Magazine launches and events from 1960 to 1974

Sound (Australia)

October 1967. Folio Publishing Pty Ltd, Sydney. 45c; 52pp. Publisher/ed-in-chief: Alan Edenborough

Unusual title published in a square format. Came in a ‘record’ sleeve.

Vintage

May 1970. Billocrest Ltd, 24 Ouseley Rd, Wraysbury, Bucks. Subscription only. 12 issues 50s. 40pp. Man ed: David Burgess Wise; exec ed: John C. Stacey-Hibbert

Vintage focused on pre-1940 motoring with adverts such as a '1929 Speed 6 Bentley fully restored in mint condition open to sensible offers', wheel and spring specialist repairers, and vintage restorers. The cover of the first issue showed a Salmson 1100 competing in a trial (probably London-Land’s End 1927). Other contents included:

• road test of 1913 AC light car;
• Rolland-Pilain racing car;
• competition history of Indian Motorcycles;
• 100-mile UK trial of 1900;
• 3/98 Vauxhalls and Rileys at Brooklands in 1930s;
• centre-spread duotone poster of a 1931 9-litre Bentley built for Woolf Barnato.

Cosmopolitan

March 1972. National Magazine Co, London. 144+4pp. 20p. Ed: Joyce Hopkirk; art ed: Sue Wade; publisher: Brian Braithwaite
Twenty-one-year-old Julie Crosthwait was the model for the first issue cover taken by David Magnus. She was chosen by editorial director Helen Gurley Brown and told the Daily Mirror 30 years later (Feb 21): 'I didn't live the Cosmopolitan lifestyle at all. I must admit I was a bit shocked when I actually read the magazine.' Vivien Neves was featured in a Miss Selfridge advert on page 3.

Cosmopolitan profile

Gay News

Gay News Editorial Collective. June 1972 (no cover date)–April 1983. 10p. 12pp
First issue of Gay News, the 'national homosexual newspaper'. The founders were a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. The cover showed BBC Radio 1 DJ Jimmy Savile (though spelt as Saville). This illustrated an article about one of the magazine's creators not being invited to speak on Savile's Speakeasy show. The magazine carried an advert for the first issue of Spare Rib and Time Out's Book of London. Another cover story was about IT (International Times), an underground magazine, losing an appeal before the Lords over a prosecution for publishing gay and lesbian contact ads in its classified section. The editorial describes how WH Smith refused to stock it, so distribution had to be arranged through a Brighton bookshop – a campaign eventually drove the retailer to carry the paper. Gay News closed in April 1983. The printer was FI Litho, a left-wing printshop affiliated to the International Marxist Group. It did work for groups such as the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and left-wing papers including Red Weekly and Socialist Challenge.

Spare Rib