINGS YOU USED TO READ

[Alleycat321]

I loved reading the residential telephone directory when I was young, looking up the names and address of people that I knew.

Also, my local residential street directory.

Also, local events’ programmes (summer fares/fetes).

Also, cereal boxes.

What about you?

Mills&boon as a teenager. I was obsessed

I used to read the Guardian Guide cover to cover when I was a teenager back in the 90s, all the cinema listings, the works. I still feel I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of mid90s films even though I didn’t see most of them. The Last Seduction, Croupier…ah.

I think Mumsnet is like a problem page and letter page. That's why I love it

Actually, I think you've hit the nail on the head there @ClemmyTine!

My grandmother was a doctor’s receptionist, so she would bring all the magazines from the waiting room home and collect them. Her whole house was full of piles of Bella, Best, Woman and Home, Woman’s Weekly, and Readers Digest.

I was quite puzzled by Readers Digest to be honest - a bit too American with that funny layout. I preferred the real life stories in Bella and Best, but would read Woman’s Weekly in a pinch (though that was quite boring and full of knitting patterns). I do credit much of my knowledge about Life to those magazines though. There is literally no problem in life I hadn’t read about somewhere in there 😆

I was also quite partial to an interesting mail order catalogue, and absolutely lived for the Webb Ivory one my school gave out at Christmas 🤣

Oh god yes, my mum had piles of these that she used to get from jumble sales and hide in the wardrobe. I was quite fascinated by the sex scenes, but quite disappointed later on that in real life it wasn’t quite the same (why was I not floating on clouds of ecstasy, lost on another plane of existence, ascending to the stars, etc. etc.? I mean, don’t get me wrong, sex is all right, but Mills & Boon rather oversold the whole business 😭)

The Bible. I'm an atheist, I have never believed in God, even when I was a kid and went to a C of E school, but someone gave me a copy of the Good News Bible at some point, and I don't even know why I thought it was essential reading but maybe I just thought it was just one of those things that you should do as part of growing up.

I lasted a few pages. It was the most badly written thing I'd ever read.

I absolutely loved the area telephone codes booklet ( late 70s). I used to read the place names out loud. Tallybont on Usk was my favourite, DH was born in Usk!

Didn't everyone read the cereal packet? I mean, it was Right There...

Reader's Digest here too, and Punch (as well as all the cartoons there was Let's Parler Franglais and Freaky Fables, and the Caption Competition won more often than not by C Thompson of Glasgow).

The Friendship Book by Francis Gay, and (not quite as good) the Fireside Book of David Hope. Little purple annuals at my grandmother's house. Among other things the Friendship Book was where I first encountered that quote about Young People Today from Plato.

My sisters and I had a phase of reading Barbara Cartland, which had a weird Venn Diagram relationship with Mills&Boon. Such a terrible attitude to instil in young women! Such a... sickening yet... twee... way of talking... about sex! Such a banal writing structure (single-sentence paragraphs)! Such intense detailed historical research!

The dictionary. Never intentionally. Normally after looking something up for a crossword, or a game of Scrabble.

The New Book of Knowledge, a set of children's encyclopaedias from the 1930s. And their companion the Children's Treasure House.

For a while, the hatch-match-despatch and the classifieds in the local paper.

There was the Property Guide as well, but that's normal. (Still remember the fantastic 10-bedroom several-acre property that was the most expensive one I'd ever seen. £100k.)

My mum’s Prima and Family Circle.
The Argos book.
Cake decorating books.
Cookery books.
Grattans Catalogue.
My dad’s film books - big coffee table books featuring stills from various Hollywood movies.

Pam Ayres poetry.
James Herriot.
Catherine Cookson.
Lena Kennedy.

In the days before YA you had to read what you could get your hands on.

I read Reader's Digest avidly too.

I read so many problem and letter pages that I’m actually quite good at knowing what county any given town is in.

Luna North,
Coventry, W Mids.

Oh and at one set of grandparents, all the Giles annuals. At the other, Andy Capp.

I am super au fait with just about any lower middle or working class popular culture reference between about 1950 and 1989. If it wasn’t in a Giles cartoon it didn’t really happen.

I had the Fireside Book of David Hope! Someone bought it me for a present and I liked it so much I asked for the next edition when it came out.

We had a 1920s set of encyclopedias, "The Book of Knowledge", lots of stuff about the Empire, Naval flags etc. There were bits about how the body worked illustrated with little men, e.g. stoking the "boiler" of your digestion, which I quite liked. As might be expected, they were INCREDIBLY racist.

I loved our copy of The Fireside Book of David Hope. I can still remember a poem called Apple Green Plates.

Here it is!

Why that was flagged as a sensitive image I'll never know...

That is terrible poetry.. 😆

It’s appalling doggerel, but to 7 year old me, it was lovely - and it’s lodged firm 😂

Thanks, @CurlyhairedAssassin - that’s really given me a nostalgia trip 🥰

My Grandparents had Giles cartoons too, also Readers Digest. My Dad read Ed McBain American police tales and I read all of those too. I'm not sure they were entirely appropriate. I remember one where someone was skinned alive. Arther Mee Children's Encyclopedia - a set of 10.

Baby name books
Argos catalogue

This was in the late 1970's and our local library had a big reference section with an entire shelf filled with National Geographic books. I would go in there on the way home from school at least twice a week, and I worked my way through the entire lot. I can still remember an article about the Ngorongoro Crater.

The Obituary page in The Guardian, absolutely fascinating stuff. I used to get The Guardian for the crossword and the obituaries were on the same page.

Birthdays in The Guardian - guess the age of the famous person; by quizzing the rest of the family

Adverts for Au Pairs in The Lady when I was younger, imagining I'd do one of the jobs when older. I never did.

Property Porn in Country Life. But that's not weird.

The Lady and Country Life to be found in doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms.