0:00:02 > 0:00:04'I'm Philippa Perry.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06'I've been a psychotherapist for 20 years
0:00:06 > 0:00:09and now I've achieved my lifelong ambition
0:00:09 > 0:00:10'of becoming an agony aunt.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14'In this programme I'll explore the problem page's enduring
0:00:14 > 0:00:17'appeal to everyone from 17th-century men
0:00:17 > 0:00:20'to 1970s teenagers.'
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Any lumpy envelopes, you were very cautious,
0:00:23 > 0:00:28because they tended to contain bits of body parts.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31'I'll pick my way through three centuries of advice on
0:00:31 > 0:00:36'broken hearts, cheating partners and adolescent angst
0:00:36 > 0:00:40'to uncover a revealing portrait of our social history.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42'I'll immerse myself in the world
0:00:42 > 0:00:45'of agony aunts and uncles and find them fighting
0:00:45 > 0:00:48'on the front line of the battle of the sexes...'
0:00:48 > 0:00:54Women think that willies are more complicated creatures than they are.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57'..and leading a revolution in social attitudes.'
0:00:57 > 0:01:01"This lady wishes to know, 'What is a blow job?'"
0:01:01 > 0:01:02I said, "Leave it to me."
0:01:02 > 0:01:04PHILIPPA LAUGHS
0:01:04 > 0:01:05'And I'll discover just what
0:01:05 > 0:01:09'makes other people's problems so irresistible.'
0:01:19 > 0:01:24I'll give you the e-mail address. So, it's thismorning@itv.com...
0:01:24 > 0:01:27'Denise Robertson is proof that the nation's
0:01:27 > 0:01:30'agony aunts are still in huge demand.'
0:01:30 > 0:01:32OK, so he has said he wants to leave?
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Is he physically abusive?
0:01:36 > 0:01:38Oh. OK, then.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41So what is it that you want to ask Denise today?
0:01:43 > 0:01:44How can you help him?
0:01:47 > 0:01:50She's kept her place on the This Morning sofa
0:01:50 > 0:01:54for over a quarter of a century and remains as busy as ever.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56- I want to get straight on to the phone.- We've got Sarah there.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00- Hello, Sarah.- You've been married for over 20 years,
0:02:00 > 0:02:04and since the kids left home it's just been the two of you
0:02:04 > 0:02:08and there's nothing there. The only...
0:02:08 > 0:02:10Denise conforms to all our stereotypes
0:02:10 > 0:02:13about what an agony aunt is.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17She's older, wiser and is full of common sense
0:02:17 > 0:02:22and gives the answer that you sort of expect to hear and want to hear.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25If you ever were happy, then
0:02:25 > 0:02:31it's worth exploring whether you can get that happiness back again.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Find out if there's any mileage left in the marriage
0:02:34 > 0:02:36before you decide to go. If you...
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Good advice is what you know anyway and might not have put into words.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43Well, Denise certainly puts it into words.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46'TV agony aunts like Denise may be a relatively recent
0:02:46 > 0:02:49'phenomenon, but advice columnists
0:02:49 > 0:02:53'have been around a lot longer than one might imagine.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55'The problem page began life
0:02:55 > 0:02:58'in the coffee shops of late-17th-century London.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02'Aside from their wheeling and dealing, gentlemen readers
0:03:02 > 0:03:05'still found time to revel in other people's agony.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10'The earliest advice columns proved unputdownable because,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13'just as today, they were the perfect place
0:03:13 > 0:03:15'to confess unsavoury secrets.'
0:03:17 > 0:03:22"Dear sir, I addicted myself to a most grievous sin.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26"Although I refrain from the commission of it when I am
0:03:26 > 0:03:29"awake, in my dreams I commit it and take pleasure in it.
0:03:29 > 0:03:34"I desire your opinion whether it is still a sin."
0:03:36 > 0:03:41The very first agony aunt wasn't an aunt at all, he was an uncle.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44John Dunton, a London bookseller,
0:03:44 > 0:03:51in 1691 founded the country's first problem page, the Athenian Mercury,
0:03:51 > 0:03:56a periodical made up entirely of questions and answers.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01But what made Dunton's invention so brilliant was that he hit upon
0:04:01 > 0:04:04an idea that was a founding principle
0:04:04 > 0:04:06of problem pages ever since,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09that the questioner remain anonymous.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20To help him in his pioneering work, Dunton founded the Athenian Society,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23a panel of the great and the good - all men, naturally -
0:04:23 > 0:04:27who passed down their judgment on readers' problems.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30You have figures seated behind a table.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33There's supposed to be 12 of them, which of course
0:04:33 > 0:04:36conjures up the idea of a jury or perhaps the 12 disciples.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40And in the centre you have John Dunton, who is the publisher.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42He is gathering up the questions that men
0:04:42 > 0:04:46and women are sending to him and his friends in a coffee house.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50On the right we have John Norris, who was a Cambridge mathematician.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52And on his left we have Samuel Wesley,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54who was an Anglican clergyman.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57But in fact they are the only three real people here.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01All of the rest of the Athenian Society are fictitious.
0:05:01 > 0:05:06So basically, it's John Dunton and a couple of mates in a coffee shop.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08But the way he's promoting it,
0:05:08 > 0:05:11it's a very canny marketing ploy, isn't it?
0:05:11 > 0:05:14It is. And it captures something of the spirit of the times.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16And it becomes a really national phenomenon.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19People send in questions from all over the country.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22And underneath them, what's this lot supposed to represent?
0:05:22 > 0:05:25So, this is the kind of mass of ordinary labouring people,
0:05:25 > 0:05:26men and women.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29But this is definitely a picture of disorder among the lower orders.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32So you have the woman, and she's trying to stab her husband,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35and he's crying "Help, help, noble Athenians".
0:05:35 > 0:05:38What sort of questions were they answering?
0:05:38 > 0:05:40I mean, really, there were no holds barred.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42I think we might be surprised at how frank
0:05:42 > 0:05:47people could be in the 1690s about everyday life and their
0:05:47 > 0:05:52problems with love and courtship and relationship questions.
0:05:52 > 0:05:53We have a lady here who's asking,
0:05:53 > 0:05:56"Where is the likeliest place to get a husband in?"
0:05:56 > 0:05:59Where should she go to find a man? I really want to know.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01Yes, well, they do recommend that,
0:06:01 > 0:06:05"Tis likeliest place to get a lover where there are the fewest women.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08"And accordingly, if she'll venture to ship herself
0:06:08 > 0:06:11"to some of the plantations by the next fleet,
0:06:11 > 0:06:13"if she's but anything marketable ten to one,
0:06:13 > 0:06:16"but one or another there will save her longing."
0:06:16 > 0:06:19- Right.- And this is what some women were doing,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22they were going off and forging new families overseas.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26And it's said that if you want a man, the best place to go is Alaska.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29- Even today.- Today, yes.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32And then you get these wonderful questions that children
0:06:32 > 0:06:35might ask about everyday occurrences.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38So, there's one here about a horse,
0:06:38 > 0:06:42why a horse with a round fundament emits a square excrement.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46Is it so? Is a horse's excrement really square?
0:06:46 > 0:06:48It makes you look twice!
0:06:48 > 0:06:53And then it goes into a great, long, quasi-scientific discussion
0:06:53 > 0:06:55- about the oblong cakes.- Oh!
0:06:55 > 0:06:58People were quite upfront, really, about bodily functions.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02So I see in this one. "Sphincter, anus, orifice."
