A girl's guide to dates, discos and dishy guys: 50 years of Jackie magazine

It was every girl’s guide to dates, discos and dishy guys – and half a century since its launch we still haven’t forgotten our much-loved magazine.

Billed as an essential read for fashionable teenagers, a new magazine first hit the newsstands 50 years ago this week.

Its cover graced by a preposterously good-looking Cliff Richard, Jackie offered a unique mix of entertainment, pop gossip, beauty tips, horoscopes and love stories – not to mention the regular free gifts – and it quickly became a publishing sensation.

The magazine had less than glamorous beginnings, being the brainchild of a former RAF engine fitter called Gordon Small. Something of a mover and shaker in the world of teen mags, Small was also the Mr Big behind such titles as Blue Jeans, Patches and TV Tops.

But Jackie was his finest creation – aimed squarely at Bunty and Judy readers who wanted something a little more grown-up, a little more in tune with the changing mood of early 60s Britain.

Initial sales were a healthy 350,000 but Jackie’s golden decade was the Seventies, when it regularly sold a million copies a week. The issue dated October 21, 1976, was the biggest seller of all – probably because there was a poster of David Cassidy inside (along with Donny Osmond, he kept Jackie in pull-out posters for the better part of a decade).  

And those free gifts were a stroke of genius by someone who really knew what made teenage girls tick. 

A plastic heart brooch with a zig-zag split down the middle was particularly popular. When a girl wore it with the heart closed, it meant she was attached. When it was open, she was available for dates.

But don’t go thinking Jackie was in any way improper. Behind it lay Dundee-based publisher DC Thomson – of Beano and Dandy fame – and while London may have swung in the Sixties, Dundee most definitely did not.

Jackie was intended to be the reader’s more worldly, but not too worldly, older sister – though, in fact, most of the young girls who worked on the magazine weren’t much older than the readers themselves.

Allegedly they weren’t even allowed their own phones. Instead they had to go to a central telephone booth where their calls were strictly monitored by Mr Cuthbert and Mr Tate – the gentlemen in charge of DC Thomson’s women’s magazines.

One of Jackie’s first writers was Dame Jacqueline Wilson, the former Children’s Laureate whose most famous books include The Story of Tracy Beaker. Looking for secretarial jobs as a 17-year-old, she spotted that a new magazine was advertising for teenage writers.

Jacqueline penned a humorous article on the horror of discos and girl not meeting boy. It made Gordon Small laugh, and he agreed to publish it.

“That meant the world to me – someone was taking me seriously as a real writer,” Jacqueline recalls. After she bombarded him with more stories Small eventually offered her a position as trainee journalist.

It has been said that the future laureate gave her name to the magazine, though that is something of an urban myth. “Jackie” was actually chosen by committee from a list of girls’ names – though there was initial concern it might be associated with the widow of President John F Kennedy, who had been assassinated just two months before the new title’s launch. 

Jacqueline Wilson isn’t the only success story to start out on Jackie. BAFTA award-winning screenwriter Paul Abbott – whose TV hits include Clocking Off, State of Play and Shameless – wrote captions for some of the magazine’s famed photo love stories while studying psychology at Manchester University.

Rather more surprisingly, BBC newsreader and Antiques Roadshow presenter Fiona Bruce started posing for those stories at 15 after her mum nagged her to get a Saturday job.

Fiona replied to an ad in the window of her local newsagent from a photographer looking for models (she later admitted that she had to kneel down for many of the shots as she was often taller than her fictional sweethearts). 

In fact, if you wanted to know who’d be famous in the Eighties and Nineties, you only needed to leaf through Jackies from a few years earlier.

Men Behaving Badly star Leslie Ash and her sister Debbie – later a member of dance troupe Hot Gossip – were regular cover stars on the magazine, while actress Sadie Frost modelled beside Wham! in a 1983 fashion shoot. 

One of Jackie’s most popular innovations was printing a pin-up over three weeks to create an extra large poster. In week one, you’d get the legs; in week two, the torso; and in week three, the head, so you could finally kiss your idol (early pin-ups included The Beatles, Elvis, Steve McQueen and Sean Connery).

Eager readers even got to see their favourite pop stars at home – John, Paul, George and Ringo were once pictured washing their shirts and cooking Welsh Rarebit for tea – and Jackie even went on a romantic trip to Paris with heart-throb David Essex.

However, arguably the title’s biggest draw were legendary agony aunts Cathy and Claire.

Schoolgirls lapped up their advice on a range of thorny issues – from dealing with spots, getting round curfews and finding the right career to chatting up boys and enjoying your first kiss without bashing noses.

Although their column proclaimed “two heads are better than one”, it actually needed an entire team of people to answer their postbag (up to 400 readers a week committed their teen angst to paper). 

At the start, sex was strictly off-limits, despite being a fixture of readers’ letters. Everyone who wrote for advice with a stamped addressed envelope received a reply, and those asking about medical issues – such as depression – were answered by a qualified doctor.

Memorable letters included: “I brushed past a boy on the bus. We had our clothes on. Could I be pregnant?”

When the contraceptive pill became free on prescription in 1974, the magazine finally introduced the Dear Doctor column to cover “below the waist” issues.

Once Jackie got started on more risqué topics, there was no stopping her. But although such once unthinkable subjects as alcohol and drugs began to be discussed, girls were growing up even faster than their favourite magazine and circulation went into freefall.

On the eve of her 30th birthday, Jackie’s final edition – No 1534 – was published on July 3, 1993. Beverley Hills, 90210 star Jason Priestley was the pin-up and features included Take That: Then and Now.

But that was far from the end of the Jackie story. A magazine that thrilled, inspired and consoled several generations of women was not going to be forgotten overnight and, 20 years on, Jackie is still with us. 

The book 50 Years of Jackie (Prion Books, £19.99; and CD Jackie Pin-Ups (UMTV, £7.49) are the most recent releases, guaranteed to keep interest in the title alive. And last year Jackie: The Musical debuted at the Gardyne Theatre in (where else?) Dundee. 

It is the tale of a middle-aged divorcée who uses advice from the magazine’s problem page to negotiate some rocky romantic waters. And it just goes to show – you’re never too old for Jackie...

Celebrity fans on the legendary magazine

Cheryl Baker of Bucks Fizz, who is currently in rehearsals for the Happy Days musical, was a big fan of Jackie.

“Jackie saw you through that crossover stage from child to adult. There were articles about boyfriends, love stories with hunky guys and pictures of my favourite stars.  

“I always wanted to be a singer. When Bucks Fizz became famous, it was surreal to see myself in Jackie – a real ‘pinch me’ moment. It was lovely to think you were suddenly part of something that meant so much to you as a child – you feel quite privileged.”

Jayne Torvill, the ice skating legend and Dancing On Ice star, was another devotee.

“I really enjoyed reading Jackie growing up – it was always a weekend treat. If I saved up my money, I could buy it on a Saturday morning from our local newsagents or Mum would it buy it for me – it was something I looked forward to. I also used to have the Jackie Annual at Christmas.”