21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) (26 page)

Look and Learn

I have a particular soft spot for
Look and Learn
, an educational magazine for children that ran from 1962 right through to 1982. I think it is because of the idea that kids would happily pay money for what was essentially a school textbook just because it looked a bit like a comic. The past was a quaint place.

I managed to dig out some old copies to see what sort of articles they featured. Highlights include a history of the Gypsy way of life, including a guide to the signs they would chalk up outside ‘friendly’ or ‘unfriendly’ houses, a piece on cut-throat razors, a photographic travelogue on Venice, a look at how chewing gum is made, and a short biography of the Empress Josephine. Can you imagine such a magazine existing today? Most
adults
I know would struggle to get through it.

The articles were all illustrated, and the magazine used a regular group of artists resulting in a house style that looks quite dated now, but seemed perfectly OK at the time. Think school textbook again, with a slight instruction manual influence. I am pretty sure the artists made a few bob on the side by working on the leaflets you’d find in doctors’ surgeries.

My favourite section was the ‘Penfriends’ column, in which kids from across the country described themselves and their interests in a handful of words, and then waited to receive letters from dozens of other children keen to correspond with them. Penfriends were all the rage back then; I discuss them elsewhere in this book.

But the most popular section was undoubtedly ‘The Trigan Empire’, a science fiction comic strip. The story of an alien culture, it managed to weave all sorts of educational elements into its storylines.

Ultimately it wasn’t a lack of interest from readers that brought about
Look and Learn
’s demise, rather, it was the price of paper. It
ended up being too expensive to produce, and shut up shop in 1982, although it has resurfaced with an online archive and a ‘best of’ book version, so the kids of today can discover all about the Greek god Apollo and how tides work.

Dodo Rating:

Smarties Tubes

In 2005, some bright spark at Nestlé Rowntree decided that, after 68 years, it would be a good idea to ditch the classic cardboard tube packaging of Smarties and replace it with a flimsy hexagonal disgrace that goes all damp when you try to down a few straight into your mouth. The official line was that the six-sided design, known as a ‘hexatube’ for crying out loud, would appeal more to youngsters and would lead to less spillage, but conspiracy theories abound, such as the suggestion that the new version is a lot cheaper to produce, or that it is easier to recycle.

Whatever the reason, it was wrong, plain wrong.

Original Smarties (and I am coming over all emotional at the mere thought that the kids of today will have no idea what I am talking about) came in a sturdy cylinder with a plastic lid. The lids were in a variety of bright colours and each had a letter of the alphabet embossed in lower-case on the underside.

It was never altogether clear why the letter was there. In later years, the company claimed that they were intended as educational, to encourage kids to learn the alphabet. That may well be true but I cannot remember anyone ever doing such a thing. The lid, and tube, did have other uses, however, most famously in the Smarties Gun Game.

Every day 570,000 tubes of Smarties are manufactured, each containing an average of 48 Smarties, while 307 tubes are eaten every minute in the UK. There appears to be no evidence that the new design improved sales, but it doesn’t look as if the classic packaging will ever return.

At least Nestlé Rowntree had the good grace to acknowledge the end of an era. The final 100 cylindrical tubes to come off the production line each contained a commemorative certificate.

Rules for the Smarties Gun Game (for two players):

• Take two tubes of Smarties.
  
• Eat the Smarties.
  
• Examine the lids. The person with the letter nearest the start of the alphabet goes first.
  
• Replace lids.
  
• Place tubes on a flat surface – a table or arm of a chair are ideal – with the lid pointing away from you.
  
• Player one then slams a fist down onto the middle of their tube, sending the lid hurtling off into space and, hopefully, across the other side of the room.
  
• Player two repeats this procedure.
  
• The winner is the person whose Smarties’ lid travels the furthest distance.
  
• Repeat until your tubes are knackered or your mum announces that ‘You could have someone’s eye out with that.’
  

The game could, of course, involve more players. There was even a solo version.