0:07:02 > 0:07:06It's all coming out in the horse's, erm, excrement question.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08There's no squeamishness.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11That's a really interesting feature of the 17th century, I think.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15We tend to think these days that problem pages are a very
0:07:15 > 0:07:18female-dominated area.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22This is one of the really remarkable things, that in the late 1600s
0:07:22 > 0:07:25you had this periodical where women
0:07:25 > 0:07:29and men were thought to be interested in questions relating
0:07:29 > 0:07:33to domestic life and to happiness and to love and sex and marriage,
0:07:33 > 0:07:37and as many men were writing in as women with those sorts of questions.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44'In the 18th century, there was an explosion in printing,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48'as Britain's rising prosperity created an insatiable demand
0:07:48 > 0:07:50'for newspapers and magazines.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55'Well-to-do readers had a vast array of new periodicals to choose from,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58'and many of them featured the tried and tested formula
0:07:58 > 0:08:01'of a problem page.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05'Whether the questions came from men or women, the subject of
0:08:05 > 0:08:09'relations with the opposite sex remained a perennial favourite.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13'A few hundred years on, the 18th-century answers
0:08:13 > 0:08:16'may be showing their age, but many of the problems
0:08:16 > 0:08:19'are timeless, so I want to put a few of them
0:08:19 > 0:08:21'to a modern agony uncle.'
0:08:21 > 0:08:24"I have a great mind to be rid of my wife.
0:08:24 > 0:08:30"Never was man so enamoured as I was of her fair forehead, neck and arms.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33"But, to my great astonishment,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36"I find they were all the effect of art.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40"When she wakes in the morning, she scarce seems young enough
0:08:40 > 0:08:41"to be the mother of her whom
0:08:41 > 0:08:44- "I carried to bed the night before." - GRAHAM CHUCKLES
0:08:44 > 0:08:47"What would you advise?"
0:08:47 > 0:08:50He...was very naive, this man.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54Er, I mean, you know, she must be caked in make-up.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56She must be wearing so much of it,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59I mean in that to the point where you'd suspect she's a man,
0:08:59 > 0:09:01- not just an old lady. - But everything was by candlelight.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03So you could probably get away with a lot more.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07- No daytime dates.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09I suppose it is that thing, you know,
0:09:09 > 0:09:14if you buy a miniature poodle and it grows into a dachshund, you'll
0:09:14 > 0:09:18never love it quite as much as you would have the miniature poodle.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20You have been sold a pup.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22But also here's the thing, agony aunts
0:09:22 > 0:09:25and uncles across time immemorial,
0:09:25 > 0:09:28they're not always right. Because who knows if you're right?
0:09:28 > 0:09:30You're in an odd position, because you're
0:09:30 > 0:09:33meddling in strangers' lives and you're judging a whole
0:09:33 > 0:09:37situation from one side, you're not getting both sides of the story.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42You try to imagine what else is going on in-between the lines and outside.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45And do you worry a lot about the advice you give,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47whether it's right or it's wrong?
0:09:47 > 0:09:51Sometimes. Look, sometimes I don't, because who cares, really, you know,
0:09:51 > 0:09:56because the problem is sort of like, "Duh! Really? You're writing to me?"
0:09:56 > 0:10:02Do you think being a man makes any difference to being an agony aunt?
0:10:03 > 0:10:07With women, you can give them a male perspective on this,
0:10:07 > 0:10:11because I think women overthink men far too much
0:10:11 > 0:10:15and they think that men are thinking when they're not,
0:10:15 > 0:10:17they're just doing.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21Most men get into trouble through their wallet or their willy.
0:10:21 > 0:10:26Yeah, willies do lead their poor owners astray rather a lot.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28They really, really do. That's the problem.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32I think women think that willies
0:10:32 > 0:10:36are more complicated creatures than they are.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40So don't feel TOO bad when it ends up somewhere else.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45- Oh, really?- Well, you will feel bad. Of course, you're devastated.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49But... And trust is the worst...
0:10:50 > 0:10:53- ..thing, I mean to try and rebuild trust.- Yeah, yeah.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55I never know, really, what to tell people.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58I just always kind of go, "Well, maybe over time."
0:10:58 > 0:11:03But really I'm thinking, "Nah. That trust is not coming back."
0:11:09 > 0:11:13'In the 17th and 18th centuries, agony aunts and uncles addressed
0:11:13 > 0:11:17'the concerns of a small elite with the money to spend on magazines,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21'but in the 19th century, cheaper printing and the growth
0:11:21 > 0:11:26'of the middle classes brought their columns to a massive new audience.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30'These upwardly mobile new readers were desperate to learn the
0:11:30 > 0:11:34'do's and don'ts of polite society and turned to the Victorian
0:11:34 > 0:11:37'advice columnists as the arbiters of good taste.'
0:11:42 > 0:11:46"Madam, the expense of white kid gloves is ruining me,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49"as they grow dirty so quickly.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52"Would it be a great offence against etiquette
0:11:52 > 0:11:54"to wear black lace mitts instead?"
0:11:56 > 0:11:58Publishers like Samuel Beeton,
0:11:58 > 0:12:02husband of the original domestic goddess, Mrs Beeton,
0:12:02 > 0:12:06were quick to take advantage of this new middle-class market.
0:12:06 > 0:12:12In 1852, Beeton launched the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15the first cheap monthly magazine aimed at the same
0:12:15 > 0:12:19housewives who lapped up his wife's recipes for steamed pudding.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24'Beeton was the magazine's editor and agony uncle, answering the
0:12:24 > 0:12:28'usual queries about manners and morals.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33'But these problem-page standards were subverted by certain
0:12:33 > 0:12:37'letters which took a far darker turn.'
0:12:37 > 0:12:40And you get things like, "How do I get rid of my blackheads?"
0:12:40 > 0:12:42"What's the best kind of shampoo for greasy hair?"
0:12:42 > 0:12:45"What colours should I wear if I've got brown hair?"
0:12:45 > 0:12:51And I understand that in 1867 the problems took a different turn.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55Yeah, so in 1867 something called the corset controversy started
0:12:55 > 0:12:59with quite an innocent letter from a lady from Edinburgh.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02She sent her daughter away to school
0:13:02 > 0:13:04and didn't see her for quite a long time,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07and when she saw her again her daughter had been tight-laced,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10which is put into an extremely tight corset
0:13:10 > 0:13:12to alter the figure permanently.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15And she was really annoyed that this had been done
0:13:15 > 0:13:17without her permission.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20And this kind of started a huge, huge series of letters
0:13:20 > 0:13:23that went on for at least two years,
0:13:23 > 0:13:25almost every month people saying
0:13:25 > 0:13:27that they were either for or against corsets.
0:13:27 > 0:13:29And mostly, it had to be said, they were for them.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32So, in the very next month, you get this letter from somebody
0:13:32 > 0:13:34who calls themselves Staylace,
0:13:34 > 0:13:36because everyone has a pseudonym in this.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41And she, presuming it's a woman, is very, very pro tight-lacing.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45And she goes on to say, "To me, the sensation of being tightly laced
0:13:45 > 0:13:49"in a pair of elegant, well-made, tightly fitting corsets is superb,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51"and I've never felt any evil to arise therefrom.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54"I rejoice in quite a collection of these much-abused
0:13:54 > 0:13:58"objects, in silk, satin and coutil of every style and colour."
0:13:58 > 0:14:03I'm a little bit suspicious that this was not from a lady.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06I've got a feeling this is from a gentleman who was
0:14:06 > 0:14:12turned on by the Edinburgh letter and now feels that this
0:14:12 > 0:14:17is like a confessional of his very, very private life...
0:14:17 > 0:14:20- Yeah.- ..because he's obviously a transvestite,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24and he's enjoying the display he's getting through these pages.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26I mean, that's just my theory, obviously.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30Yeah. Well, it's very possible, and it gave you the ability to
0:14:30 > 0:14:33air your most private thoughts under a pseudonym.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35You quite often get men writing in saying,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39"I'm very interested in the corset question. Can you tell me more?"
0:14:39 > 0:14:41I bet you did!
0:14:41 > 0:14:43So, was that a one-off?
0:14:43 > 0:14:48Or did this type of sort of going over into sort of male
0:14:48 > 0:14:51fantasy happen ever again?
0:14:51 > 0:14:53It did, actually, and in 1870
0:14:53 > 0:14:56there was a controversy that was even more strong.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58Uh-oh. I dread to think.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02It started out being about whether it was right or wrong to
0:15:02 > 0:15:05whip your children, and it quickly got into quite dark avenues.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08The letter starts here and it's somebody called, "A rejoicer in the
0:15:08 > 0:15:10"restoration of the rod".
