Good reminder. I graduated high school in 1952 fighting against the norms stated in the US equivalent of those magazines. I went to college headed for a career in theatre and broadcasting while avoiding marriage. And then I did get married and despite my independence fell into a poor example of the life I'd avoided. I had no idea what I could demand from my husband or how the chores of marriage and family could be shared. There were publications to support my plight, I think, but I was still reading the ones like the ones your mother read. I did manage to sell designs to Women's Day and articles to Parents Magazine, but it took a long time to gain my lost freedom. In the long run I have no regrets having produced two beloved offspring, and by extension a slew of amazing grands, as well as a life now at 90 that is and has been everything I wanted.
Your posts are always so thoughtful and thought-provoking. This is absolutely fascinating and really highlighted how different today's world seems than even a few decades in the past. I feel grateful to have had a 20s steeped in independence and discovery.
Your mother's words are haunting: "I felt very strongly that I was just learning to enjoy myself...I was just beginning to be able to afford to dress as I liked to dress and to go to the places and do the things which interested me. I was at last independent and able to enjoy my independence."
I can't help but feel that her keeping that letter all this time was somewhat intentional -- a reminder of who she was before she became a "wife" and "mother." I think we all need to keep those memories of that version of ourselves close to us! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Paige. Yes, she was only just becoming independent of her parents, earning a salary high enough that she didn't have to give it all to her mother, for "keep".
The letter was actually tucked in the back of an ancient wallet of my dad's, so he must have kept it. Whether mum later found and re-saved it, I don't know. It was with a bunch of "special documents" which either one of them might have added to at some point.
Oh I knew right away I was gonna love this piece. My Gran had piles and piles of old magazines and catalogues. I loved paging through them especially the ones from the 60s. I had to laugh because I have run from the mirror many many times. Not enough to ever want a girdle...but still. I really do miss magazines. They've become so skimpy these days. Vanity Fair is a slip of a thing. I get it. But I think we lost something visceral with the turn of the page. Loved this. I think it's second only to Teddy Bear Eyes!
"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". I read recently that - 1974 and 2024 are as far apart as 1924 and 1974, which was somehow surprising. And we forget how much really has changed over the years. Have you seen the film 'Made in Dagenham'? - great movie, focussing on industrial action in 1968, which was instrumental in the equal pay act of 1970. But amazing to think that it was only then that such legislation was passed. And - de facto - there are still huge inequalities of salary and status a quarter of the way through he 21st century. I also wonder what my mum might have gone on to do, had she not married my dad (in 1953) and then effectively stayed at home. She did a bit of clerical work, but her aspirations were very much limited by her class and gender.
Thanks, Chris. Really interesting. Made In Dagenham has been on my 'must watch' list for ages, so I will bump it up to the top.
And you're right about our perceptions of what "the distant past" is as we get older. WWII seemed ancient history when I was a child, but ended just 16 years before I was born!
What an amazing thing to unearth, this letter from your mom, and then of course seeing how your dad kept it all those years. Her dilemma is so moving, and perfectly articulated.
I think of my own mom giving up her dreams of being a TV producer to marry my dad (a marriage that only lasted five years). Like you, I'm sure thankful she did, if only for my own existence, but one can't help but wonder about the other path, and feel the sacrifice she made.
Thank you, Rob. Your latest piece made me wonder about your mum. That's interesting that she dreamed of being a TV producer. Did she have a career?
For my mum and dad that expectation of "settling down" was so ingrained. My dad had done military service after the war, but at 27 and still living with his own parents, more than a decade into his own working life (he left school at 14), he would have been feeling the pressure to marry. In another era. mum would have gone to university after A-levels, but it just wasn't considered, so she was in low-paid clerical jobs. Societal expectations can be so limiting.
Yes, a brief career as a minor on-air TV personality in Australia, then moved to L.A. and was working for a production company when she met my dad. He was quite old school, and would not have wanted her to work—which was in line with societal expectations, for sure. After their marriage (as a divorced single mom), she only ever had low-paid clerical jobs as well, unfortunately. Even as a kid, I had a very strong sense of how hard it was for her, how much harassment she faced on the job, how little chance of being promoted, etc.
