It was the most important thing, wasn't it- the cover shot was the pic that grabbed you by the balls and shouted 'buy this mag'. Sometimes it was the image itself, sometimes it was the identity of the 'headline' model who made the cover. There's one of my favourite Mayfair cover shots ever from back in my teens that I can't post, as the model's given age at the time breaks the rules (didn't worry me that she was 17 at the time, because so was I!), but there are a couple of others which were pretty significant for me
Fiesta, Feb 1983. I'm pretty sure this is, if not the actual first, one of the first mags I ever bought myself, back when I was 16, after a couple of years of getting by with Page 3, the lingerie section of my mum's mail order fashion catalgoues and the occasional mag loaned/given or swapped from mates at school. Without a doubt it was the cover shot that got my attention- I can't even remember who the model is now, but the cute nude girl with pretty eyes and a nice bum posing on a 'moon' set got my attention straight away, and I knew that was the mag I
had to buy.
Mayfair, March 1988. Not so much the cover shot itself (although it is a really nice pic, it's not exactly intensely erotic) as the identity of the cover girl, former Grange Hill actress
Paula Ann Bland, in her brief glamour modelling career post-GH, so much so that I remember exactly where and when I bought the mag.
I'd watched Grange Hill religiously as a kid, and had developed just a little bit a bit of a teenage crush on Paula-Ann
. So, fast forward to 1988, a while after she'd quit the show, I'm going back to uni after the Easter break, and I'm in WH Smiths on my local station, killing time before my train, idly scanning the top shelf- and there's the new issue of Mayfair- complete with Paula-Ann Bland from Grange Hill in a basque and stockings on the cover!
There was no way I was leaving that shop without buying a copy, and that train journey may have been some of the most frustrating two hours of my life, anticipating the pleasures to come with the mag nestled safely in my bag.
The worst thing was when I finally got back to Uni, not only were my flatmates back, but I got dragged out to the pub, so still no chance to peruse Paula's shoot properly
beyond a quick glance on the train that revealed it was topless-only, but very nice. Eventually, I claimed tiredness from the train journey as an excuse to quit the pub early, and rushed back to the flat, headed straight for my room, and got my kit off to enjoy the wank over Paula that I'd been anticipating all day- and IIRC it didn't disappoint.
They may only have been topless pics, but she didn't do much else - as I remember, her glamour career amounted little more than the Mayfair shoot and a couple of Page 3s, before she returned to acting and eventually quitting the business altogether, and I've had many a good session with those pics (I'm sure I've still got the original mag somewhere in the loft) since.