What The “Friend” Means To Kate Hogan


what the friend means

As part of our 150th celebrations, our contributors have been sharing their thoughts on what the “Friend” means to them.

Here, Kate Hogan tells us all about inheriting her mum’s love for our magazine.

What a wonderful achievement: 150 years of bringing pleasure, maintaining values, and being a true and constant ‘Friend’.

There were never many spare pennies for treats in our house when we were growing up. So if Mum bought an issue of ‘The People’s Friend’, it was a treat.

The beautiful artwork accompanying the lovely stories; the country scenes, showing us all places we longed to venture to; and, of course, the stories themselves.

Our mum was a great sharer of stories. She could write, too. She read to us all, bringing great colour and life to the words before her.

It was some years later before I started to read the stories myself. And many more before I began to write my own.

My lovely mum was as much, or even more, thrilled than me when I had my first story published by DC Thomson. And what a continuing joy it is to see my name amongst the writers of your magazine.

“The People’s Friend” continues to bring great pleasure into my life.

It’s such a timeless, and hopeful read.

May I wish you another 150 years, and more, of success.

Thank you.

See more 150th anniversary content here.

You can browse all our fabulous 150th Anniversary gifts at the DC Thomson Shop.

And don’t forget our fantastic 150th Fiction Special and “150 Years Of Christmas Cookery”.

Yvonne McKenzie

Yvonne works on the Features team and admits to being nosy, so loves looking after the Between Friends letters and finding out all about our lovely readers. She also looks after our health copy and enjoys writing about inspiring people that help make the articles in the magazine so interesting.