0:15:10 > 0:15:14So it kind of starts off saying there's a great need for
0:15:14 > 0:15:16there to be kind of more discipline,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19and it essentially moves on to a very,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23very detailed description of a school in Kentish Town.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25"She then laid the cane aside, and when he had taken off his
0:15:25 > 0:15:29"trousers and had tucked his shirt, at her bidding, under his waistcoat
0:15:29 > 0:15:32"and laid himself across the little bed with his person bare, she told
0:15:32 > 0:15:36"him that she should birch him now, for refusing to obey her orders."
0:15:36 > 0:15:38So...
0:15:38 > 0:15:40Ooh!
0:15:40 > 0:15:43- It kind of go...- It goes into that detail, doesn't it,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46that kind of shows that he is getting off on this?
0:15:46 > 0:15:50Yeah, and, I mean, this is one of the most disturbing ones, I think.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53But some of them talk about things like tying a 17-year-old
0:15:53 > 0:15:57girl's hands to a peg on the wall so that you could beat her.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00And it starts getting very kind of sexualised and weird.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04- It's making me feel a bit sick, actually.- It's really not nice.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06So, what's going on here?
0:16:06 > 0:16:10This is a polite magazine for English women, English ladies,
0:16:10 > 0:16:13and it seems to be taken over by men who...
0:16:13 > 0:16:17Well, it's getting a bit pornographic, I think.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20It's obvious that some of the people found it quite uncomfortable,
0:16:20 > 0:16:23because you get some letters, and people have written in saying,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26"I used to lend this magazine to my friends, but now I don't
0:16:26 > 0:16:29"really feel comfortable doing so because of some of the content".
0:16:29 > 0:16:32In fact, people got kind of so upset about the fact that these
0:16:32 > 0:16:35letters were appearing that Samuel Beeton decided that he was
0:16:35 > 0:16:38going to separate them out from the main magazine, and he published
0:16:38 > 0:16:41them in a supplement instead, which you could buy separately.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44On the title page it says, "Letters addressed to the editor of the
0:16:44 > 0:16:45"Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine
0:16:45 > 0:16:48- "on the whipping of girls". - Oh, my goodness.
0:16:48 > 0:16:53Is this still pretending it's asking for rules to how to
0:16:53 > 0:16:56discipline your children and servants?
0:16:56 > 0:17:01There are genuine concerns amongst the blatant pornography, to us.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05I'm actually quite annoyed, really, that men seem to have
0:17:05 > 0:17:07hijacked this women's magazine.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11And I think they're using the unwitting woman
0:17:11 > 0:17:13as part of their audience.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16They're getting off on the idea of women reading this
0:17:16 > 0:17:20and not knowing what's going on. It's a form of abuse, really.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23Yeah, I think that's what makes it so kind of weirdly transgressive,
0:17:23 > 0:17:26that it's in this kind of very innocent problem page and that when
0:17:26 > 0:17:30they were initially being published, it was in-between somebody writing in
0:17:30 > 0:17:33about what shampoo was the best to use and how to cook a salmon.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39When I used to volunteer for a telephone helpline,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42we used to get a lot of calls from transvestites,
0:17:42 > 0:17:47many of whom were genuinely worried about their compulsion.
0:17:47 > 0:17:53But a few just telephoned in to tell the telephone operator what
0:17:53 > 0:17:58they were wearing, how sharp their heels were, how big their hair was.
0:17:58 > 0:18:04And I think that's not unlike the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09I think a lot of those people that wrote in did so
0:18:09 > 0:18:14not only for the anonymity but also for the audience.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19Aside from the occasional interloper,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23agony aunts have long been the last resort of young women
0:18:23 > 0:18:28with very genuine questions that nobody else could answer.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31In comparison to the tight-laced Victorians,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34the flappers of the new century looked like thoroughly modern
0:18:34 > 0:18:38misses, but when it came to the birds and the bees, they were
0:18:38 > 0:18:41just as clueless as their predecessors.
0:18:43 > 0:18:44"Dear Mrs Marriott,
0:18:44 > 0:18:48"I'm getting married shortly and have asked my mother to tell me
0:18:48 > 0:18:50"the intimate facts of life.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52"She says I am thoroughly
0:18:52 > 0:18:57nasty and morbid" and shall find out soon enough. Can you help?"
0:19:00 > 0:19:06At one time, agony aunts really were the keepers of secret knowledge.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08They were this source of answers
0:19:08 > 0:19:10to a whole list of unmentionable problems.
0:19:10 > 0:19:16But far from breaking taboos, agony aunts kept their secrets,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20because the replies to this sort of question were kept private.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25They were only given via the stamped, addressed envelope.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30Ignorant Betty was one of the lucky ones. She will have got her answer.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33But the other readers, they will have been left in the dark.
0:19:37 > 0:19:42'In the 19th century, agony aunts had become the trusted confidantes
0:19:42 > 0:19:44'of the middle classes, but in the new century
0:19:44 > 0:19:47'they gained true mass-market appeal.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53'Newspapers looking to increase their circulation introduced problem
0:19:53 > 0:19:56'pages to attract more female readers.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01'The Daily Mirror was the first national paper to do so, in 1935,
0:20:01 > 0:20:03'and others soon followed suit.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09'The Mirror's agony aunt was the American Dorothy Dix, whose
0:20:09 > 0:20:12'column was syndicated internationally in 300
0:20:12 > 0:20:15'newspapers and boasted a readership of 60 million.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21'Until now, agony aunts had been largely anonymous, but Dix
0:20:21 > 0:20:25'was a new type of aunt and a major personality in her own right.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29'And although newspaper advice columns were
0:20:29 > 0:20:34'aimed at female readers, they were to prove just as popular with men.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43'In the two decades after the end of the First World War,
0:20:43 > 0:20:47universal suffrage and improving job prospects brought women new
0:20:47 > 0:20:51'opportunities and new expectations of a life that offered
0:20:51 > 0:20:53'more than marriage and motherhood.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57'But the problem pages of the period
0:20:57 > 0:21:01'reveal that a generation of young men were left bemused and bewildered
0:21:01 > 0:21:05'by this new mood of female independence.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09'The discovery of an agony aunt's reply to just such a letter
0:21:09 > 0:21:14'from 16-year-old Len Tebbutt sparked his daughter's interest in
0:21:14 > 0:21:17'the advice columns of the inter-war years.'
0:21:17 > 0:21:19It's a little bit fragile.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Oh, goodness. And what is the advice?
0:21:23 > 0:21:24Fairly practical, actually.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29He'd clearly been writing to a girl that he'd got a bit of a crush on
0:21:29 > 0:21:32and she'd not been writing back to him for several months.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35And her advice was that
0:21:35 > 0:21:38he was unlikely to get any satisfaction by just
0:21:38 > 0:21:39continuing writing to her.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42So, it was fairly, you know, down to earth.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44I think, you know, there's not much chance
0:21:44 > 0:21:47of this going anywhere further, really.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49He must have taken the advice, because here you are.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52So he must have gone on to pastures new and got better luck next time.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55That was quite a long time later, I think, because he would
0:21:55 > 0:21:59have been about 16, I think, which is an interesting period of
0:21:59 > 0:22:02transition, when boys are beginning to get more interested in girls.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07I kind of thought that agony columns were a sort of female domain.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10I didn't realise that men used them so much.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14Well, I think in those sorts of boys' cultures there was a great
0:22:14 > 0:22:16fear of having your leg pulled.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19You know, talking about personal matters, it was
0:22:19 > 0:22:23kind of opening yourself up in ways that would make you look weak.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27So writing to somebody who was very distant could offer
0:22:27 > 0:22:32an anonymous form of advice, could be very, you know, very attractive.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36They speak a lot of kind of being shy, being unconfident,
0:22:36 > 0:22:41not being able to understand why women or girls weren't
0:22:41 > 0:22:46necessarily interested in them, how to make a first move, how to
0:22:46 > 0:22:49sort of break off a relationship, all those sorts of things.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53This is from the Manchester Evening News.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55The column was called The Voice Of Experience,
0:22:55 > 0:22:57and this is called
0:22:57 > 0:23:00"No appreciation from her".