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Smash Hits

Famous for nearly three decades (it ran from 1978 to 2006) of pop music coverage, when
Smash Hits
first started out it was actually a bit more cutting edge. With the age of Stock, Aitken, and Waterman still a long way off, early issues featured Blondie, the Sex Pistols, and even Sham 69. But it really hit its peak in the mid-to-late-’80s when it was all about Duran Duran, and that bloke with the beret who sang that song about an ansaphone that Andy Warhol seemed to like. Although, even then it did keep a token indie page going for some time, just for the weirdos with crimped hair and DM boots.

The magazine contained posters, interviews (often with tongues firmly in cheek), and record reviews, but, for many, the main attraction was the inclusion of lyrics from the most popular songs of the day, most of which seemed to end with the legendary bracketed phrase ‘(ad lib to fade)’. This was before the days of karaoke and the closest kids would get to
X Factor
was singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror. No matter how bad they sounded,
Smash Hits
ensured they were word perfect.

If you were an up and coming pop star,
Smash Hits
was the magazine to be in. Sure, there were rivals, with Jonathan King’s
No. 1
mag giving it a bit of a scare in the mid-’80s, but
Smash Hits
was always the favourite. Blimey, even Margaret Thatcher consented to an interview, such was its popularity.

Perhaps the most famous journalist to work on
Smash Hits
was Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant, who actually edited the mag for a while, but it also gave early jobs to Kate Thornton, Miranda Sawyer, Mark Frith (who went on to set up
Heat
), and Mark Ellen (the man behind
Q
and
Mojo
). It was the pre-teen’s
NME
and, as the young readers graduated to more serious fare, so did many of the writers. Except for Kate Thornton, who now presents
Loose Women
.

Ironically, the fall of
Smash Hits
was partly blamed on the rise of the BBC’s own
Top of the Pops
magazine, a brand that itself became extinct a few years later. However, the internet, mobile phones, and the proliferation of music channels must share part of the blame. Whatever the reason, by the time it folded, circulation was down nearly a million against the heady days of Culture Club and Johnny Hates Jazz. Shattered dreams indeed.

Modern teens can still enjoy the
Smash Hits
pop philosophy by tuning in to the digital radio station or satellite music channel that bears its name, but it is highly likely that they have never heard of the magazine that started it all.

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Spangles

Of all the sweets that have been lost to the great litter bin of time, few elicit such fond memories as the humble Spangle. This is surprising really as, despite the name, they weren’t really the most spectacular of confections looking, as they did, a bit like a Tune throat sweet.

Most people remember the distinctive orange packet with the ’70s bubble lettering – it was foil, and you would tear it open to reveal the individually cellophane wrapped sweets inside – but Spangles actually date back to the early 1950s.

Effectively just boiled sweets with a bit of a fizzy edge to them, the classic packet contained the following flavours: lemon, lime, pineapple, orange, strawberry, and blackcurrant. But there were a number of variations over the years, with entire packets featuring one flavour, such as tangerine, acid drop, or barley sugar.

There was even an Old English range, which ran for some time, and included cough candy and liquorice among its selection.

Mars stopped making Spangles in the early ’80s, but they brought them back to limited success in the mid-’90s. To be honest, I don’t think they were really trying all that hard, as the ’90s versions only came in two flavours – orange and blackcurrant – so it is no surprise that they vanished again shortly afterwards.

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Liquorice Pipes

Famous pipe smokers of the world include Harold Wilson, Monsieur Hulot, Tony Benn. And seven-year-old Steve Stack, walking home from school puffing away on a liquorice pipe.

A thick leathery wad of black liquorice in the shape of a pipe, with a sprinkling of red sugar at the end to suggest the soft glow of burning tobacco, this was actually a sweet that was sold to kids.

To be honest, it was a bit too much liquorice to eat in one go, and it stuck in your teeth for ages afterwards, but the fact that hardly anyone smokes a real pipe any more would suggest that it didn’t really encourage the kids of yesteryear to take up the habit.

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