Why We All Loved Jackie's Honest Innocence: Weight Loss Tips. How to kiss. And yes, your butt looks big in this! Sixty years later, JAN MOIR celebrates the gloriously awakened magazine for teenage girls…

Jackie magazine burst onto the scene sixty years ago this month, sailing into the world on a layer of strawberry lip gloss and a fanfare of pop music.

The latter was usually supplied by hunks called David – Mr Cassidy, Mr Essex and Mr Bowie – while the lippy came as a freebie, riveted to the cover of the magazine.

From the very first issue it was a sensation. In 1964, there were few titles on magazine shelves that specifically addressed the needs of teenage girls – a new phenomenon in itself.

The upstart Jackie, with its vibrant mix of pop, fashion, adverts for Scholl sandals and Supersoft shampoo, along with sound advice from suffering aunts Cathy & Claire, hit the market right on track. It was recognizable, affordable and completely remarkable.

The cover of the very first issue featured an illustration by Cliff Richard, slogans promising perfume tips for a “more kissable you,” outfits to make you “beautiful in the rain and snow,” and some “getaway exclusives for everyone.” . the popsters'. Very hey!

This great Jackie world, where girls prettified themselves for boys and advice was doled out to troubled teens by people who weren't mental health experts, wouldn't find much traction in today's harsh, plugged-in, frighteningly advanced teenage world . , but Jackie belonged to a more innocent era.

One in which girls were encouraged to practice kissing the backs of their hands and moving their eyelashes 'against his chin'. What? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time plus – bonus points – it didn't get you pregnant.

In the 1970s, Jackie sold more than a million copies a week and to this day the book still holds a special place in the hearts of generations of female readers who couldn't wait for it to arrive through the letterbox every Thursday.

Women who read Jackie at an impressionable age have never forgotten it, even though the last one was published in the summer of 1993. That made a total of 1,534 glorious issues, an entire world encapsulated in its glossy pages. And I even worked on some of them myself, a walk-on part during the two years I worked at the magazine publisher.

Because although Jackie had an address in London where fans were supposed to send their letters, it was actually written, edited and produced entirely in my hometown of Dundee by a company called DC Thomson.

The impressive headquarters in the city center houses a jumble of local and national newspaper titles, popular comics and magazines such as Diana, Bunty, Blue Jeans and The Beano. And there, at the end of a hallway on the third floor, stood the mighty Jackie herself, notable for the gigantic bags of mail that came in every day.

In a small office with a rickety wooden floor and an unlit fireplace, the staff pored over proofs, devised pop quizzes and encouraged readers to make face masks out of avocados or give precise instructions on how to clean “the only pebble on the beach.” are. .

Cathy & Claire's advice page received more than 400 letters every week, a total almost matched by the Dear Doctor column, which dealt with what was known in the office as 'trouble below the waist'. Because even Jackie couldn't ignore the fact that the Pill had been made free on the NHS in 1974 – although none of readers' most explicit questions ever made it onto the pages. Jackie was all about romance, not sex.

The furthest they ventured into that naughty territory was advising girls whether or not they should let him kiss you on the first date – the standard advice was to never do anything unless you felt 'ready'. And I don't remember anything being published about same-sex relationships, which simply didn't exist in Jackieland.

“Jackie had a certain tone, it was like a friendly big sister,” says Ria Welch, who worked on the title from 1987 to 1992 as fiction editor, beauty editor and then deputy editor.

“And it was very much based in reality.” She recalls a problem letter from the 1980s from a reader who was in love with Adam Ant and was convinced she would marry him. No, that's not the case, was Jackie's clear answer. It's just a crush. Take it out!

It's hard to imagine that any publication today would give such a strong response, but I think Jackie understood his readers on a deep and intuitive level. It understood that what most of them wanted was not really advice, but confirmation or renunciation; they wanted to know where the boundaries lay in the difficult, unknown transition from being a girl to being a woman.

In this regard, Jackie was not perfect – and even today there are still critics. A few years ago, host Nadia Sawalha said on Loose Women that she had long-term and damaging body image problems because of advice about big bums she read in Jackie. “They look really grotesque in tight jeans that are straight or tapered,” the magazine had advised in its typically blunt manner.

No one could accuse Jackie of soft soaping or excess of tact, but for many young women it was a good and true friend to have in the hormonal storm of adolescence. Today's all-knowing teenagers can get any information they need by tapping their phone, but things were very different back then.

Saucer-eyed, fresh out of school and no older than Jackie readers themselves, I was only there for a short time. What do I remember? That each issue had a turnaround time of sixteen weeks (from the first review in the Dundee office to the magazine racks across the country), yet remained fresh and up to date.

That Donny Osmond appeared on the front page of Jackie almost as often as the date. The biggest sellout of all time happened when they put David Cassidy on the cover during the hysteria of his 1974 UK tour. And that the women who worked there seemed so intimidating and terrifyingly sophisticated.

There was Alison, the beauty editor who had London phone numbers in her contacts book without the 01 prefix, which I found incredibly impressive. There was Sandy, the deputy editor who was also an officer in the Territorial Army.

Then there was Jackie's first female editor, Nina Myskow, who spent weeks lugging a Harrods tote bag around Dundee – she'd been to London! – and told her staff how David Bowie had bought her champagne and she had rejected him because he was wearing chipped nail polish. She played tennis with Elton John and it was rumored around the office – never denied – that he had written Your Song for her.

But sometimes, when you look back at Jackie through the prism of half a century, it seems almost as ancient and incomprehensible as hieroglyphics. The art of kissing; Join the Big Boy Hunt; Kim Wilde talks about beauty – what the hell was that about?

However, the magazine – like all its sister titles – was not without a strong moral code and readers were encouraged to be confident and ambitious in a world where friendships with other girls were considered more important than relationships with boys.

And how commendable it was that fashion always focused on the cheaper side of the high street; it was instilled in us never to forget that our readers did not have much pocket money.

So there were tips on how to brighten up jeans by sewing an apple appliqué on them and regular articles on affordable treats like Aqua Manda perfume or a pack of Miners Face Shiner. There were certainly no £1,000 handbags or Victoria Beckham smoky eyeshadow quads for £56 shoved under readers' noses.

Today's troublesome and greedy TikTok culture sometimes makes me desperate for teens, but it's too late to turn back the clock.

However, Jackie's legacy lives on. There are Facebook groups in honor of the magazine, a musical was launched in 2015 and there are even plans for DC Thomson's own Emanata Studios to launch a television series – although proposals are still in their infancy.

But could any musical, show or tribute ever truly capture the magic and strangeness of a girls' teen magazine that reigned triumphantly in a world where there were no cell phones, no texting, no selfies and no Instagram?

With the field to herself, Jackie was the touchstone and the mother lode, all in one joyful package. And that will never happen again.