There's so much going through my head after reading this article! I married in 1979 and my mother-in-law said: You young women wanted it all - well now you have it all: ALL the housework, ALL the childcare, ALL the cooking and shopping AND a full-time job. She wasn't wrong, but thankfully there has been progress and men are more involved in the household and childcare.
As far as appearance goes, though, I scratch my head at some relatively young female celebrities. Christina Aguilera comes to mind because I saw her in a video recently and only recognized her by her voice! They have face lifts, eye lifts, duck lips. They dye their hair platinum blonde and add extensions until, to me, they all look interchangeable. Who defined this idea of beautiful? Men? The beauty industry? Or women themselves seeking the fountain of youth?
Thanks, Linda. Glad it stirred up your thoughts! Really interesting points you've raised. True what your mother-in-law said that "having it all" can also be a trap, if it means women still doing everything at home on top of their paid jobs. Choices and balance, that's what we all really need.
And yes, what women are meant to aspire to in terms of appearance can be as blinkered now as it ever was. I thought we had progress in the 1970s and 1980s when there was a more liberal view of fashion and beauty: hippies followed by punks, glam rock, goths, new romantics, all encouraged us to do our own thing. But then things seemed to go backwards through the nineties and noughties, with a very regressive, pornified idea of beauty coming into vogue (to put it bluntly). I hope that's an other fad that will pass.
Yes, we have gone back to worshipping an ideal, ancient Greece! I too could not believe that person singing like Christina Aguilera was in fact her. Absolutely unrecognizable. I am 69 now and I do not want to look like a young person, I find it weird to have a young face on an older body. I actually prefer softer wrinkles to looking like a mask, a robot. Aging feels natural to me, part of the rhythm of life and I can't imagine going against that flow. Maybe it's a fear of dying, combined with caring what other people think, maybe I no longer give others that power, so I have no desire to pretend I am something I am not, a young person. As artists, we have walked our own path, so we can continue to follow our own truths. Phew....
I’m with you on this, Andrea and Linda. I watched Shania Twain’s set at Glastonbury on TV this summer and I just couldn’t see the face I remembered in there. It was bizarre. Here’s to wrinkles!
Brilliant, Wendy. My granny was the editor of 'The Shanghai Times' in the 1920s - particularly the 'women's pages' which give advice for reinventing Paris life (which seems more like Reading really) but in China.
Fantastic article. Magazines have been a huge part of my life too. I used to make my own as a child: I even made tiny versions for my dolls and even tinier ones for the dolls in my dolls’ house! I’m also fascinated by magazines of yesteryear. I remember the women’s magazines my mum used to get in the 1960s. I was shocked when she bought a copy of Playgirl magazine in the early ‘70s. Burt Reynolds was on the cover - naked in a hammock! I was horrified! I’d written for a few magazines before I met you, Wendy, at Just Seventeen in 1985, and have written for many more since. (We must get that screenplay started very soon. I’m happy to come to yours to get going on it. It’s easy to get to the IOW from where I am atm.)
Wondering if the cover for _Modern Woman_ had any of the credits that we have in women’s magazines nowadays: stylist, hat-by, hair-by, jewellery-by, clothes-by. Or is it all model’s-own and she just rolled up looking this fantastic.
So… just checked and she does get a credit. June Clarke, "wearing a new coronet hat designed for us by Parisienne, Jenny Fisher", and she models the Coronet hats in the magazine, too. I've just added a note to the piece.
Interesting point about pay, Bridget. It was always a dicey career choice, I'm sure. Just looking up now who earned most, Suzy Parker (an American model and a favourite with Chanel) was a really high earner in the late 1950s. I've got a book from 1977 titled The Women We Wanted to Look Like. The path for some of the well-known early 1950s models is that they worked for a few years and then married very wealthy men!
Thank you so much, Andrea. I was moved by it when I read it and moved that my dad had kept it. Society’s expectations of both of them were quite rigid.
