Boots Freetime - Autumn 1985

Boots has been on our high streets for over 175 years. Not so much an institution as a piece of national furniture: immovable, unavoidable, and always useful. These days, I mostly duck in for toothpaste or ibuprofen, but as a child it was paradise in fluorescent strip-lighting. Not only did it contain toys, but it also had computer games, music and videos - what more could an excitable nipper want? Calpol? Well, yep, Boots had that too.

Boots has mostly abandoned the business of entertainment since then; Amazon do it quicker, cheaper and with less queues. But we can relive the excitement again by flicking through the Autumn 1985 edition of Boots Freetime.

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A true piece of 1980s ephemera, the Boots Freetime magazine - which was given out free instore - is, well, a bit of mystery. I can't find any mention of it online, so it's truly fallen down the back of the cultural sofa. And that makes it fantastic for Ephemeral 80s. Plus, the front cover looks so 1980s you can almost taste the Birds Eye Steakhouse Grill. Yes, not only does it feature plenty of electric pink, but there's also tracksuits and Transformers to capture your gaze.

Inside, editor Patsy Drury assures us that there's something for everyone in this issue of Freetime. And she's not wrong. Over the 56 pages of Freetime, there's a cornucopia of excitement for readers with gift ideas, competitions, features and, as we'll soon discover, some highly curious recipes which can only be described as culinary sadism. Okay, it's clearly one big promotional tool, but it's free and, in an age where the Boots website was just a glimmer in a boffin's eye, a necessity for knowing what lurked on the shelves.

Homebrew has become something of a forgotten art, but I remember my father brewing up batches of strong beer in the 1980s. I was far too young, thank God, to touch it, but the smell alone remains with me almost 40 years on. The variety of brewing kits on offer is staggering - personally, I'd have gravitated towards the Rich Red wine and the London Bitter, but I suspect they would have been disgusting if not a surefire way to get tiddly.

Talking of disgusting, there are also several recipes featured throughout this edition of Freetime which would make even the most upbeat tastebud need several courses of antidepressants. A series of festive recipes for the upcoming bonanza of Christmas 1985 include Stilton and Walnut Pate, Butter Beans in Yoghurt Sauce and Brown Rice with Cheese Sauce - the mind reels, the palate goes AWOL. What were we thinking?

However, the most gruesome recipe is reserved for the Making Waves page where everyone's favourite 1980s kitchen appliance, the microwave, is put under the spotlight. Aside from marketing a Sharp and Philips microwave (I'm pretty certain we owned the Philips one), this feature of Freetime serves up a recipe for Peppered Fish lasagne, a truly vile prospect which I will not be recreating, not even in the name of historical authenticity.

I can't say I'm overly familiar with Boots stocking cheese, butter and coffee, but the Clean Living page suggests it was once commonplace as evidenced by the Clean Living page.

Today, as a devotee of specialty coffee, I can only imagine the Kenco here prompting expressions ranging from mild disgust to full-blown horror. However, in 1985 it would have been considered the apex of domestic chic to pull this out of your kitchen cupboard.. Most of the offerings here are fairly healthy, all low fat and low sugar, which seems entirely in keeping with Boots' obsession with wellbeing.

It's 1980s consumerism, so how could there not be plenty of content aimed at working children up into a parent-pestering frenzy? Yes, a fair section of Freetime is dedicated to tempting children into getting their grubby little mitts on all the latest toys. And, in 1985, that consisted of Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, He-Man and Transformers. I'm not sure why the Buzz-Off character is positioned upside down, perhaps the photography team had been enjoyed a little too much of the Boots homebrew.

And it just keeps coming. Tomy get an entire page with an intriguing array of games - I vaguely recall Kong Man, Lights Alive is cutesy simplicity at its finest and the Roland Rat Supermouth Game is beyond the pale of absurdity. In between, there are adverts for dishwashing sponges, and the ever-present cassette-and-book packs, those birthday gifts which regularly emerged out of wrapping paper at every single birthday party in the decade.

It's time to move onto home audio and, my oh my, did you ever see so many right angles? Geometry truly rules with an iron fist here. Aside from the turntables, I don't believe there's a single design element here which doesn't rely purely on straight lines. And look at the price of those hi-fis which come complete with those new fangled CD players, nearly £700 for the Sanyo one - no wonder we didn't get one at home for another 12 years...

Remaining with technology, we're going to swerve into the world of computing and the latest treasures to be found in Boots Computer Centres. The Atari and Amstrad, while still boxy, possessed the occasional curve, a fleeting hint of elegance compared to hi-fis we've just been looking at.

The specs, of course, are laughable to modern eyes - 128k RAM here where the average RAM in a 2025 PC is 16GB - but back in 1985 these machines truly felt like the future. Special bonus points are awarded for the Durabeam advert, I shall be hunting one of these down immediately.

We'll end by looking at a couple of adverts which tickled my fancy in amongst the pages of Freetime. First off, there's an advert for a multipack full of Boots branded VHS tapes, just £19.95 for four E-180 tapes - a few years earlier, you would have been paying at least double that. And, finally, a charming appearance for one of the KP Friars with KP's Lower Fat Crisps. When exactly did the KP Friars disappear? I miss those guys.

So, the Boots Freetime Autumn 1985 magazine, what a fantastic trip down memory lane and a curious glimpse into our shopping choices in the mid-1980s. Consumerism, naturally, has changed over the last 40 years, most notably with the shift into online shopping, but has much else really changed? Oh, sure, the graphic design at play here seems like it's from a different universe, a much simpler one, but the truth is we all want to buy, buy, buy just as much now as we did in 1985.

Where did I manage to procure this magazine? Ebay, of course, another one of the gems of modern consumerism. It cost £7.50 with postage and, as far as I'm concerned, it was an absolute steal. It's even in phenomenal condition, looking as if it's literally been picked up from a Boots store this afternoon.

Hopefully, I'll be featuring similar items on Ephemeral 80s in the future and, yes, I'm still looking for any donations, so please get in touch if you can help.