Today is a very special day. It’s our birthday!
Can you believe “The People’s Friend” turns 153 today?
It’s no wonder we’re the world’s longest-running women’s weekly magazine!
While we celebrated our landmark 150th with a wonderful party at our Meadowside office here in Dundee, obviously we couldn’t do anything like that this year.
But we could at least reflect on the extraordinary resilience of the “Friend”, which has stayed in print through some quite incredible world events, including two World Wars, the coming of the internet, and two devastating global pandemics.
It’s a pleasure to be working on a publication with that kind of legacy (and staying power!), and we’re pleased to say we’re looking as strong as ever.
Some highlights
Just because we’re still working from home doesn’t mean we haven’t been working hard!
For example, last year we released an excellent new entry in our Classics Collection: “Beholden To None”, by Jennie Cairns.
We were also delighted by the return of our festive Warner Leisiure Hotels break. And the chance to get to meet our readers socially again (responsibly, of course).
Putting together the “Magic Of Christmas” bookazine brought some much-needed cheer to the office in a dark time. And hopefully it brought cheer to our readers, too!
We attracted more new writers to contribute to the “Friend”, and new subscribers to read their stories, too.
Oh, and “Reading Between The Lines”, our story podcast, was named “Podcast Of The Year” by the PPA Scotland! If you haven’t managed to listen to an episode yet, click here to get started.
Here’s to the next 153
That’s just a tiny snapshot of the year, of course. We like to keep busy!
And we like to keep in touch. So please don’t hesitate to drop us an email, or message us on Facebook and Twitter if you have something to share about our birthday, articles or stories you’ve read in the magazine, episodes of the podcast — or even if you would just like a chat!
Hearing from you, our readers, makes all our hard work worthwhile.
Click here to take a look back at some of the celebrations for our 150th birthday.
Click here to read about what the “Friend” means to some of our readers, and fiction and features authors.
Iain McDonald I am the Digital Content Editor at the “Friend”, making me responsible for managing the flow of interesting and entertaining content on the magazine’s website and social media channels.
