Kitty Cotton's Diary

During 1955 Coats Cotton took half 

of the inside back page of Girl magazine,

for an 'advertiser's announcement'. 

They created a character called  Kitty Cotton 

who wrote about life at school in a blue ruled diary.

 She describes her teachers: 

Miss Trill, Miss Pumpkin, Miss Moosey, Miss Tinny, Miss Harty, Mamselle,

 lessons: 

chemistry, singing, maths, hockey, French, poetry, sewing (of course)

 and friends: 

Maribel Wiggins, Brenda, Tilly Tomkins, Mop, Olivia Pushcat, Fuffs .

The writing is looped and blotchy,

the spelling is dretful and full of crossings out.

There's a lot of trouble and strife:

 people are furious, sarky, ratty, jellous, foul, snooty, cross, silly, 

idiortic, stark staring mad,

but also prone to the giggles and full of cream buns and scrummy cake.

She is often nonplussed by the work that is set,

gets ticked off for not understanding decimals 

and in one rather poignant piece is told that her poem is all wrong 

and that she must try to be more sensitive to natural beauty.

'Still don't know what she means.'

In a separate box, readers are invited to enter the 

Coats Couplet competition 

on the theme of sewing with Coats threads.

Every fortnight a guinea was paid to the winning writer and the couplet illustrated.

That's nearly £20 in modern currency.

I've made some of the illustrations into badges for posterity because the comics are falling apart. 
They cost 5s 9d in old money.