1986 and the gurl

 

Having made a donation to a site I belong to I thought we might rewind to the past a bit this week as much as it has a bit of a hold on me.

1986 was in some ways rather like 1980 in some ways with me in that for that year I had a diary and annuals just like I did before and I read comics and mainly watched children's tv because Tammy remained very much a child.

A child who loved things like Brownies and Guides.

I was keen on nature, enjoying taking walks together with hikes, learning about how things grew and conservation such as the plight of otters and water voles.

It also was the year of the 1986 National Garden Festival which was about bring former industrial sites back into use in Etruria, Stoke on Trent, which I visited.

1986 was important for it was the year I really started to get to grips with past memories as some of those experiences had left me traumatized, not least those around trying to be your true sissy self in an era of casual queer bashing.

Listening to a radio show that played music from one week per year effectively turned and brought out a page at a time those memories as I reframed them and learned to heal.

I did like folk music although you might say I was born with two left feet when it came to dancing but I loved the pretty clothes and I started to dress more gurly that year as part of that healing process, learning to be more comfortable in my own skin.

I always like puzzles, they were a popular part of annuals which on rainy damp days such as today really helped as at least when you couldn't get out to play there were things you could do to keep busy and happy.

The Dandy always was a favourite and this is a copy from April 19th  that year with Desperate Dan on the front cover,

To return to the beginning, here's  Dandy annual for that year which I had together with the Brownies annual.

Walter - a hero for all

 Comics were very much a part of my childhood and Walter, pictured below in a blue shirt was the kind of boy I liked in it for being very girlie and running "The Softies" who were engaged in a battle with Dennis and his often "queer bashing" menaces gang.

It was the comic strip version of what sissies like me went through at school and on the streets playing but in recent times he's changed.

Walter's personality has changed drastically over the years.

In the beginning, Walter was a "softy", a boy who preferred peace and quiet over mischief, and liked mostly girly things like smelling flowers or playing with teddy bears.

Later, he was characterized as a spoiled but intelligent child.

Now, he is more of a child with the mind of an adult. He is deeply involved in his father's business schemes and hates people having fun without his permission.

Profile

Walter has traditionally been portrayed as a camp and effeminate boy, always very stereotypically girly in his behaviour: this varied from a strong aversion to typically "masculine" interests and situations, to full-blown transvestitism. While these tendencies have vanished in modern years, Walter is still portrayed as a typical "geek", wearing a blue schoolboy's jumper, schoolboy's shorts, a bow tie, and has glasses and slicked-back hair.

Walter lives next door to Dennis and his family. In earlier years, he often spent time in his Wendy house with his gang "the Softies", playing with dolls or pressing flowers etc. He regularly features in the Dennis the Menace strip; when he appears, he is usually either being attacked by Dennis or involved in a plot to attack Dennis himself—traditionally involving either chess or perfume. Though these attacks, in earlier years, arguably represented a legitimate feud between the Menaces and Softies, it was often difficult to interpret them as much deeper than his being bullied by Dennis for his effeminate nature or positive attributes.

Walter is often seen as a devoted and seemingly "perfect" child. He does well in school and is adored by his teachers and parents. Indeed, Walter is a stereotypical mummy's boy and a spoiled brat, luxuriously pampered by his wealthy parents — who, rather uncannily, resemble each other.

In earlier years, Walter had a white cat called Fluffy and a pink poodle named Foo Foo. In 2012, a new cat named Claudius was introduced.

Issue 1712 (10 May 1975) featured a girl named Priscilla, described by Dennis as Walter's sister, but she has not appeared since. In one story, he and Dennis are revealed to be distant cousins, but nothing more has been said of this.

Personal life

Walter is Dennis' neighbour and arch-enemy, most likely because he is the complete opposite of Dennis: Dennis being wild and naughty, and Walter being calm, intelligent and "soft." He is always Teacher's Pet at school. Walter is strongly disliked by Dennis because of his teddy-bear picnics and softy antics.

Walter long had two apparent friends named Algernon 'Spotty' Perkins and Bertie Blenkinsop. They were equally as camp as Walter, and the three of them often wore their mothers' clothes and makeup. In more recent years, the former bit player Dudley Nightshirt has replaced Spotty as third-in-command.

Walter also got himself a girlfriend named Matilda, who bore an eerie resemblance to him, except that she was a redhead, and obviously wore a schoolgirl's uniform. She also spoke with a lisp and can sometimes lose her temper. For example, Walter brings her a bunch of ragged nettles and dandelions because he had lost his glasses, and she angrily slams the door in his face. She appeared in the 1996 TV series of Dennis and Gnasher (although a character with the same name appeared in at least one comic library from 1993), and has also appeared in The Beano Video, to which she makes a cameo appearance during "Pink Glove". Also, his evil uncle, Slasher Brown, who owns a barber shop in Beanotown, tries to cut Dennis' hair live on TV, but fails, as it is revealed that Dennis had a wig, landing Walter in trouble.

