teenage kicks

Party Night Photos

2006-10-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Party's Over!

2006-10-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well party night finally came and Maggie Mary and I arrived at the venue two hours ahead of kick off to put out all our memorabilia. We took delivery of a "groovy chick"- a balloon sculpture to represent a Jackie reader - and modelled on one of our own staff who also modelled for some of our covers - Wendy Rigg. Sadly, Wendy, who was looking forward to the party, couldn't make it on the night, so we have promised to send her a picture of the sculpture. Our groovy chick stood six foot tall and was clutching a Calvin Klein bag (of course!) and had huge false eyelashes. She looked great and certainly created the wow factor as guest started to arrive and spotted her nonchalantly reading the first ever copy of Jackie!
First to arrive were Brian Petrie and Ed Walker - two layout artists who had worked on the magazine in its early days.
Thereafter a steady stream of people joined us and after a few minutes spent remembering who was who, we repaired to the presentation room for the premiere of the DVD - Teenage Kicks. The DVD was a rip roaring success - with people pointing at the screen and screaming as they recognised themselves and others, from twenty to thirty years ago!
Music was chosen to reflect the different eras - from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, Sweet to the Bay City Rollers - and of course, those Wham boys!
Gordon Small then made us all laugh with memories of many many incidents from the past - some which some people might prefer to forget!
Then it was party time and as the disco played hit after hit from times gone by, many ladies (and a few men) of a certain age, forgot they weren't teenagers any more, kicked off their shoes
and danced till midnight.
We all agreed it was the best night we had had in a long long time and we are going to try to have at least an annual do of some kind to keep the contact going.
Thanks to everyone who came and made this a night to remember!

Ten Days To Go!

2006-09-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

September 20th

Preparations for the party are now reaching the frantic stage with more people from the past getting in touch or finally being contacted by the party organisers, to see if they can come. We know it is short notice now but there is still time to come along! Our DVD is complete and will be premiered on the night of the party. After that we will make it available online for all those who are interested, to view. Anyone who sees this and can't come along, please feel free to post a comment which we can run through the plasma screens at the venue, to let people know what you are up to these days! If anyone is in touch with our most famous ex sub - Hollywood star, late of Carnoustie, Alan Cummings - please let him know - we don't mind him flying in from the US - sure Dundee Airport will make special arrangements. We would also like to hear from Jan Moir, and Daniella Soave so if anyone knows their whereabouts please let me know!

Party Time!

2006-09-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

September 5th 2006

For the last six months three ex members of Jackie staff have been planning a reunion party to celebrate the great times we had on the magazine. Maggie Dun, Mary Kettle and myself have met and reminisced over the magazine and everyone who worked on it over the years. Many have gone on to greatness - Nina Myskow, Jackie Bird, Alan Cummings and Bryan Burnett, to name just a few.
We have finally got it together and it looks like it will be a great night - it's all happening on September 30th at the Tasting Rooms in Dundee. Whoever would have thought Bonnie Dundee would have a proper wine tasting venue - great inspired use of an old factory space!
We are in the middle of producing a DVDto commemorate the occasion - using old photographs of staff; pop stars of the time and some original photo story texts.
A film crew who are making a retrospective documentary about Jackie for the BBC have asked if they can be there to record part of the evening. Watch this space for more news of the event

TEENAGE KICKS - REMEMBERING JACKIE MAGAZINE

2006-09-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

July 2006

I left school in 1972 determined I was going to go into nursing as a career. However for some strange reason you had to be 17 and a half to start your training so I had about 6 months to wait. In those days, work was fairly easy to come by so I set about getting a job for the next few months to occupy my time and get some money together. The day after I left school, I saw an ad in the local newspaper which went something like this: “Good at English? Like writing stories? Love magazines? We have a position for a junior sub-editor on one of our romantic fiction magazines. Write us a chatty letter about yourself . . “
They must have liked my letter, since within a few days I had to report to the red brick building in Albert Square which housed the headquarters of DC Thomson, publishers of a stable of women’s, teenage and boys magazines plus the local daily morning and evening newspapers; The Sunday Post, People’s Journal and Weekly News.
I spent the whole day there and had to do various spelling and grammar tests, write a couple of stories and met editors of various magazines – including Jackie- which every girl in my class eagerly purchased every Wednesday.
For some reason I was offered a job within the hallowed portals and turned up the following Monday ready to settle in for my six months before I headed off to be the next Florence Nightingale.
Twelve years later – I was still there! I never did make into the nursing profession – probably just as well for the general health of the population.
I started off on the Family Star – one of the stable of romantic fiction letterpress papers known as the Feminine Five- yes really! The other titles were Red Letter, Red Star, Secrets and Romeo – forerunner to Jackie.
I learnt the craft of sub-editing through the strict and thorough efforts of one Barbara Glass – Miss Glass, never Barbara – stalwart of DC Thomson and a spinster dedicated to her work – which involved many hours poring over huge lengths of galley proofs, marking every missed comma, wrongly placed apostrophe or bad hyphenation with a finely sharpened blue pencil.
Miss Glass’s legacy to me is that I cannot read a piece of print without these typographical errors leaping off the page to me and me itching to get out my blue pencil . .
But I will always be grateful to Miss Glass for teaching me the craft of journalism – giving me the chance to practise my creative skills by writing the horoscopes for the magazine – apologies to the ladies who believed that I had foreseen their future when I told them to wear blue and that number 7 was lucky for them – but it was amazing how many of them wrote to say I was right and they had won the bingo that night whilst wearing their blue dress!
When there was an opening on one of the other girls magazines – Diana – she suggested I might like to try for that and so I progressed from there on to Jackie.
My friends couldn’t believe I would be working for the magazine they all still read so avidly!
The Jackie of the late seventies early eighties, when I worked on it, was a mix of pop, fashion, fiction, beauty and readers true stories – plus of course the problem page- Cathy and Claire.
As Nina Myskow, one of the first editors of Jackie said in her foreword in the recent book “The Best Of Jackie” the content all seems so innocent now, compared to what is on offer to teenagers now. Jackie advised practising kissing on the back of your hand; it styled itself “A Girl’s Best Friend” and set out to be a benevolent big sister whom you could ask about stuff you couldn’t ask your parents.
It wasn’t about sex – it was about romance – it tried to help with self esteem issues –how to look your best on very little money, and to hold friendships with girls higher than those with boys, as your girlfriends would still be around when the boy probably wasn’t.
Jackie was launched in 1964 and ceased publication in 1993. It sold a million copies a week at its peak and received around 4-500 letters to the problem page every week – all of which received a reply.
It was my dream job – I was sent down to London every six weeks – and stayed a week, going to model agencies and choosing models, borrowing clothes from PR agencies, cajoling agents for rising pop stars like Duran Duran and the Police into letting them pose with a pretty model for our cover. They were happy to do so and sometimes we were lucky and the long lead time between preparing the pages, them going to print and being on sale, meant the group’s latest record went high into the charts the same week they appeared on the cover.
I met Simon le Bon and John Taylor, Sting. Paul McCartney, Feargal Sharkey and once the pop idol of the time, David Cassidy actually came to Dundee and visited our offices!
It was completely different then – we went to great lengths to hide his arrival – he was smuggled in the back door of the building and there were no dignitaries to greet him – although we were properly deferential when he came round our desks.