0:23:00 > 0:23:04"For two years I have been friendly with a girl who is always
0:23:04 > 0:23:08"telling me of the wonderful times she had before she met me.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11"I'm not in a position to give her much, and when I ask her if she
0:23:11 > 0:23:16"is happy with me, she puts me off with a flippant, 'Oh, I'm all right'.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20"And sometimes she says it so curtly that it hurts my feelings."
0:23:20 > 0:23:24- Oh, dear!- "I do my best to give her an enjoyable time,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28"but what a difference a little appreciation would make.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32"Can you advise me how to make her realise this?
0:23:32 > 0:23:34"Baffled, Levenshulme."
0:23:34 > 0:23:38Oh, dear! I expect he was attracted
0:23:38 > 0:23:42to her hard-to-get manner and now it's wearing very thin.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46It's quite interesting. There are a number of... Letters are often
0:23:46 > 0:23:51described, you know... signed "Baffled" or "Fed up".
0:23:51 > 0:23:55I think part of it is to do with this frustration that
0:23:55 > 0:23:59girls are not sharing the same desire to settle down.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02These young women are working,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05there's dancing, the cinema has expanded,
0:24:05 > 0:24:09and there's a new idea of dating rather than courtship,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12you know, the idea that you can go out with several young men
0:24:12 > 0:24:16and you don't have to settle down with the first one that you meet.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18And I think some of these letters
0:24:18 > 0:24:21are expressing some of that frustration.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26What was the advice that the agony aunts gave to these young people?
0:24:26 > 0:24:29I think they're often quite frustrated
0:24:29 > 0:24:33when young men write in and express their sort of difficulty
0:24:33 > 0:24:36in establishing a relationship or the fact that they're rather shy
0:24:36 > 0:24:40and they find it difficult to make the first movement towards a girl.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43You know, they get a bit annoyed with them.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47You know, they're not being sufficiently manly, masculine.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49They are always encouraged to be more assertive,
0:24:49 > 0:24:53whereas the girls tend to be told to tone it down.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59But there would be no return to the old certainties of a world
0:24:59 > 0:25:00where men were men
0:25:00 > 0:25:03and women were demure and deferential.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07Instead, the outbreak of war in 1939
0:25:07 > 0:25:10left agony aunts and their readers facing
0:25:10 > 0:25:12a host of very modern dilemmas.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19"Dear Mrs Isles, I married the best husband in the world, but whilst he
0:25:19 > 0:25:23"was away in the Army I had an affair and fell pregnant.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28"My husband assumes the child is his. Should I tell him the truth?"
0:25:31 > 0:25:36A modern agony aunt might tell a woman who'd had an affair
0:25:36 > 0:25:39and got pregnant because of it that it would be
0:25:39 > 0:25:43best to come clean, but that assumption that honesty is
0:25:43 > 0:25:47integral to a good relationship is a very modern one.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50In the 1940s, the advice would have been,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54"Stay shtoom and sweep it all under the carpet".
0:25:59 > 0:26:04After the war, sales of women's magazines boomed.
0:26:04 > 0:26:05On their pages, an elite
0:26:05 > 0:26:10band of advice columnists reigned supreme, confident in their
0:26:10 > 0:26:13ability to right the country's emotional wrongs.
0:26:16 > 0:26:22In 1945, just after the war, Woman's Own appointed a new agony aunt,
0:26:22 > 0:26:28Mary Grant, and she wrote a very rousing mission statement.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31It's actually difficult not to sound a bit like Churchill
0:26:31 > 0:26:33when I'm reading this, but here we go.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37"In the last six years, we have seen what lack of understanding,
0:26:37 > 0:26:42"greed and blind selfishness can do to humanity.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46"Lack of understanding of ourselves and our emotional problems
0:26:46 > 0:26:51"can have a more far-reaching effect than many of us dream,
0:26:51 > 0:26:54"like a stone thrown into a pond,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57"when the circles grow wider and wider.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01"If only we can set our problems right
0:27:01 > 0:27:06"before the circles ripple disturbingly out of reach..."
0:27:06 > 0:27:11This reads like a rallying cry for the nation's agony aunts.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14Germany may have been defeated, but there's still
0:27:14 > 0:27:19the battle of the emotions to be fought and won on the home front.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26Mary Grant may have advocated a new era of emotional openness,
0:27:26 > 0:27:30but she left her readers in no doubt that their place remained
0:27:30 > 0:27:33very firmly in the home.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37Katharine Whitehorn was one of Grant's fellow journalists
0:27:37 > 0:27:40at Woman's Own and witnessed at first hand
0:27:40 > 0:27:45the good old-fashioned family values promoted on her page.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47There were certain things, I mean, that they
0:27:47 > 0:27:50had to be sort of extraordinarily prissy about.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53I mean, here's the thing. There was
0:27:53 > 0:27:55a marvellous one that always came about, was this,
0:27:55 > 0:28:00where you got the answer but you didn't get the question.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04But the one that I particularly remember was, the answer was,
0:28:04 > 0:28:10"What you describe is not unusual and very few people would call it wrong".
0:28:10 > 0:28:12So you were then going, "Well, what was it, anyway?"
0:28:12 > 0:28:17Masturbation, but you couldn't mention it on that kind of paper.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19It wasn't OK.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22So, let's have a look at one of these.
0:28:22 > 0:28:24"I can't trust my husband.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28"My husband and I have always been happy and have one little girl.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32"For the past few months, I have employed a baby-sitter.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34"Last week, we went out separately,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37"and when I got in he had already arrived home.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41"After the baby-sitter had left, I saw that my husband had
0:28:41 > 0:28:43"lipstick on his face.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47"He admitted that he'd had a few drinks and had kissed the girl.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50"He says it was only silliness and apologised,
0:28:50 > 0:28:53"but I feel I can't trust him again."
0:28:53 > 0:28:58- Oh!- This is the reply. "I realise how upsetting an incident
0:28:58 > 0:29:02"like this can be, but I think you are exaggerating its importance.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05"Your husband is right in saying it was only silliness.
0:29:05 > 0:29:07"Put the incident right out of your mind.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11"It certainly is not worth making yourself unhappy about."
0:29:11 > 0:29:14- Yeah.- She's told by the paper, "Don't make a fuss about it".
0:29:14 > 0:29:15Is that typical?
0:29:15 > 0:29:19It was assumed that what women really wanted to do
0:29:19 > 0:29:21was to be happily married,
0:29:21 > 0:29:26and the best way to go on being that would be, on some occasions,
0:29:26 > 0:29:31not to make an enormous fuss about something that they could get over.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34And therefore you didn't want to say,
0:29:34 > 0:29:37"Kick him in the balls and go away and get a proper job."
0:29:37 > 0:29:39This was not what one was about.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42Even if he has been having it off with his secretary, which he
0:29:42 > 0:29:47probably has, then you don't want it to ruin your marriage.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51So there's a sort of double standard in Woman's Own at this time,
0:29:51 > 0:29:55like men were allowed to behave in one way, women were supposed to
0:29:55 > 0:29:57behave in another. And the magazine just...
0:29:57 > 0:29:59They were supposed to cope with it, yeah.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03I'd like to read you some of this particular problem.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05It's more of a careers-based one.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08"Must I be a working wife?
0:30:08 > 0:30:12"I'm engaged to a wonderful boy and we hope to marry this summer.
0:30:12 > 0:30:14"We have been lucky enough to get a house,
0:30:14 > 0:30:16"and so long as we do not live extravagantly
0:30:16 > 0:30:21"we'll be able to manage quite well on my future husband's salary.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24"The problem is that my fiance's family seem to think
0:30:24 > 0:30:28"that I should carry on with my job after our marriage,
0:30:28 > 0:30:32"but I feel that a wife only should work if it is essential.
0:30:32 > 0:30:34"I have never had to run a home before, and
0:30:34 > 0:30:36"I feel that if I went on working
0:30:36 > 0:30:39"I might not be able to look after it properly."