Well Wendy, first I would say I’m glad you discovered the magazines that brought your mum so much pleasure and thank for writing about them. Those editions were about a wonderful time in history. I wish I had experienced that age. I was born in 1955 and missed those periodicals but I believe my mother read them. In those days most women stayed at home 🏠 to bring up their babies 👶; so different a life to now.
How those mags reached out to housewives in the 50’s giving them advice on beauty, fashion and cookery. I love the pictures you put in your blog-absolutely fascinating 🧐!
Fancy finding the letter that your mother actually sent, I can quite understand how you felt reading her words regarding doubts that she had……
Lovely writing,thanks so much and keep up the great work
I love nostalgia and you got me thinking about Magazines depicting then what they thought women would want to be/or should be, as opposed to what they really wanted to be. The irony being, magazines/social media, the lot, are still doing exactly that today, and yet we as readers/viewers/participants still go along with it, trying to live up to a dream. Apart from that, what a wonderful letter from your Mum to your Dad, and how fantastic he held it on to it.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Ruth. Yes, I agree, everything’s so much more online now, but the pressures to conform to society’s expectations are as great as ever. And there’s still so much emphasis on striving for beauty, whatever that means from year to year, decade to decade.
Yes, it was amazing to find the letter. It could have so easily been thrown out without realising.
Fantastic post, Wendy. That letter from your mum is so poignant. It sounds like it turned out to be a pretty good life, in the end. But I do wonder what all these women might have been, had they had different opportunities.
Those girdles… I was too young to wear them , but I can remember my mum’s and my nana’s. I was fascinated by the engineering of the clip for fastening your stockings to your girdle.
I was a “Debbie” girl, rather than Bunty. I loved the weekly gifts ( a purple and white cameo brooch comes to mind) and the weekly story of Lisa the Lonely Ballerina… sigh
Brilliant piece, Wendy. I loved the excerpts from your mother's letter as much as I love your inclusion of your own diary entries in other pieces - that window into someone's state of mind at a different point in history is fascinating.
Thank you, Fiona. Looking after a home really was hard graft in those days, unless you had "mod cons". And even then! Mum mentions elsewhere that perhaps they could in time save up for a fridge.
Wow love this Wendy, your mum was really intelligent and was reflecting on what married life would be like , acknowledging that it’s not all comfort and luxury being a stay at home wife vs working , having independence and having money. Magazines seem be a thing a thing of the past , like news papers , I wonder if many people buy them these days, although my mum still buys a daily paper. I grew up loving magazines, Jackie, Just 17 , Blue jeans, Cosmopolitan. My friend won a competition to New York from Hello Magazine in 1999 , that I’m currently writing about (as she took me) and I’ll post soon. Thank you sharing ☺️
Thanks, Francis. I was thinking about my mum being 24, living with her parents and paying keep; but actually, so was my dad, at 27. Living with your parents till you married and "settled down" was the norm. I think he felt under pressure to get on with it.
The demand for printed news and magazines is way down on what it used to be, now we're mainly online, but some are still there, fortunately.
Good reminder. I graduated high school in 1952 fighting against the norms stated in the US equivalent of those magazines. I went to college headed for a career in theatre and broadcasting while avoiding marriage. And then I did get married and despite my independence fell into a poor example of the life I'd avoided. I had no idea what I could demand from my husband or how the chores of marriage and family could be shared. There were publications to support my plight, I think, but I was still reading the ones like the ones your mother read. I did manage to sell designs to Women's Day and articles to Parents Magazine, but it took a long time to gain my lost freedom. In the long run I have no regrets having produced two beloved offspring, and by extension a slew of amazing grands, as well as a life now at 90 that is and has been everything I wanted.
Thanking for sharing this Betty. I think it's wonderful that you can see the plight but can look back without regret.
Thank you for sharing your own experience here, Betty. That’s really fascinating.
Your posts are always so thoughtful and thought-provoking. This is absolutely fascinating and really highlighted how different today's world seems than even a few decades in the past. I feel grateful to have had a 20s steeped in independence and discovery.