Walter is sometimes scared, but can sometimes act spoilt rotten as explained in the 1996, 2009 and 2013 series. He always plays with his fellow Softies, including Spotty Perkins, Bertie Blenkinsop, Jeremy Snodgrass, Dudley Nightshirt and Nervous Rex. They all share the same characteristics as Walter.

Walter has been punished many times despite his well-behaved nature.

In the recent comics, he has dropped his soft personality, and now is ingenious, ambicious, intelligent, and wants to rid Beanotown of all its fun. He is deeply involved in his father's business schemes and hates people having fun without his permission.

Truth be told, the Softies often seem to be bound together much more by fear of Dennis than by any real mutual liking; though they are scrupulously polite and strangely devoted to each other, they have occasionally decided to pick on someone too.

It's unfortunate that in an attempt to remove the queer bashing in the original Dennis The Menace, in Dennis And Gnasher, they also took out someone who was queer or sissy could identify with and seeing the attitudes of boys such as Dennis being punished.

Now Yearbook 1993

 

Well it is Wednesday and as much as the urge to blog something around style and that is, you know we're going to get another one of those Now Yearbook compilations as they criss-cross the decades turning over memories.

1993 was in the early days of exploring being sissy before online really started and everything was more catalogues, certain mail order magazines and shops where you just had to come out about what you were being was for you to the sales staff if you needed a hand.

I loved music too and that's where we're going this week.

We last looked at the 1990's in February this year with 1990 and as this mega series works in five year batches the question was to be which year next which helpfully is the year after initial 1990's batch, 1993 where shoe-gazing, dance trends,grunge and the start of brit-pop were the thing.

As ever this comes in three versions, a deluxe book form 4 cd with notes, a cheap card 4 cd and a three lp selection.

Disc 1 opens with a posthumous #1 for Freddie Mercury with the remix of 'Living On My Own', before the first of two tracks included on this 'Yearbook' from Pet Shop Boys taken from their classic 1993 album 'Very' with its lego cover, 'Can You Forgive Her?'. New Order returned to the Top 5 with 'Regret', and R.E.M. had a string of hits including 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite'.

 One of the highlights of 1993 was the Chart renaissance of Duran Duran - and 'Come Undone' features next (with another to come on Disc Four) while Take That had their first #1 with 'Pray', Ace Of Base scored a global smash with 'All That She Wants' that I heared in the local HMV at the time, and a-ha were back in the Top 20, plus Whitney Houston and Lisa Stansfield had huge singles from the soundtrack of 'The Bodyguard' and the collaboration between West End feat. Sybil produced a massive floor-filler. 

Long established superstars enjoyed huge success in 1993 including Billy Joel's River Of Dreams, with  Annie Lennox, Sade and Sting, who closes the first disc with his timeless 'Fields Of Gold'. 

Disc Two opens with two of the year's newer charting bands: Radiohead with 'Creep', and the brilliant Suede with 'So Young' - both destined to become an essential part of the fabric of the decades' Charts while Paul Weller returned with 'Wild Wood', and Paul McCartney was back in the Top 20 with 'Hope Of Deliverance'. 

A popular TV-ad propelled The Bluebells to #1 with 'Young At Heart', 9 years after its first release while M People and Dina Carroll both had hugely successful Pop-Dance albums containing a number of big hit singles, and Pop-Trance crossover hits are featured from Cappella, Urban Cookie Collective, and Utah Saints along with big club tracks from D:Ream, Leftfield, The Beloved and Jamiroquai - who were celebrating their first (of many) Top 10 singles. 

The disc closes with 3 of the years' Reggae smashes including #1s from Shaggy with 'Oh Carolina' and UB40 with their cover of '(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You'. 

Disc 3 starts with the big come-back star of the year was Meat Loaf: 'I'd Do Anything For Love...' spent 7 weeks at #1 and was 1993's best-selling single, and is joined by Bon Jovi, and Lenny Kravitz. 

A great run of Alt-Rock/Pop follows from Manic Street Preachers, Spin Doctors, Crowded House, The Cranberries and the massive 'What's Up?' from 4 Non Blondes plus Soul and R&B huge hits from Arrested Development, SWV, Shara Nelson and the #1 debut 'Dreams' from Gabrielle. 

