CREAM
Woman's Weekly / 11th July 1969
Why don’t we have more adverts for cream nowadays, eh? Cream is great.
Tags: cream, Dairy Marketing Board, food
Poor Worried Jane
Woman's Weekly / 11th July 1969
Yep, it’s another tantalizing problem which we don’t have access to! What on earth happened to poor Worried Jane? Another letter which confuses me is the question from an unmarried mother about adopting her own child after the father clearly left her high and dry. I’m going to have to page friend of the site Kif; did unmarried mothers not have automatic custody of their children, or has she given up the child to the local authority and is trying to get it back? It’s not clear.
Tags: Mary Marryat, motherhood, pregnancy, problem page
Sutherlands
Woman's Weekly / 11th July 1969
Ah, potted beef. I can still taste the memory of it on buttered toast, and it’s probably no mistake that it’s being marketed here as a kids’ food. The tablecloth is a little something for Mum, even if she’s an army wife!
Learning With Brooke Bond
Woman's Weekly / 11th July 1969
I’m sure I remember PG Tips offering coupons towards children’s books a few years ago, but I’ve not seen anything like this for some time, because presumably it’s expensive to produce! Nice idea, although I hope that lad on the bottom right got a clip round the ear. Cheeky sod.
Tags: blatant sexism, Brooke Bond, tea
Angiers Junior Aspirin
Woman's Weekly / 26th March 1965
Blimey Nora. Somehow, I don’t think there was an equivalent advert in Playboy questioning men’s fatherhood skills. Despite the wider range of men’s magazines available nowadays, there still aren’t, but women are still fed a good spoonful of guilt in adverts aimed at them. Why do we put up with it?
Tags: blatant sexism, emotional blackmail, health, motherhood
Three Grown Up Girls
Woman's Weekly / 26th March 1965
See? Only BABIES use sanitary pads! Anyone else feel like they’re being talked to like a toddler?
Two Misguided Teenagers
Woman's Weekly / 25th June 1965
Oh dear. Obviously, I hope things worked out for these two girls, but it makes your heart sink to see Mary come up trumps again with her judgmental language. What makes her think that either of these two girls will EVER put themselves in such a position again, given the trauma that they’re suffering? This is before the legalisation of abortion in Britain (excluding Northern Ireland), which happened in 1967, so if either of them were pregnant, their options were to bring up the child themselves (or have their parents go through the charade of pretending it was a sibling), have the child adopted, or to have a dangerous illegal abortion.
Of course, what Mary doesn’t mention is that the woeful lack of sex education until recently in the UK (and it’s hardly perfect now), meant that many young people were exposed to the adult world with no way of preparing themselves for it. Perhaps you could justify this ignorance when youngsters had close supervision from adults (although it no doubt caused unnecessary anxiety for young couples), but it was wholly inadequate for the 20th century, and is recklessly irresponsible in the 21st. Sadly, what should be a simple process of preparing children for the challenges of adult life is endlessly highjacked by those motivated by fear and bigotry, who appear to think that informing children of the inevitable features of adulthood means that they’ll want to try them all out! It’s a grave insult to those children to assume that they can’t make an informed decision. Luckily, wilful ignorance is no longer government policy (despite the efforts of this MP), and the internet means that there isn’t just one official source of information, with Dr Petra Boynton, a experienced sex educator, giving a good list here. Of course, there’s more than enough misinformation on the internet, but at last ‘ver kids’ at least have most teachers in this country on their side to help guide them through.
Tags: blatant sexism, Mary Marryat, pregnancy, problem page, teenagers
Cook Electric
Woman's Weekly / 25th June 1965
Let me be clear. There are many domestic tasks that appliances have made easier. However, this ad is promising far, far more than the reality can deliver. Nice electric spit, though.
Not Too Old
Woman's Weekly / 18th June 1965
I find it interesting that older motherhood is not being seen as a problem here, when there’s an awful lot of panic nowadays about women ‘delaying’ having their first child. I suspect that legitimate concern over how helpful IVF can be after a certain age has been extended to a general panic, which isn’t helpful.
Tags: motherhood, pregnancy
Trimetts
Woman's Weekly / 16th April 1965
I’m sure regular readers can guess my problems with this ad, especially the idea that you’d put up with replacing one of your meals with Trimetts biscuits and milk on a long-term basis. Maybe the idea was that the horrible flavours they sold the biscuits in was enough to put you off food for the rest of the day.
Tags: diets, dodgy advice, trimetts