Your mother's words are haunting: "I felt very strongly that I was just learning to enjoy myself...I was just beginning to be able to afford to dress as I liked to dress and to go to the places and do the things which interested me. I was at last independent and able to enjoy my independence."
I can't help but feel that her keeping that letter all this time was somewhat intentional -- a reminder of who she was before she became a "wife" and "mother." I think we all need to keep those memories of that version of ourselves close to us! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Paige. Yes, she was only just becoming independent of her parents, earning a salary high enough that she didn't have to give it all to her mother, for "keep".
The letter was actually tucked in the back of an ancient wallet of my dad's, so he must have kept it. Whether mum later found and re-saved it, I don't know. It was with a bunch of "special documents" which either one of them might have added to at some point.
Oh I knew right away I was gonna love this piece. My Gran had piles and piles of old magazines and catalogues. I loved paging through them especially the ones from the 60s. I had to laugh because I have run from the mirror many many times. Not enough to ever want a girdle...but still. I really do miss magazines. They've become so skimpy these days. Vanity Fair is a slip of a thing. I get it. But I think we lost something visceral with the turn of the page. Loved this. I think it's second only to Teddy Bear Eyes!
Thank you, Rebecca. That Gossard ad – crikey. Girdles were everywhere in those days.
And now we have Spanx haha!
"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". I read recently that - 1974 and 2024 are as far apart as 1924 and 1974, which was somehow surprising. And we forget how much really has changed over the years. Have you seen the film 'Made in Dagenham'? - great movie, focussing on industrial action in 1968, which was instrumental in the equal pay act of 1970. But amazing to think that it was only then that such legislation was passed. And - de facto - there are still huge inequalities of salary and status a quarter of the way through he 21st century. I also wonder what my mum might have gone on to do, had she not married my dad (in 1953) and then effectively stayed at home. She did a bit of clerical work, but her aspirations were very much limited by her class and gender.
Thanks, Chris. Really interesting. Made In Dagenham has been on my 'must watch' list for ages, so I will bump it up to the top.
And you're right about our perceptions of what "the distant past" is as we get older. WWII seemed ancient history when I was a child, but ended just 16 years before I was born!
I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Sally Hawkins and Rosamund Pyke are great in the movie.
What an amazing thing to unearth, this letter from your mom, and then of course seeing how your dad kept it all those years. Her dilemma is so moving, and perfectly articulated.
I think of my own mom giving up her dreams of being a TV producer to marry my dad (a marriage that only lasted five years). Like you, I'm sure thankful she did, if only for my own existence, but one can't help but wonder about the other path, and feel the sacrifice she made.
Thank you, Rob. Your latest piece made me wonder about your mum. That's interesting that she dreamed of being a TV producer. Did she have a career?
For my mum and dad that expectation of "settling down" was so ingrained. My dad had done military service after the war, but at 27 and still living with his own parents, more than a decade into his own working life (he left school at 14), he would have been feeling the pressure to marry. In another era. mum would have gone to university after A-levels, but it just wasn't considered, so she was in low-paid clerical jobs. Societal expectations can be so limiting.
Yes, a brief career as a minor on-air TV personality in Australia, then moved to L.A. and was working for a production company when she met my dad. He was quite old school, and would not have wanted her to work—which was in line with societal expectations, for sure. After their marriage (as a divorced single mom), she only ever had low-paid clerical jobs as well, unfortunately. Even as a kid, I had a very strong sense of how hard it was for her, how much harassment she faced on the job, how little chance of being promoted, etc.
That’s a shame. Sounds like a very bright lady.
There's so much going through my head after reading this article! I married in 1979 and my mother-in-law said: You young women wanted it all - well now you have it all: ALL the housework, ALL the childcare, ALL the cooking and shopping AND a full-time job. She wasn't wrong, but thankfully there has been progress and men are more involved in the household and childcare.
