PEP

This title was published by Pep Publisher and Printers at 134 George Street, Croydon, though that address changed immediately to 145 Stafford Road, Wallington, Surrey, with the second edition and, five months later, to 39a Tamworth Road Croydon – a stone’s throw from the ToCo head office. All these addresses are some 250 miles from Bolton, home of Pennine Publications − but the Pep colophon informs us that Pennine did become “Sole Distributor” of that title with Pep 4 in November 1957, though at Stewart Street, Bolton (not the Church End address), from where Pennine also supplied back numbers. Collection Information

Despite all those changes of office, the first tumultuous year did retain some sort of calming continuity with the same editor at the helm throughout – one Ronald Douglas. Though, as astrophysicists try and explain to us, chaos is the natural state – and, one year after the first publication, the company changed its name to Kinson Publications Ltd. And dispensed with the services of Pennine as distributor. But at least there wasn’t another change of address.

As with any other historical review of developments, it is important to put things in perspective. Pep didn’t just appear out of nowhere – it was the product of a process of evolution. The first edition hit the shelves in August 1957, almost four years after the first edition of Spick and eight months before Pennine’s first Bamboo magazine.

It had an informative page 3, giving volume and edition number − but no date − and a full list of the models inside, along with a few words about the cover girl. Its masthead proclaimed a similar mission to that of Spick’s “We believe man should be left in no doubt that woman has the superior shape”, albeit somewhat less poetic or philosophical − “OUR AIM. Every month, PEP aims to bring you the most glamorous models caught in the snappiest poses by masters of the photographic art.” That was about as arty-farty as it got; from then on, it was in-your-face stocking tops, suspenders and big nylon knickers – take a look at the mouth-watering centre spread of Kay Coyne in Pep 3 – and the occasional girdle and gymslip. What follows throughout the series is a line-up of “the usual suspects”, of familiar ToCo faces and many new arrivals.

Enjoy this gem of a series of vintage nylon fetish mags. They are all available here as eBooks for you to buy and download.