Yesterday it was announced that more! magazine was folding. The magazine of my youth. The magazine that pretty much gave me all of my sex education (though not all of it I understood…)
I first discovered more when I was 11. I was in my neighbour's house and she had a copy in her room. Aged 13 her reading material was a lot more advanced than my copies of Sugar or Bliss.
I flicked through the magazine in absolute awe, 'Position of the Fortnight' blowing my pre-teen mind. This was another level to the magazines I was used to and I was desperate to read more.
I knew my mum would never let me buy it in the weekly shop though. Not with cover lines such as: 'Planning a dream date? Tempt him with your sexy skin…' and 'What men do in bed'.
So I asked my neighbour if she'd buy a copy of more! for me each week. She was more than happy to so I handed over my pennies.
Obviously she couldn't just bring it round openly, my mum would go mad. This would have to be a covert operation. And this was before mobiles, there would be no quick text to let me know to meet her.
Instead I would listen for her Dad's car to pull up, watch them unload the shopping before she nipped to my front door and pushed it through the letterbox. I would sit at the bottom of the stairs where I'd grab my copy of more, shove it up my jumper and run upstairs before Mum could intercept.
I'd devour my copy whilst leaning against my bedroom door so she couldn't walk in and catch me. Once every word had been read I'd hide the copy with the rest of my stash under my bed.
This worked well for a good few months until one evening my Mum got to the front door before I did.
I cringed. 'Be the perfect kisser - learn to snog without a boyfriend!' screamed the cover line.
'You're too young for this,' Mum said disapprovingly.
I promised not to read it again. But of course I did. I needed to know that the best way to learn to snog was to practice on your hand or an orange or to make funny faces at yourself in the mirror...
My friends had brothers and sisters that they eavesdropped on when they were talking to their friends to learn their sex education. As an only child all I had to rely on was more! magazine. It taught me pretty much everything I needed to know and then some.
As well as learning how to snog and making my eyes water with the many positions of the fortnight, reading more made me decide on my future career. I wanted to become a writer on a magazine.
I loved the glossiness of the pages, the sex, the celeb gossip… I was determined it was what I'd do and seven years later I was studying a degree in journalism.
My first job as a graduate in 2007 was at a press agency and just two months in I wrote my first feature for more! on a female sex addict. Seeing my name on their pages was a dream come true.
A few months later they commissioned me to follow Paris Hilton around Bristol. Paris was then seeing Benji Madden from Good Charlotte who were touring the UK.
I spent four hours waiting for her outside the wrong hotel. Then a further five outside a tour bus. I was cold. It was wet. But I didn't care. I was chasing a celebrity for more! magazine!
I just wish I could have gone back in time and told my 11-year-old self exactly what was to come. She would have been pretty impressed and it would have probably made the following school years a lot more bearable.
(Oh and the outcome of the Paris story? She eventually got out of the bus, threw a bottle of diet coke over me before getting straight into a car and speeding away. Career highlight.)
More! magazine was iconic to a generation of women and it saddens me that it is yet another title to bite the dust.
The next generation will find out how to practise their snogging on the Internet but it's not quite the same as sneaking a magazine past your Mum is it?
So RIP more! magazine and your legendary 'Positions of the Fortnight.' You will always be fondly remembered by many.