0:30:39 > 0:30:43And the opinion of Mary Grant is that,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46"You are evidently quite inexperienced in domestic
0:30:46 > 0:30:50"things, and the art of running a home has to be learnt.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54"To run even a small house competently takes a good deal
0:30:54 > 0:30:56"of time and thought,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59"and I think that at first you will find it a full-time job."
0:30:59 > 0:31:01How do you feel about that one?
0:31:01 > 0:31:04Would anybody say that now?
0:31:04 > 0:31:06I don't think they would.
0:31:06 > 0:31:12To put it in those terms makes me froth at the mouth, actually.
0:31:12 > 0:31:13You know, after all these years.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16Thank God we've moved on a bit from that.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22'In the past 60-odd years, the most dramatic change of all
0:31:22 > 0:31:26'has been the agony aunt's attitude to sex.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30'My forebears of the '50s avoided any mention of trouble in the
0:31:30 > 0:31:35'bedroom, but today sex takes pride of place on the problem page.'
0:31:35 > 0:31:38I hope I brought the right clothes, Laura.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41This is a sort of wrap dress thing.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46- Yes, that's quite Dear Deidre, yeah. - It's the only dress I've got.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49- That's the only dress you've got? - The only girlie dress I've got.- Wow.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51- I mostly have big shifts. - OK. Suck it and see.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53I also brought a black slip...
0:31:53 > 0:31:55I don't think you'll be needing that.
0:31:55 > 0:31:56..in case there was a lovely bedroom scene.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59I thought, you know...
0:31:59 > 0:32:02- It's also very long.- I'd have to rewrite the story, so probably not.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04You're shuddering. All right, OK. OK, right.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Out, out, out! I'll go and get changed, then.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11'I've been given a starring role
0:32:11 > 0:32:14'in the Sun's Dear Deidre Photo Casebook,
0:32:14 > 0:32:16'which brings readers' problems to life
0:32:16 > 0:32:19'in photo stories run over the course of a week.'
0:32:19 > 0:32:21There!
0:32:24 > 0:32:28'The Photo Casebook is one of the Sun's most popular features
0:32:28 > 0:32:32'and has been going strong for over 20 years.'
0:32:32 > 0:32:33Right...
0:32:33 > 0:32:36'I'm playing Edie, who makes the shocking discovery
0:32:36 > 0:32:41'that her daughter's new boyfriend Jamie is in fact a woman...'
0:32:41 > 0:32:43Gesture with your left hand, Philippa.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47'..and has to break the news to her homophobic husband.'
0:32:47 > 0:32:52So, um, right, Philippa, you're doing something strange with your feet.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54She's not a natural.
0:32:55 > 0:32:57Right.
0:32:57 > 0:32:58Two, three.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04Soph, you're going to tell your mum that you're a lesbian.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06Not going to wear those glasses, are you?
0:33:06 > 0:33:09No, I wouldn't dream of it.
0:33:09 > 0:33:10- They're not very Dear Deidre.- No.
0:33:10 > 0:33:13I don't want to be unkind about your glasses, but, you know...
0:33:13 > 0:33:16- Here we go.- OK.
0:33:16 > 0:33:17That's it.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23So, you've got to look really angry.
0:33:23 > 0:33:28Come off it, love. You can't choose your sexuality, you know.
0:33:31 > 0:33:33Philippa, look a bit worried.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36"I can't tell a lie, Crystal, I am disappointed."
0:33:38 > 0:33:40- OK.- Sophie, mouth open.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47What's the most common question that you play in the Casebook?
0:33:47 > 0:33:52The recurring theme that always comes up is infidelity with
0:33:52 > 0:33:56members of the same sex, or the opposite sex, or whatever.
0:33:56 > 0:33:58But because it takes so many forms, you can
0:33:58 > 0:33:59get plenty of material out of it.
0:33:59 > 0:34:01I think men like looking at the pictures,
0:34:01 > 0:34:05they have absolutely no idea what's going on in the story,
0:34:05 > 0:34:07but women read the story quite closely.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10There's an awful lot of bedroom scenes, aren't there?
0:34:10 > 0:34:11Well...
0:34:12 > 0:34:16I don't always have bed scenes as such.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18I sometimes have a woman getting ready to go out,
0:34:18 > 0:34:22but I do always have a girl in her lingerie.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25You know, that's the recurring theme, is the girl in her underwear.
0:34:25 > 0:34:28Not necessarily always the girl in bed.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33But also, lots of problems ARE based around sex.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37You know, "I can't get it up," or, you know,
0:34:37 > 0:34:40"I've turned the other way," or whatever.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44They are sexual in nature, a lot of people's problems.
0:34:44 > 0:34:46So, you know, that's what we're addressing.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49- I'm going to do the scenes with your daughter...- And her girlfriend.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52- ..and her girlfriend. - In bed? In their bras?
0:34:52 > 0:34:53Is that OK?
0:34:53 > 0:34:56Yeah. Why can't I get in bed with my bra?
0:34:59 > 0:35:01You're looking at the phone saying, "Oh, my gosh, it's my dad.
0:35:01 > 0:35:03"Shall I answer?"
0:35:03 > 0:35:06Rach, I would like to be able to see a bit more of you, so push...
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Exactly. Right.
0:35:08 > 0:35:09Three...
0:35:11 > 0:35:12And with that left hand, Sophie, just say,
0:35:12 > 0:35:15"Dad, I beg you, give me a chance."
0:35:15 > 0:35:18Bring your left hand into the picture a bit.
0:35:19 > 0:35:24Evelyn Home was the agony aunt for Woman magazine in the 1950s,
0:35:24 > 0:35:28and she wasn't allowed to say the word "bottom" in her column,
0:35:28 > 0:35:31as in "bottom of the garden" or "bottom of the saucepan".
0:35:31 > 0:35:33It was...too saucy.
0:35:33 > 0:35:38It wasn't until the late '60s, early '70s that the agony aunts
0:35:38 > 0:35:43walked through the bedroom door and started to give sexual advice.
0:35:45 > 0:35:49Right, this is the famous Dear Deidre sad picture,
0:35:49 > 0:35:52because you're torn now between your husband and your daughter.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55Look up a little bit, Philippa.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Make a fist rather than the whole hand. That's it.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07By today's standards, the Photo Casebook is pretty tame.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11But not so long ago, it would have been considered positively racy.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17The sexual revolution on the problem page was prompted by social changes
0:36:17 > 0:36:21like the introduction of the pill in 1961 and the legalisation of
0:36:21 > 0:36:27abortion and decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967.
0:36:27 > 0:36:31Far from remaining anonymous, a new breed of frank and fearless
0:36:31 > 0:36:34agony aunts became household names.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Queen bee of the '70s problem page was Marje Proops,
0:36:38 > 0:36:42advice columnist for the Mirror, then the biggest-selling
0:36:42 > 0:36:44daily paper in the Western world.
0:36:44 > 0:36:50People are so ignorant. They are abysmally ignorant about sex.
0:36:50 > 0:36:55And combined with a lack of education about contraceptives,
0:36:55 > 0:36:57about everything relating to sex...
0:36:59 > 0:37:03..produces 50,000 problems a year for me.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07Marje's great rival was Claire Rayner,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10who started her career as a nurse in the '50s,
0:37:10 > 0:37:14and then in the '60s became a crusading advice columnist
0:37:14 > 0:37:18for Woman's Own and teen magazines Rave and Petticoat.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25Claire Rayner was no holds barred when it came to giving
0:37:25 > 0:37:29her teenage readers of Petticoat magazine some advice.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34She really got the backs up of moral campaigners like Mary Whitehouse,
0:37:34 > 0:37:36who actually branded her the Antichrist.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39So, what was Mary getting so upset about?
0:37:39 > 0:37:42Well, I think it might have been letters like these,
0:37:42 > 0:37:44about masturbation.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48"I am sure no-one else in the world is like me.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52"It has taken me a year to pluck up the courage to write this letter.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56"I am 16 and I have masturbated all my life,
0:37:56 > 0:37:59"although I didn't know what I was doing.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03"Lately I told a friend about it, and she was horrified.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06"She said I will go blind and deaf and that my skin will become pitted
0:38:06 > 0:38:08"and it stunts your growth and makes you ugly.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11"She says if you've masturbated for a long time
0:38:11 > 0:38:12"you can never have children.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16"I can't believe I have ruined my life about this."
