Parade (British magazine)

Parade was a British magazine for men. With origins dating back to 1916, the magazine went through a number of different incarnations and different publishers until it went defunct sometime in the mid-2000s. It was originally known as Blighty between 1916 and 1920 and was intended as a humorous magazine for servicemen. Relaunched in 1939, as Blighty Parade, it was turned into a pin-up magazine. Renamed Parade in 1960, by the 1970s content had progressed to topless and nude photos of models, and at the end of the 1990s it went hardcore.

Parade
Former editorsRoger Noel Cook (1974–1979)
CategoriesMen's magazine
FrequencyWeekly (1916–1920, 1939–1972)
Monthly (1972–c. 2007)
PublisherW. Speaight & Sons (1916–1920; 1939–1943)
City Magazines (1955–c. 1971)
Williams Publishing/Top Sellers Ltd/General Books Distribution (c. 1971–c. 1979)
GoldStar Publications/GSP Press (c. 1979–c. 2007)
First issue1916
Final issuec. 2007
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based inLondon
LanguageEnglish
The British Army in France: troops reading copies of Blighty outside their dugout, December 1939

Publication history

W. Speaight & Sons

Blighty was launched in 1916 by W. Speaight & Sons, intended as a humorous magazine for servicemen during the First World War.[1] ("Blighty" is a British English military slang term for Great Britain, or often specifically England.)[2] The magazine competed against publications such as Tit-Bits and Reveille; it appears to have ceased publication in 1920.

The magazine was relaunched, as Blighty Parade, in 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, and featuring pin-ups, cartoons, and stories. It was published every Monday.[3]

City Magazines

From 1955 to c. 1971 the publisher was City Magazines, and the headquarters were in London.[4]

It was known as Parade and Blighty for the final weeks of 1959, when it finally became Parade in 1960.[5] The magazine's tagline in 1960 was "The man's magazine women love to read."[3]

Williams/Top Sellers/General Books

City Magazines published Parade until c. 1971, when it was sold to Williams Publishing, the publishing division of Warner Communications. By the 1970s, content had progressed to topless and nude photos of models. In 1972, the magazine went from weekly to monthly publication.

In 1974, the magazine was relaunched with issue No. 1, by Williams' Top Sellers Ltd imprint, as a Penthouse-style magazine, featuring full-frontal shots and nipples on the covers.[3] After a series of raids against its warehouses, in 1978 Williams moved its adult magazines, including Parade, to a new imprint, General Book Distribution.[6]

GoldStar Publications/GSP Press

Williams went defunct in 1979, and after a series of sales, Parade was later published by Gold Group International (owners of the Ann Summers retail chain of sex toys and lingerie). According to Magforum, Parade was published "under the subdivision GoldStar Publications as a hardcore publication. In 2003, Parade was bought by Andrew McIntyre and the company rebranded as GSP Press."[5]

The magazine appears to have disappeared from the newsstands around 2007.

Titles
  • 1916–1920 Blighty
  • 1939–1958 Blighty Parade
  • 1959 Parade & Blighty
  • 1960–c. 2007 Parade

References
  1. Union Jack, A Scrapbook, British Forces' Newspapers 1939–45 HMSO & Imperial War Museum, 1993 (ISBN 0117726281)
  2. "Why Do the Brits Call the U.K. ‘Blighty’?", on Anglophenia, BBC America. Accessed 30 December 2020.
  3. "Parade" at Magforum. Archived at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved Apr. 20, 2021.
  4. "Blighty / Parade (20 vintage British pinup magazines, 1955-60)". Abe Books. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  5. "Men's magazines". Mag Forum. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  6. Skinn, Dez. "Warner Bros. (Williams)," DezSkinn.com. Retrieved Dec. 19, 2020.
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