As far as appearance goes, though, I scratch my head at some relatively young female celebrities. Christina Aguilera comes to mind because I saw her in a video recently and only recognized her by her voice! They have face lifts, eye lifts, duck lips. They dye their hair platinum blonde and add extensions until, to me, they all look interchangeable. Who defined this idea of beautiful? Men? The beauty industry? Or women themselves seeking the fountain of youth?
Thanks, Linda. Glad it stirred up your thoughts! Really interesting points you've raised. True what your mother-in-law said that "having it all" can also be a trap, if it means women still doing everything at home on top of their paid jobs. Choices and balance, that's what we all really need.
And yes, what women are meant to aspire to in terms of appearance can be as blinkered now as it ever was. I thought we had progress in the 1970s and 1980s when there was a more liberal view of fashion and beauty: hippies followed by punks, glam rock, goths, new romantics, all encouraged us to do our own thing. But then things seemed to go backwards through the nineties and noughties, with a very regressive, pornified idea of beauty coming into vogue (to put it bluntly). I hope that's an other fad that will pass.
Yes, we have gone back to worshipping an ideal, ancient Greece! I too could not believe that person singing like Christina Aguilera was in fact her. Absolutely unrecognizable. I am 69 now and I do not want to look like a young person, I find it weird to have a young face on an older body. I actually prefer softer wrinkles to looking like a mask, a robot. Aging feels natural to me, part of the rhythm of life and I can't imagine going against that flow. Maybe it's a fear of dying, combined with caring what other people think, maybe I no longer give others that power, so I have no desire to pretend I am something I am not, a young person. As artists, we have walked our own path, so we can continue to follow our own truths. Phew....
I’m with you on this, Andrea and Linda. I watched Shania Twain’s set at Glastonbury on TV this summer and I just couldn’t see the face I remembered in there. It was bizarre. Here’s to wrinkles!
Brilliant, Wendy. My granny was the editor of 'The Shanghai Times' in the 1920s - particularly the 'women's pages' which give advice for reinventing Paris life (which seems more like Reading really) but in China.
Thanks, Cherry. Wow, that must have been an experience for your granny. Did you hear about it from her? Did you keep any of the newspapers?
Sorry I missed this - my speciality! My mother was very proud. I have Granny's final edition, printed on silk. Extraordinary.
Printed on silk?! That sounds amazing.
will send photos - this might get require a substack post!
That’s what I was thinking. Sounds interesting!
Fantastic article. Magazines have been a huge part of my life too. I used to make my own as a child: I even made tiny versions for my dolls and even tinier ones for the dolls in my dolls’ house! I’m also fascinated by magazines of yesteryear. I remember the women’s magazines my mum used to get in the 1960s. I was shocked when she bought a copy of Playgirl magazine in the early ‘70s. Burt Reynolds was on the cover - naked in a hammock! I was horrified! I’d written for a few magazines before I met you, Wendy, at Just Seventeen in 1985, and have written for many more since. (We must get that screenplay started very soon. I’m happy to come to yours to get going on it. It’s easy to get to the IOW from where I am atm.)
Thanks, Jacqui. Burt Reynolds naked in a hammock! Oh wow! Laughing at that!
It wasn’t a pretty sight!
Wondering if the cover for _Modern Woman_ had any of the credits that we have in women’s magazines nowadays: stylist, hat-by, hair-by, jewellery-by, clothes-by. Or is it all model’s-own and she just rolled up looking this fantastic.
So… just checked and she does get a credit. June Clarke, "wearing a new coronet hat designed for us by Parisienne, Jenny Fisher", and she models the Coronet hats in the magazine, too. I've just added a note to the piece.
Looking her up, there there are photos of her by Norman Parkinson in the National Portrait Gallery: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp163220/june-clarke
Models got paid nothing until the supermodels in the late 1960s became celebrities.
Interesting point about pay, Bridget. It was always a dicey career choice, I'm sure. Just looking up now who earned most, Suzy Parker (an American model and a favourite with Chanel) was a really high earner in the late 1950s. I've got a book from 1977 titled The Women We Wanted to Look Like. The path for some of the well-known early 1950s models is that they worked for a few years and then married very wealthy men!