0:38:16 > 0:38:18And actually, in response to this,
0:38:18 > 0:38:23Claire doesn't just give reassurance, she's really angry,
0:38:23 > 0:38:27and she says, "All letters like this make me seethe with anger.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31"Not because of the sad people who have written them, but because
0:38:31 > 0:38:35"of the stupid, destructive rubbish they have been lumbered with.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37"Look, masturbation is not wrong.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40"Everybody does it at some time or another."
0:38:40 > 0:38:44This is more than reassurance, this is rabble-rousing.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46This is a call to arms.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48Or at least to fingers.
0:38:52 > 0:38:53There's no-one else, is there?
0:38:53 > 0:38:56It's all wrong. I mean, it shouldn't be like this.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00It makes me really angry that people of 15, 16 and 17 still
0:39:00 > 0:39:03in touch with school should have to write to a total stranger like me.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09'In 1973, Claire hit the big time
0:39:09 > 0:39:12'when she became agony aunt for the Sun.
0:39:14 > 0:39:18'Writing for a tabloid brought her no-nonsense sex advice
0:39:18 > 0:39:20'to a huge new audience.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23'But even with a readership of millions, she never
0:39:23 > 0:39:27'lost her very personal approach.'
0:39:27 > 0:39:30Her standards book was her way of answering every letter.
0:39:30 > 0:39:32She was very insistent that the thousand or so letters a week
0:39:32 > 0:39:37that she got should get an answer that had her imprint upon them.
0:39:37 > 0:39:38But it would be impossible to do
0:39:38 > 0:39:42if you literally answered every single one, and what she'd done
0:39:42 > 0:39:46was come up with a set of standard answers to standard problems.
0:39:46 > 0:39:50So under C it goes circumcision, contraception, climax, crabs,
0:39:50 > 0:39:51pubic...
0:39:51 > 0:39:53cross-dressing.
0:39:53 > 0:39:55Then you get to D, which is discharge after intercourse.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57There's a lot of them.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Claire was working at the golden age of agony aunts,
0:40:01 > 0:40:06and that sort of level of reach doesn't really exist any more.
0:40:06 > 0:40:08The glorious thing about those years of the '60s,
0:40:08 > 0:40:12'70s and '80s is you could be a font of all knowledge.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16You could sit on your problem page and everything would come to you.
0:40:16 > 0:40:17How did the family business run?
0:40:17 > 0:40:19She had her office at the front of the house.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22My father, who was her manager, was next door.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25She would advertise a leaflet.
0:40:25 > 0:40:27Say somebody had written in, and at the end of her answer,
0:40:27 > 0:40:28a short answer, you know,
0:40:28 > 0:40:32"If you want a leaflet on this, write in to PO Box" blah, blah, blah.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35Literally sacks of mail would be dropped in the hall.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37And sometimes you'd just have a single line saying,
0:40:37 > 0:40:39"Please send me the leaflet,"
0:40:39 > 0:40:41and other times you would get their whole life story,
0:40:41 > 0:40:43which would end with, "Please send the leaflet".
0:40:43 > 0:40:46My job was to slit open all the envelopes,
0:40:46 > 0:40:48check that they didn't need something else,
0:40:48 > 0:40:50and if they did need something else, to put it on one side
0:40:50 > 0:40:53for my mother to attend to.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56Disgraceful, this, isn't it? I was 10, 11, 12 when I was doing this.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59And sometimes you'd go, "Well, that's interesting. Oh!"
0:40:59 > 0:41:01I learnt an awful lot.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04And she's using those letters as a jumping-off point to do
0:41:04 > 0:41:06something bigger.
0:41:06 > 0:41:08She was one of the first people to write in great
0:41:08 > 0:41:11detail about homosexuality in the '70s.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13Gay men, lesbian women were writing in,
0:41:13 > 0:41:17concerned about how they felt about themselves and how the rest
0:41:17 > 0:41:20of society would deal with them, how their families would deal with them.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23And she found a way to reassure them that they were normal
0:41:23 > 0:41:26and that everybody else had a problem, not them.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Our Christmases were basically gays, Jews and actors,
0:41:29 > 0:41:31people who had nowhere else to go.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34And she would gather them unto her, waifs and strays.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36You've turned out straight, Jay.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39That must probably have been a huge disappointment to my mother, yeah!
0:41:39 > 0:41:41PHILIPPA LAUGHS
0:41:41 > 0:41:44But it was, you know, it was a very, very open household.
0:41:44 > 0:41:46And she was something of a pioneer
0:41:46 > 0:41:49when it came to giving frank sexual advice.
0:41:49 > 0:41:54She was an extraordinarily stroppy woman, and if you told her
0:41:54 > 0:41:57that you couldn't do something, she'd find a way to do it.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01She hated silence about things, and she wanted to kick against it.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03Some people might think that intercourse with a condom
0:42:03 > 0:42:07ought to be a low risk. Why isn't it? Claire Rayner.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10Well, it is if you use the right equipment and use it properly.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14First of all, choose quality. Look for the kite mark.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17A chap wrote to Claire to say that he was
0:42:17 > 0:42:19concerned about the shape of his erection.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23He could have taken a Polaroid and sent it in so she could have
0:42:23 > 0:42:26a look and tell him it was...but that obviously would be unbecoming.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29So he carved it lovingly out of wood and polished it up.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32When the advent of safe sex and condom use
0:42:32 > 0:42:36came along in the early '80s, when we first begin to understood the
0:42:36 > 0:42:40challenges of AIDS, she used that to demonstrate putting a condom on.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42So what is the proper way to use a condom?
0:42:42 > 0:42:45I need a model. I've got this. A reader sent me this when I published
0:42:45 > 0:42:47a letter from a boy who was afraid he didn't measure up,
0:42:47 > 0:42:51and he said he hadn't measured up when he was a lad. Look at him now.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54So we'll use that as a model. It's my paperweight. Right...
0:42:54 > 0:42:58So, you pinch that firmly to push the air out of the way
0:42:58 > 0:43:00and apply the end, the open end of the...
0:43:00 > 0:43:03obviously, of the condom to the erect penis.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05And you need to do it in good time,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08I mean as soon as a man's got an erection
0:43:08 > 0:43:12and well before, er, inserting it into the vagina.
0:43:12 > 0:43:14Now, this is a rather wooden, hard penis.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16A nice human one is soft and easier to handle.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23In this new age of openness, one of the last taboos of the problem
0:43:23 > 0:43:28page was finally shattered as agony aunts at last published
0:43:28 > 0:43:31letters from readers confused about their sexuality.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40"Dear Claire, I met a girl at the local tennis club, and we get on
0:43:40 > 0:43:41"really well.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45"But I worry about the male sexual fantasies I indulge in when
0:43:45 > 0:43:46"I'm with her.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49"Could I have been prejudiced against relationships with the
0:43:49 > 0:43:54"opposite sex by my experiences at my very expensive public school?"
0:43:59 > 0:44:03'Trailblazers like Claire Rayner had put sex on the agony aunts' agenda,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06'although some of her colleagues struggled to
0:44:06 > 0:44:10'answer the more upfront questions they received
0:44:10 > 0:44:14'and some readers fretted that they weren't having nearly as much fun
0:44:14 > 0:44:16'as they should be.'
0:44:16 > 0:44:19In the early '70s,
0:44:19 > 0:44:22suddenly there were words like "penis" and "vagina"
0:44:22 > 0:44:28and "orgasm" and "premature ejaculation" on the page.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30And it was absolutely extraordinary,
0:44:30 > 0:44:33because although I was quite a rackety girl in the '60s,
0:44:33 > 0:44:35I still found it very difficult to...
0:44:35 > 0:44:38You know, I mean, I didn't like to...
0:44:38 > 0:44:42None of us would want to actually use the word "vagina".
