Reminiscences on the Jackie Magazine Days
During my early childhood, I learned to read from comics before I turned to books. The array of comics available, Bunty, Judy, Mandy, The Beezer, The Topper, The Dandy, The Beano, to name but a few, filled my formative years with fun and storytelling. As I got older and reached my early teen years, I was introduced to Jackie Magazine.
I was born in 1962 and there were a lot of us named Jacqueline in those days. Of course, it was shortened to Jackie, Jacqui and other forms of abbreviation and variation that somehow sounded cooler.
Surprisingly, the first recorded use of the name Jacqueline, seems to have been in 17th century England and not, as one might think, in France. It enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 60s and 70s, which is directly attributable to Jacqueline, or Jackie Kennedy, wife of President John F Kennedy, an influencer and fashion icon of her time. No doubt there were many Dads of the era, whose twinkle in the eye may have been focused on Mrs Kennedy when naming their adored daughters. It explains why most of the Jacquelines and Jackies I know, are of a certain age, now.
It is little surprise therefore, that the bestselling, iconic UK teen magazine of the 60s and 70s was called Jackie. The magazine launched on 11 January 1964, but there is a suggestion that following Kennedy’s assassination, the publishers, DC Thomson, considered changing the title. Such thoughts appear to have been abandoned, however, with the magazine retaining its Jackie moniker without adverse effect, until publication ceased in July 1993 when sales had dropped due to competition from more risqué and sexually explicit teen magazines appearing on the market.
However, until its demise, and certainly back in the late 60s and 70s, Jackie was eagerly awaited each week, typically on a Wednesday or Thursday by hordes of mostly starry-eyed teenage girls anticipating double page centre spread posters of Donny Osmond, Mark Bolan, David Cassidy and other heroes of the time. Bedroom walls were adorned with these pinups to be gazed at by doe-eyed girls, convinced that one day, they would come and sweep them off their feet.
Jackie afficionados were on the cusp of adulthood and the magazine provided a gentle initiation into what we might expect growing into our teenage and adult years. It introduced us to the world of our favourite pop stars, fashion, make-up and hygiene products. It explained the agonies of teenage romance, using comic strip and narrative stories, told us how to speak to boys, solved our problems with the infamous Cathy & Claire agony aunts, and even taught us about cooking and crafting.
It was a time when things seemed simpler and kinder than they are today, when life was full of hope and possibility, in contrast with the world now, which to those of us of a certain age, is becoming ever harder to understand.
Having worked extensively with youngsters, I can say that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find many who have discovered the joy of reading. Consequently, they miss out on the joy of knowledge. Tik Tok videos and Instagram have replaced the need for reading and the internet is consulted more often than a book nowadays. A quick Google search for today’s teen magazines revealed very few on the market and nothing with the zeitgeist of the Jackie days.
In amongst the stories, comic strips, interviews with our pop idols, fashion and beauty tips and problem solving, advertisements interspersed with the features helped us to understand mysteries such as the female cycle and what was available to you when it started. Back then, there was little information available beyond the biology lessons at school and, if we were lucky, our mothers might tell us a bit more, in whispered, discreet tones, away from the ears of male members of the family. We managed to work it out, helped along by girls at school who had reached puberty and had ‘become a woman.’
Who remembers Shaders and Toners that we used to glam up our hair colour back in the 70s and 80s?
It was a far cry from the ‘in your face,’ cringeworthy adverts that bellow out every last graphic detail on television, these days, irrespective of mixed company. Call me old fashioned, but these adverts make me want to dive behind the sofa whenever they’re aired. There are some things I want to hold sacred, rather than watching adverts outlining the whole yukky detail of periods and the problem of weakening bladders to the world. Yes, of course it’s all normal, but do we really need to see red dye spreading across a sanitary towel, or listen to a woman complaining she can’t do yoga because her pee pad would end up sodden and bulky? Must women really risk losing their dignity with such representation? Yes, we were less informed, and perhaps some were so badly informed that the whole process could come as a terrible shock, but surely there’s a happy medium to be found when it comes to enlightening us?
The Jackie years, then, were a time of discovery and anticipation when a whole new vista was opened up to those of us of a certain age who looked forward to discos, parties, leaving school, going to university or work and maybe even marrying Donny or David! I often wonder whether today’s youngsters have the same level of hope and excitement. I rather think they don’t, and that it’s sad they have to grow up so fast nowadays. We were fortunate to have the gently informative pages of Jackie Magazine that inspired us to read, think, understand the world we were entering, without terrifying us into the bargain.
Cathy and Claire (revealed by Wendy Rigg to have been a mixture of staff writers rather than specific individuals), solved our problems (even the ones we didn’t know we had, or might have). The highs and lows of dating were explained in a narrative, photographic, or comic strip style stories. Cosy seasonal articles adorned the pages at festive times of the year, when we’d see what we might buy for the Christmas Disco or the Hallowe’en Party at Chelsea Girl, Wrygges, C&A, BHS, Richard Shops or Goldbergs, some of the fashion stores of the time, most of which are now gone.
The clothes, in the early days, were illustrated on cartoonish, willowy models which had their own iconic style. Meanwhile we dreamed of a lad who might catch our eye if we wore the latest demure, Victorian style maxi dress from Laura Ashley (most of whose creations I thought were monstrosities — give me Twiggy and her short skirts any day of the week)!
Nina Myskow, once editor of Jackie Magazine, described it as being a big sister. As a person with no siblings, this rings somewhat true. I learned so much from Jackie as we entered a new era of freedom, much to the despair of our parents, who had lived their youth in less enlightened years when life was more conservative than the swinging sixties and hippy seventies. Nevertheless, we were introduced to adulthood gently and readers were able to understand the world they were living in, the things considered to be right and wrong and the perils of being led astray.
Jackie Magazine, is no longer, sadly. It was usurped by more progressive, more explicit pretenders in 1993 that ushered out our age of innocence. However, Jackie Magazine has remained in its readers’ hearts and minds, to the extent that Nina Myskow described it as a ‘time machine,’ something that returns us firmly to our childhoods.
Jackie may have ended but it refused die. In the early 2000s, a series of Jackie themed compilation albums were released with EMI capitalising on the Jackie name to revive the songs and artists, so adored by the magazine’s readers. New Jackie Annual compilations followed, as did a 70s themed fashion line and label marketed through ASOS and there was even the Jackie Musical.
Perhaps more astonishing, is that the readers of Jackie Magazine are legion and remain loyal fans, probably for the reasons mentioned above. Facebook has several fan pages, one with a staggering 42,000 followers in a UK group and various regional pages where memories are shared and the excitement of the era is relived. It’s hard to understand for those who didn’t grow up at that time and I know of no other teenage magazine that has endured in the hearts and minds of its readers.
