Vintage!

If you are a woman of a certain age, who spent her teenage years in this country, then you will fondly remember The Jackie magazine. 

Published by our very own DC Thomson in Dundee, whose stable of magazines included the Beano, Dandy, Sunday Post, etc., the Jackie was the bridge between P7 and 4th Year. 

Need to know how to kiss properly? How do you cover up a love bite? (Toothpaste!) Jackie will tell you all - it was like a wise big sister you could carry about in your school-bag. 

It ran several picture stories each week - PROPER picture stories, where artists had drawn the characters rather than using photography (this came into common use a few years later, and killed the art of the comic). The usual theme was girl loves boy; boy is either too stupid to realise or is in love with another; there is a party; girl and boy 'snog'; all is well.  Final frame of the picture strip would be the two of them walking off into the sunset holding hands.  Wearing very trendy 'clobber', such as Afghan coats and mini-skirts, or loon-pants and matching floral shirt and tie combos!

There was never any sex in the Jackie; nearest you got to that was the Cathy and Claire problem page, where scared girls wrote stuff like: "My best friend told me you can get pregnant if you sit on the toilet after a boy has used it - this happened to me at a party, and now I'm frightened I might be pregnant, but I can't tell my parents. Please help me."

It always had a centrefold pull out of your favourite pop stars ( oooh, I loved Mickey Finn - the other T-Rex guy, or Simon Kirk from Free), which you could pin up on your bedroom wall.  And there were interviews with the stars, where they would explain how they were just ordinary, and looking for a nice girlfriend who would be there when they came home from tours, and would make them beans on toast at 2am. 

In 1972 I believed it was possible that you could meet a Pop Star, and he would fall in love with you, and you would live happily ever after!  Who had even heard of cocaine, alcohol abuse or any of the other bizarre behaviours that we associate with rock and pop nowadays?

Popped into Tesco on the way home tonight, to buy a card for a girl who is leaving.  Spotted this CD.  It was only a few quid, and a quick look at the track list transported me to the Seventies, and the Cellar Bar, the Yorkie Disco, and the Sally Hotel, where me and my pals strutted our stuff on those hot summer nights back in the days when Maxi-dresses and platform shoes ruled, and the wider the bottom of your boyfriend's loon pants were, the better!

I shoved it in the basket with the bread and milk, and as soon as I got to the car-park I unwrapped it and loaded up the CD player before driving home.  Cranked up the volume, and yodelled along to Rod and crew while playing the steering wheel.

I Wore It Well, and then I Stuck Together; I had a slice of American Pie, before I met The Israelites; I Floated On, and then When I Fell In Love with Chiquitita, I Danced Away.  I Loved To Boogie, before I went to Funkytown, even though there were (Ain't) No Mountains High Enough on Montegego Bay. 

My absolutely only complaint would be that the packaging is crap!  The picture on the front of the CD clearly shows a couple from the 50's horsing around on a beach, not a cool couple from the relevant decade. 

Still, I suppose to whichever young graphic artist was charged with the task of matching a photo to the track-list, the difference between the 50's and the 70's is merely semantics! 

I can hardly wait to go to work tomorrow, just so I can give it laldy (a Scottish technical term, meaning 'participating enthusiastically') to Barry White, 10cc and The Commodores.  With a bit of luck, there might be roadworks!