0:44:42 > 0:44:44And indeed I don't think today one actually bandies
0:44:44 > 0:44:46the word around every day.
0:44:46 > 0:44:52But one was expected to be quite frank in the page.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55People would write in, because it was as if a cork
0:44:55 > 0:44:57had come out of a champagne bottle.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01They'd been so repressed about sex for so long,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04suddenly every single question was about sex.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Can you give me an example of the sort of letter you had to answer?
0:45:08 > 0:45:13It was painful. People would write saying, "Where is my G-spot?"
0:45:13 > 0:45:17You know, and I'd be there, sort of, "I don't know where your G-spot is".
0:45:17 > 0:45:19And it was extremely hard for me.
0:45:19 > 0:45:23One woman wrote in saying, "How many calories are there in semen?"
0:45:23 > 0:45:27I mean, it was a difficult one to answer.
0:45:27 > 0:45:29Did you have help answering the questions?
0:45:29 > 0:45:32I did, but unfortunately I'd inherited the letter answerers,
0:45:32 > 0:45:35who were 80-year-old spinsters.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37And one of them actually died at her desk.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39And these women were absolutely sweet
0:45:39 > 0:45:42and they were adept at answering any question like
0:45:42 > 0:45:46"Do I take my gloves off when shaking hands with a bishop?",
0:45:46 > 0:45:47or, "How do I eat an avocado pear?"
0:45:47 > 0:45:52There was actually a leaflet we had on how to eat an avocado pear.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56But of course they were baffled by these, erm, sex questions.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01And they'd come into me holding these letters like used tissues,
0:46:01 > 0:46:04saying, "What do I...? We don't understand."
0:46:04 > 0:46:06I always remember one of them coming into my room
0:46:06 > 0:46:09looking extremely worried, saying, "How can I answer this?"
0:46:09 > 0:46:11And I said, "What's it about?"
0:46:11 > 0:46:15She said, "This lady wishes to know, 'What is a blow job?'"
0:46:15 > 0:46:16I said, "Leave it to me."
0:46:16 > 0:46:18PHILIPPA LAUGHS
0:46:19 > 0:46:21We've gone from a time in the early '60s
0:46:21 > 0:46:26when sex isn't discussed at all on the problem page to a time,
0:46:26 > 0:46:30just ten years later, when it's the main thing.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33Yes, and what was interesting was that there was a huge
0:46:33 > 0:46:36pressure on women when sex wasn't discussed, of course,
0:46:36 > 0:46:38because there was no knowledge at all.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42And the number of girls who must have gone to bed sick with worry,
0:46:42 > 0:46:44thinking that they were going to get pregnant
0:46:44 > 0:46:47because they'd kissed their boyfriends.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50And that was one kind of pressure that you had then,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54terror of sex, and probably a great deal of anxiety surrounding it.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57But then, when the sexual revolution came in, there was another
0:46:57 > 0:47:00kind of anxiety, which was that you weren't having enough,
0:47:00 > 0:47:04that it wasn't good enough, you weren't having enough orgasms,
0:47:04 > 0:47:09you weren't doing it, you know, on the kitchen table.
0:47:09 > 0:47:11I remember there was a lot of talk about, you know,
0:47:11 > 0:47:14"You must do it in every room in the house,"
0:47:14 > 0:47:17and somehow the kitchen table always came into it.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20There seemed to be far too much attention
0:47:20 > 0:47:25paid to sex and the implication that if you didn't have
0:47:25 > 0:47:29a good sex life you were going to get ill and possibly get cancer,
0:47:29 > 0:47:33that certainly if you didn't have simultaneous orgasms, you and your
0:47:33 > 0:47:37husband were totally incompatible, and, you know, you were doomed.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41There was a terrible kind of compulsory feeling about sex,
0:47:41 > 0:47:44that it had to be had and enjoyed or...
0:47:44 > 0:47:46Mm, there's a sort of tyranny about it.
0:47:46 > 0:47:48Well, a terrible tyranny, yes.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51"You will like sex, whether you like it or not."
0:47:51 > 0:47:54- "You will orgasm simultaneously!" - Yes, exactly.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57And again, however much I wrote saying, "Don't worry,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00"don't worry, don't worry," it didn't seem to make any difference.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09'But these alarming new "anything goes" attitudes had no place
0:48:09 > 0:48:12'in the last bastions of traditionalism.
0:48:12 > 0:48:14'Jackie magazine, for one,
0:48:14 > 0:48:17'stuck with the lighter side of teenage angst.
0:48:18 > 0:48:22'Jackie was launched in 1964, and by the '70s, it was the
0:48:22 > 0:48:25'country's most popular teen magazine,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28'shifting over half a million copies a week.'
0:48:28 > 0:48:33When I was a teenager growing up in the 1970s, I was at an all-girls'
0:48:33 > 0:48:37boarding school, and boys were like alien creatures to me.
0:48:37 > 0:48:41And how I found out about the world of boys was through
0:48:41 > 0:48:46the pages of Jackie magazine and the agony aunts, Cathy and Claire.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49They replied to 100 letters a day,
0:48:49 > 0:48:53and they sent individual replies to every reader that wrote in.
0:48:53 > 0:48:57And I've got a few of the copies of their replies here.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Now, here's some advice for everyone out there.
0:49:00 > 0:49:05"Dear Jackie, love bites usually go away surprisingly quickly.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09"There is no possibility of contracting cancer.
0:49:09 > 0:49:14"Meanwhile, try covering them up with Max Factor's Erace Plus..."
0:49:14 > 0:49:18- that's a good tip - "and don't let it happen again.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20"Love, Cathy and Claire."
0:49:20 > 0:49:24Quite a moralistic tone there at the end of that one.
0:49:24 > 0:49:30"Dear Karen, well, we passed your photo round the office,
0:49:30 > 0:49:31"and three boys agreed
0:49:31 > 0:49:35"there was absolutely nothing wrong with your looks,
0:49:35 > 0:49:40"while the other three thought you were pretty but slightly plump."
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Poor Karen. I don't know what I would have done if I'd got that.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46"Hope we've helped! Love, Cathy and Claire."
0:49:47 > 0:49:50Oh, I love this one. "Dear Wendy,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54"we agree that Lesley is being a bitch, love, and we suggest
0:49:54 > 0:49:58"that you have the whole thing out in the open with her."
0:49:59 > 0:50:02Ooh, that's going to be one to watch, isn't it?
0:50:02 > 0:50:07Cathy and Claire's readers confided everything to them,
0:50:07 > 0:50:12but Cathy and Claire themselves were keeping two pretty big secrets.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16The first one was although they invited readers to write
0:50:16 > 0:50:21to them at this glamorous London office, actually they did all
0:50:21 > 0:50:24the replies from Dundee, where the Jackie offices were.
0:50:24 > 0:50:29They used to get the whole bag of letters, send them up to Dundee.
0:50:29 > 0:50:30They used to reply to them there,
0:50:30 > 0:50:33and then they'd send the bag back down to London,
0:50:33 > 0:50:37so all the letters could be sent out with a London postmark.
0:50:38 > 0:50:39And their other big secret
0:50:39 > 0:50:42was that Cathy and Claire didn't exist at all.
0:50:46 > 0:50:50Hundreds of miles from swinging London, in the Dundee office
0:50:50 > 0:50:53of Jackie publisher DC Thomson,
0:50:53 > 0:50:57a succession of young female journalists played the parts
0:50:57 > 0:50:59of Cathy and Claire.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02They were kept under close watch to ensure they adhered to the
0:51:02 > 0:51:05publisher's strict moral code.
0:51:10 > 0:51:17When I was Cathy and Claire, I saw myself not as their mother
0:51:17 > 0:51:19or their teacher or a nurse,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21I saw myself as their big sister.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24They didn't feel they can speak to their mums,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27they didn't feel they can speak to their teachers
0:51:27 > 0:51:32and all their friends. I mean, there was no social media.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34You know, now you would Google a problem,
0:51:34 > 0:51:38but we were Google, you know. We were the '80s Google, really.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42They were sitting there almost waiting for puberty to hit, like
0:51:42 > 0:51:43some kind of time bomb,
0:51:43 > 0:51:45and they didn't know what was going to happen.