I don't think I ever knew Suzy Parker was that successful.
Thanks!
The first model I remember recognizing by both face and name was Twiggy and then Lauren Hutton.
I'm so moved by your mom's letter. I want to reach out (into the past) and hug her. This is a beautiful read Wendy.
Thank you so much, Andrea. I was moved by it when I read it and moved that my dad had kept it. Society’s expectations of both of them were quite rigid.
Well Wendy, first I would say I’m glad you discovered the magazines that brought your mum so much pleasure and thank for writing about them. Those editions were about a wonderful time in history. I wish I had experienced that age. I was born in 1955 and missed those periodicals but I believe my mother read them. In those days most women stayed at home 🏠 to bring up their babies 👶; so different a life to now.
How those mags reached out to housewives in the 50’s giving them advice on beauty, fashion and cookery. I love the pictures you put in your blog-absolutely fascinating 🧐!
Fancy finding the letter that your mother actually sent, I can quite understand how you felt reading her words regarding doubts that she had……
Lovely writing,thanks so much and keep up the great work
Best wishes Ruth Clifford x
Thank you, Ruth, and thank you so much for your thoughtful comments.
I love nostalgia and you got me thinking about Magazines depicting then what they thought women would want to be/or should be, as opposed to what they really wanted to be. The irony being, magazines/social media, the lot, are still doing exactly that today, and yet we as readers/viewers/participants still go along with it, trying to live up to a dream. Apart from that, what a wonderful letter from your Mum to your Dad, and how fantastic he held it on to it.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Ruth. Yes, I agree, everything’s so much more online now, but the pressures to conform to society’s expectations are as great as ever. And there’s still so much emphasis on striving for beauty, whatever that means from year to year, decade to decade.
Yes, it was amazing to find the letter. It could have so easily been thrown out without realising.
Fantastic post, Wendy. That letter from your mum is so poignant. It sounds like it turned out to be a pretty good life, in the end. But I do wonder what all these women might have been, had they had different opportunities.
Thanks, Georgina. Of course, I’m very glad they did spend their lives together. Hard to imagine it any other way, but yes, poignant too.
Those girdles… I was too young to wear them , but I can remember my mum’s and my nana’s. I was fascinated by the engineering of the clip for fastening your stockings to your girdle.
I was a “Debbie” girl, rather than Bunty. I loved the weekly gifts ( a purple and white cameo brooch comes to mind) and the weekly story of Lisa the Lonely Ballerina… sigh
Those stories in Bunty and Debbie were inspiring, Caroline. The young heroines were so hung-ho. Triumphing over adversity.
And yes, all the joining-up women had to do to get their foundation-wear in order. I used to be fascinated by those stocking clips, too!
Brilliant piece, Wendy. I loved the excerpts from your mother's letter as much as I love your inclusion of your own diary entries in other pieces - that window into someone's state of mind at a different point in history is fascinating.
Thank you, Fiona. Looking after a home really was hard graft in those days, unless you had "mod cons". And even then! Mum mentions elsewhere that perhaps they could in time save up for a fridge.
Wow love this Wendy, your mum was really intelligent and was reflecting on what married life would be like , acknowledging that it’s not all comfort and luxury being a stay at home wife vs working , having independence and having money. Magazines seem be a thing a thing of the past , like news papers , I wonder if many people buy them these days, although my mum still buys a daily paper. I grew up loving magazines, Jackie, Just 17 , Blue jeans, Cosmopolitan. My friend won a competition to New York from Hello Magazine in 1999 , that I’m currently writing about (as she took me) and I’ll post soon. Thank you sharing ☺️
Thanks, Francis. I was thinking about my mum being 24, living with her parents and paying keep; but actually, so was my dad, at 27. Living with your parents till you married and "settled down" was the norm. I think he felt under pressure to get on with it.
The demand for printed news and magazines is way down on what it used to be, now we're mainly online, but some are still there, fortunately.
Look forward to reading your New York piece.