The disc slows tempo with some of the years' most soulful ballads including 'Delicate', 'Now I Know What Made Otis Blue' and finishing with 'In Your Care' from Tasmin Archer. 

Disc 4 is all about anthemic Pop! - and kicks off with defining tracks from Duran Duran with the sublime 'Ordinary World', from "The Wedding" album of 1992 and Pet Shop Boys with their superb cover of 'Go West'. The #1 collaboration between Take That and Lulu is followed by dance-floor gold from Robin S, SNAP! feat. Niki Harris, Haddaway, and RuPaul. 

The final disc continues with Bananarama, Kim Wilde, Deborah Harry and Gloria Estefan ahead of enduring artists Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Go West and Tears For Fears, and love songs from Lisa Stansfield and Dina Carroll lead to a sign-off from Elton John & Kiki Dee with their version of 'True Love', which was a Top 3 single through the Christmas period. 

Out on August 9th, the three cd extra set adds a further 57 unforgettable tracks to the collection.

Disc 1 sets the stage with a blend of classic hits across multiple genres. Pet Shop Boys kick off with "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing," followed by New Order with "Ruined In A Day" and Duran Duran’s "Too Much Information." 

Next come the powerful vocals of Annie Lennox with "Little Bird" followed by classics from defining albums: Sting with "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” from ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales’ and R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming" from ‘Automatic For The People’. Up next are a stellar run of beautiful songs from Saint Etienne, Sade, Go West and Terrance Trent D'Arby (Sananda Maitreya). SNAP! and M People scored huge Pop-Dance hits, and Heaven 17 and Visage saw remixed versions of their classics become hits once again. The first disc draws to a close with a great collaboration between David Sylvian and Robert Fripp plus Suzanne Vega, Chris Rea, and finishing with Elton John’s “Simple Life”.

Disc 2 travels through Dance and Alternative Pop. Cappella’s high-energy "U Got 2 Know" and Urban Cookie Collective’s “Feels Like Heaven" set the tone, followed by infectious beats from Captain Hollywood Project and S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage. R&B smashes from Jade with "Don't Walk Away" and SWV’s "I'm So Into You" feature alongside Shara Nelson’s "One Goodbye In Ten", and Jamiroquai’s funky "Blow Your Mind". Stereo MC's, Sunscreem, and Pop Will Eat Itself add to the eclectic mix, and James’ "Sometimes", Del Amitri’s "When You Were Young," and Paul Weller’s "Sunflower" are representative of ‘93’s Pop-Indie crossover hits. The disc finishes with “Kite” from the brilliant Nick Heyward – his first new release for five years, and power ballads from Cher with her live interpretation of “Many Rivers To Cross” and Bon Jovi’s “Bed Of Roses”.

Disc 3 includes powerful vocals and dance floor favourites. Opening with a huge track taken from a massive hit soundtrack: Whitney Houston’s "I Have Nothing", from ‘The Bodyguard’. Sister Sledge’s classic "We Are Family" was a hit again, remixed for the ‘90s dancefloor, followed by Taylor Dayne’s cover of "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love" and Lulu’s "Independence”. Sybil enjoyed her second big hit in ’93 with "When I’m Good And Ready", as did Haddaway with "Life", while more Eurodance came from Dr. Alban with the uplifting "Sing Hallelujah!". Barry Manilow’s "Copacabana" was remixed to become a hit for the second time, and cover versions of Pop classics “This Is It” and “Everlasting Love” gave Dannii Minogue and Worlds Apart chart success. Soulful vocals from Michelle Gayle, Gabrielle, Lisa Stansfield and Dina Carroll are featured ahead of UB40’s “Higher Ground”, whilst the final two tracks are from the years’ biggest pop groups; East 17 continued their chart run with “Slow It Down” and Take That saw “Babe” become their third number one in 1993.

And there over four discs we have 1993 a year that matched new and old acts and quirky things...Blobby!

A return to Blytonville

This week we're going to the most celebrated little boy (of sorts) with the original form of audio book, the story record.

1953 was a very different era, many children lived in highly polluted cities where smog was a killer, grown ups ruled your life quite firmly and even those of us who lived in areas with our own accents and spoke in dialect informally such as here in twin conurbations of Staffordshire were expected to learn received pronunciation which was the language of radio and television back then.

Regional voices such as ours were kept down, we were the uncouthed, so to listen to these recordings does take you back  but the star is Noddy and the magical world of Toyland  and that was where I returned to this week.

In 1953, very much at her height as leading children's authoress, Enid Blyton went to EMI Records with the idea of making a sound recording of her reading a series of the Noddy stories for record.