0:51:45 > 0:51:49They didn't have sex education, mainly, at schools.
0:51:49 > 0:51:51We were always wary of 3D envelopes.
0:51:51 > 0:51:523D envelopes?
0:51:52 > 0:51:55Any lumpy envelopes, you were very cautious,
0:51:55 > 0:52:00because they tended to contain bits of body parts that had fallen off.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05So usually attached to Sellotape.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09There was a time when I opened an envelope and a 1/2p fell out.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11And I kind of randomly just picked it up
0:52:11 > 0:52:14and absent-mindedly flipped it in my hand, and I read the letter.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19And the letter said, "Dear Cathy and Claire, I have genital warts,
0:52:19 > 0:52:22"I measured them with this 1/2p coin."
0:52:22 > 0:52:23PHILIPPA LAUGHS
0:52:23 > 0:52:28So cue a rush to the toilets to do a Lady Macbeth on my hands.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Sandy, I think this must have been one of yours.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33- Oh, yes.- "They hate the boy I love.
0:52:33 > 0:52:35"Dear Cathy and Claire,
0:52:35 > 0:52:37"Dick and I are planning to get engaged at Christmas.
0:52:37 > 0:52:39"I've saved up a lot of money.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43"I know I'm only 16 and they say I'm too young."
0:52:43 > 0:52:44What did I say?
0:52:44 > 0:52:47You said, "Try and see your parents' point of view, love."
0:52:47 > 0:52:48Yes, that's right, yes.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52The parents had the authority. We were just giving advice.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56I did have a couple of instances with parents phoning the office...
0:52:56 > 0:52:59- Really?- ..and saying, "I believe my daughter's written in,
0:52:59 > 0:53:01"and I'd like to know what she's written."
0:53:01 > 0:53:05You know, you had this angry parent saying, "Are you Cathy?
0:53:05 > 0:53:06"Are you Claire?" You know?
0:53:06 > 0:53:10I'd say, "No, I'm sorry, I'm the cleaner. They've all gone home."
0:53:10 > 0:53:12When it came to talking about
0:53:12 > 0:53:15sex, how much were you allowed to say?
0:53:15 > 0:53:19You were allowed to say "heavy petting" or "love bites".
0:53:19 > 0:53:23You might also get away with the occasional "grope".
0:53:23 > 0:53:27But you would have letters on the Cathy and Claire page that said,
0:53:27 > 0:53:28"I think I'm pregnant,"
0:53:28 > 0:53:32but you would never have any letters saying how they got to be pregnant.
0:53:32 > 0:53:33They would read that someone was pregnant
0:53:33 > 0:53:36or read about heavy petting, but there was nothing in-between.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39So as far as they were concerned, if they had heavy petting,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42they would be pregnant. So perhaps it was our fault.
0:53:43 > 0:53:49In the '70s, Jackie sort of held sway over teenage sexuality,
0:53:49 > 0:53:51love bites and everything.
0:53:51 > 0:53:54But in the '80s, there were a lot of new magazines onto
0:53:54 > 0:53:56the market like, for instance, Just 17,
0:53:56 > 0:53:59and they were a lot more candid about sex.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02What was that like for Cathy and Claire?
0:54:02 > 0:54:06Well, Just 17 were our biggest rivals.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10And while we could compete with them on some levels, with the pop
0:54:10 > 0:54:14and the fashion, there was a great sense of frustration
0:54:14 > 0:54:16when it came to things like the problem pages,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19because they were allowed to say so much more
0:54:19 > 0:54:24and we were still stuck in that, you know, '70s vibe.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28But readers had moved on, quite considerably, and we
0:54:28 > 0:54:32started to lose a lot of readers, because the advice they needed
0:54:32 > 0:54:37and wanted was being provided by Just 17 and other magazines,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40who could speak about pregnancy, who could, you know...
0:54:40 > 0:54:42They kept up with the cultural times.
0:54:42 > 0:54:44- Absolutely.- Jackie didn't.- Yeah.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49She was just this girl stuck in the '70s with her love bites and her...
0:54:49 > 0:54:51- Flared trousers. - ..flared trousers and...
0:54:51 > 0:54:54- And her knitting patterns. - And her knitting patterns!
0:55:03 > 0:55:07'Today's agony aunts no longer have the same clout as those
0:55:07 > 0:55:11'queens of the problem page from the '60s, '70s and '80s.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13'But the one who comes closest
0:55:13 > 0:55:17'works from an office hidden away in the leafy Home Counties.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21'The Sun's Dear Deidre has been dispensing advice for the past
0:55:21 > 0:55:26'34 years and boasts by far the country's biggest readership.'
0:55:26 > 0:55:31This is today's problem, and I'd say it's fairly typical.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34So I have "Steamy love triangle with mate's girl".
0:55:34 > 0:55:37- That's quite a sexy one, isn't it? - It absolutely is.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40We've got a family row here, a mum who's very upset because she's
0:55:40 > 0:55:44fallen out with her grown-up daughter and partner over the kids.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48And we've got someone who was abused by his baby-sitter
0:55:48 > 0:55:49when he was young.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52Just always, of course, a very full page.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56The problem page is one of the most popular parts of the paper.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59I mean, it creates footfall, as they say these days.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04I do get about, like, 100 problems a day, and I need that coming in.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08I mean, out of that, I'm going to need seven
0:56:08 > 0:56:12every weekday, ten on Saturdays. That's a lot of copy to be finding.
0:56:12 > 0:56:13It's a lot of copy, so, yeah.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16And you need a spread of subjects and interests all the time.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20How has the column changed since you've been doing it?
0:56:20 > 0:56:24I mean, I think human nature actually evolves very, very slowly.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27So while I've been doing this job for over 30 years,
0:56:27 > 0:56:29human nature does not change.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31I feel as though the underlying issues,
0:56:31 > 0:56:35like loneliness or difficulty in forming a relationship,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39are the same, but the internet has given
0:56:39 > 0:56:44so much more scope for ways this can express itself.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47'Deidre's promise of an answer
0:56:47 > 0:56:51'to every problem ensures that her column remains a thriving cottage
0:56:51 > 0:56:56'industry, just as it was in her predecessor Claire Rayner's day.'
0:56:56 > 0:56:58So, here we have my leaflet list.
0:56:58 > 0:57:03This is the whole 250 of them, divided into different sections.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05So you start off, we've got a whole section on abuse,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09going from child abuse, abuse of partners and rape.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11And then everything to do with appearance,
0:57:11 > 0:57:16so it's breasts and cosmetic surgery, tattoos, skin, hair, weight.
0:57:16 > 0:57:20Dependence, so drink, smoking, gambling, drugs.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23F for family. Adoption...
0:57:23 > 0:57:26'An endless stream of problems that shows no sign of slowing.'
0:57:33 > 0:57:35"Mum, Jamie isn't who you think."
0:57:35 > 0:57:39"I don't understand. Is Jamie a woman?"
0:57:39 > 0:57:41"So Crystal's chosen her girlfriend over us.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44"Well, she's no daughter of mine!"
0:57:44 > 0:57:48"Bob's making me choose between him and Crystal. I can't cope."
0:57:53 > 0:57:58'Even at a time when advice is more easily available than ever before,
0:57:58 > 0:58:01'the problem page is often still our first port of call.'
0:58:03 > 0:58:07The golden age of agony aunts may have passed, but after three
0:58:07 > 0:58:11centuries I don't think we'll ever learn to live without them, because
0:58:11 > 0:58:15the best agony aunts offer something that Google can't,
0:58:15 > 0:58:17a relationship,
0:58:17 > 0:58:19even if it is at arm's length.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23And another reason they may be sticking around a while yet is
0:58:23 > 0:58:26because I don't think we'll ever tire
0:58:26 > 0:58:29of reading about other people's problems...
0:58:29 > 0:58:31especially if they make us
0:58:31 > 0:58:35feel a little bit more smug about our own lives.