The People's Friend Magazine

26 January 2022

The People's Friend - Issue 7912 - Feel-good fiction with seven short stories, including a dance-inspired romance by Linda Lewis, 'Strictly Ballroom', and 'Count Your Blessings', Karla Smith’s sparkling comedy set in the 1970s. Willie Shand visits glorious Glenmore, at the heart of the Cairngorms, OceanGives founder Catriona Spink reveals her mission to clear a coastline of plastic, we celebrate 80 years of Desert Island Discs, and Polly Pullar takes a light-hearted look at rural life, while Living Paintings helps the blind and partially sighted experience art in an extraordinary way... Plus more stories, serials, health, gardening, knitting, recipes, travel, and much more inside. --- Back in 1869, when the recently widowed Victoria was on the throne and Gladstone was Prime Minister, when Alexander Graham Bell was yet to make the first telephone call and Darwin's "Origin Of Species" had been published just ten years earlier, a brand-new magazine - "The People's Friend" - hit the shelves for the very first time. Right from the start, the "Friend's" mission statement was clear: "We intend that fully one half of the 'Friend' shall be devoted to fiction... the 'Friend' being intended for fireside reading, nothing will be admitted into its columns having the slightest tendency to corrupt the morals either of old or young." As the years passed, the "Friend" grew and thrived. Through massive social upheaval, wars, strikes, financial crashes and natural disasters, the magazine continued, dispensing entertainment, instruction, comfort and good cheer to its readers. It became a constant in readers' lives; a true friend to turn to in times of trouble.