She was open to the use of sound effects and songs to add dramatizing, realizing this all helped hold your attention and they were issued on ten inch (22 cm) 78 rpm records during that period where we were moving from shellac 78 discs to unbreakable microgroove 45 and 33 rpm ones.

They were recorded on tape which made re-issuing on 7 inch 45 rpm extended play discs with two sides of the originals to a single side easier and the quality is of the highest of the era.

Of course these are not the secretly rewritten versions where gollies no longer exist, everybody is presumed English of the dominant cultural norms and we lived in world we were just a step a way from the threat of a spanking.

Times change and will no doubt continue to but that world was closer to that of my childhood than that of today's and really one needs to explain to children about these differences so they understand different times have their own norms.

I recently re-read Those Dreadful Children.

The story begins with the three Carlton children - John, Margery and Annette - being excited when a new family move into the house at the bottom of the garden. However, the older Taggertys - Pat, Maureen and Biddy are loud, rough, dirty and not at all the sort of children the prim, tidy Carltons want to associate with. 

Due to an old friendship of their fathers they are forced together - two sets of Dreadful Children - who have to take a hard look at their own behaviours as they learn to get along, learning from the best of each other, understanding each others faults.

This is very much product of its era in terms of values but in showing the good in each family rather than pushing any one, I feel she was on the right lines.

You can kill iniatitive and imagination with kindness, preoccupations with cleanliness and respectability but there are standards too about respect for others, please and thank-you's and turn taking.

The other side of you

Another week and in the eclectic mix slice of life blog that this is we'll go back a bit to the early days on this blog during a guided period in my life where for the first time a lot of work was done into exploring every latent idea and interest within me, pulling them right out.

In so many ways having been confronted by their presence and dragged out the treatment ensured they could never go back and you only consider when to act upon them.

I could never again resist them

So that meant sissykins beyond replacing one pair of Pj's for something more overtly feminine also needed to get back on track as only until the period just before covid did I stop wearing any kind of a night dress,

With that in mind and the many remembered words from those early days I have a satin pink Baby Doll night dress with dainty little rose bud details, frilly lace strips and hem.

It positively oozes uber femininity

To go underneath them, matching panties.

A Baby Doll night dress is really what the older "Big" side of sissikins really belongs in, something that is so much sensual, that while not being explicitly grown up is not worn by the Littlest of Girls because it is sexy.

A sissy that has gone through puberty is sexual even if while in little form you elect not to use that side, you ARE sexily needy and that's really the best for you when that is the case.

You don't take a vow of celibacy as Little Sissy, you protect that side of you whenever she's out.

Little sissy gurl bedtimes

This was rather more the post I wished to make last week because really when you are more a Adult Little Gurl rather than a Big Gurl with all hur grown up interests  and sexual identity some might say "and what exactly sissy dressing".

I would say it was on the highly sugary side of little girl dressing baby pink or blue, very much about soft, smooth materials and very much feminine.

Sissikins has new pj's with a satin smooth finish that gives off very much a gurlish feel, you could never mistake them for boys which makes total sense

Because it can get warm as an option  I did get a pair of  matching French Knickers that could be worn with the top with pretty lace detail, again very gurlish and smooth feeling.

It all helps with feeling great as sissy me.

Discourse: Little Sissies exist!

 Okay so I was going to post something rather different but seeing a dialogue of the deaf going on one one site one what was supposed to had been a a thread about what you might like at "sissy event" being hijacked by a Little Girl who thinks all Sissies are about SPH*, adult humilation and one Sissy who thinks sissies can only be into going to places where you might be "tied up", called any amount of demeaning sexually explicit  terms and Forced to do anything.

That is so so ridiculous.

Of course some sissies and much of Online sissy culture does run with all of that which if you see yourself as primarily an Adult who is very much sexual is totally fine.

Some do use traits such as dressing like a child as a humilation but that doesn't make being dressed like one necessarily a matter of being humiliated so much you are attempting to resemble a child- the child you see yourself as or enacting and they sure don't deserve to be seen as a kink ever.

Little Sissies can and do exist - unlike LG's (Little Girls) we tend to be more frilly feminine than most of the same emotional age and perhaps by their standards effeminate - but basically we like the same games, play with toys that uses our imagination, dolly tea parties, arts and crafts, dress up sessions and the like.

When we're like that we do things that are more child-like enjoying being that child even if we're more frilly from many a LG.

Having been their and done it I know it exists in just the same way Adult Sissy stuff does and really it's entirely up to you what side if any you're on.

Just quit lecturing people about things you don't know and haven't had the life doing.