http://www.lookandlearn.com/history/index.php

When I was a child, my parents used to treat me, my brother and sisters to a weekly magazine.   We girls used to get ‘Jackie’, and would spend hours poring over such treats as the ‘Cathy & Claire’ problem page, reader’s true life experience and fashion and make-up tips – the latter ensuring that we went out looking like blue-eyed pandas.  And the pull-out posters of pop stars and bands were fought over - I won Donny Osmond and The Sweet.

My brother, however, got Look and Learn.  I can see the reasoning behind this.  My brother was cast in the Just William mould, the bane of our teachers and the despair of my parents.  Buying him Look and Learn each week was a noble, but futile, bid to channel his attention from mischief-making into more educational matters.  It didn’t work, of course.  I remember my mother almost weeping during a birthday party for my brother.  He had dared his pals to jump from the cowshed loft onto a nearby pile of straw.  A daring-do in itself – but he neglected to inform them that it was a manure heap.  My mother spent the afternoon frantically washing a pile of socks and shoes before parents’ turned up to claim their sons.

When my brother finally left home, my mother cleared out his room.  It was something like a Dickens scene – piled high with clutter accumulated over his youth.  Birds eggs, animal bones, air rifle pellets and cartridges, fishing tackle, broken penknives etc. lay everywhere – all propped on pristine piles of unread Look and Learn magazines.  

But there is still hope for my brother.  To my astonishment and joy, I discovered that Look and Learn lives on.  It is possible to buy a subscription for the ‘Best of’ – so that’s my brother’s Christmas present sorted!