85th anniversary: Over the decades

If you're looking for a jerkin knitting pattern for a teenager to wear with her new spring outfit (21 March 1946) or a recipe for surprise cheesy fudge (5 April 1984), you're going to be disappointed. But if it's the 'best advice possible by people who are experts' that you desire, then Nursery World is the destination of choice for childcarers as much today as it was when this statement was first printed in our launch issue 85 years ago.

Nursery World was born out of the realisation that the 'foundations both of health and of character are laid in the very beginnings of life, and that grown men and women are what they are largely in consequence of the way they were handled in babyhood' (2 December 1925). The immense importance of the early years remains at the heart of everything that we publish. Also held aloft is what was proclaimed in that very first edition as 'the greatest profession in the world - the profession of the Nursery'.

Forward thinking

There's much to be gasped at when looking through the decades of past issues of Nursery World. Readers imploring others to simply tell an adopted child that her parents died when she was a baby (28 December 1938), or advising carers to wash bad words out of boys' mouths with a bar of soap (19 December 1963). Dated language abounds, with lots of mentions of 'gay' children, references to children with special needs that would make our toes curl today, and hushed mentions of 'unmarried mothers'. But behind it all is a love of children and the understanding that the early years is a crucial time for the development of essential lifelong skills.

From the beginning, Nursery World's attitudes to children have been progressive. Calls for children to be allowed to take risks and not have formal education thrust on them too soon have echoed through the magazine over the past 85 years. During the 1930s, child psychologist Susan Isaacs answered readers' questions on the magazine's problem pages under the pseudonym of Ursula Wise. She wanted parents and carers to sympathetically relate to their children and try to understand them. Rather than a 'seen and not heard' attitude towards children, she considered a lively, exploring attitude vital and encouraged children to be allowed to question and experiment. 'Play is the child's means of living and of understanding life,' she said. It's this belief, that through play babies and children learn, grow and have fun, that is now enshrined in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Children having access to the outdoors and getting as much fresh air as possible has always been promoted by Nursery World. 'The healthy baby must be put out of doors during the day, cosily wrapped up and in his pram in misty weather' stated an article published in March 1943. Now free-flow between the indoors and outdoors is held up as best practice and a new series on running a forest school launched in Nursery World just last week (25 November 2010).

Changing attitudes

The changing attitudes of society, not only to childhood but to issues such as working mothers and men, can be followed through Nursery World back issues. Including fathers remains a topic for debate today, with the Fatherhood Institute running a conference on the theme only last month. Back in March 1926 there were calls for there to be a 'father's half-hour' in the nursery routine - 'the time you can sit your little man on your knee, pet him, or tell him a simple fairy story; the time when your little girl may love to feel what a big dear daddy she has got.' By the 1960s it was commonly thought that both mothers and fathers should be a team, with one article stating, 'A baby needs the day-to-day attention of both parents' (19 December 1963). The following decade, there were calls for male nursery nurses to be accepted by everyone, but in January 1984 an NNEB spokesman estimated there were no more than five male nursery nurses in Britain. By the 1990s they were more common, and a visit to Sheffield Children's Centre found a 50 per cent male workforce (15 October 1998). Despite this, there remains a need for attitudes to male childcarers to be improved and a thread on men in childcare has been running on Nursery World's on-line forum intermittently for the past six years.

Between the wars, professionally qualified women were forced to leave work when they got married, leading to mothers writing in Nursery World of their loneliness and yearning for intellectual stimulation (see 'Bits and pieces' below). Now the demand for childcare is ever greater because of the norm for mothers to work. With this has come the professionalisation of the childcare sector.

Nursery World was initially a publication for both mothers and professionals. It began to be targeted more at nursery workers in the mid-1970s but did not become a professional title until the 1980s, when features needed to cover a broader subject matter than just parenting skills, child development and behaviour. Now the magazine and website caters for, as its strapline says, 'everyone in the early years community' - from apprentices to nursery managers and owners across the private and public sectors.

While early years practitioners have gained more and more qualifications, with more than 4,000 now having achieved Early Years Professional Status, it is a sad fact that salaries have not caught up with their qualifications. Nursery World has always called for higher pay and standards, with successful campaigns such as 2001's Stop the Drop campaign, and will continue to do so. With the review of the EYFS on-going and practitioners anxiously waiting to find out the future direction of the new Government's policy it will also continue to report the latest news, challenge policy, allow debate through its pages and, of course, offer advice and good practice from the sector's experts for many years to come.

Nanny salary overview

• December 1925: Lady nurse required for 12-month-old. Salary £52 per annum

• December 1935: Nurse required for 2-year-old and 9-month-old. Salary £60 per annum

• January 1945: Nurse required for 6-month- old. Salary £156 per annum

• August 1955: Nannie required for 5-year-old and baby expected December. Salary £4 per week

• July 1965: Nannie required for 18-month-old and 3-years-old. Salary £8 per week.

• January 1975: Nannie, NNEB, for baby expected June and 4-year-old. Salary £20 per week

• January 1985: NNEB nannie for newborn baby. Salary £80 per week

• February 1995: Nanny for 18-month-old. Salary £160 per week

• March 2005: Nanny for two-year-old. Salary £300 per week

Bits and pieces

• Nursery World was launched on Wednesday, 2 December 1925 by Faber & Gwyer Ltd. It cost just tuppence.

• Child psychologist and promoter of the nursery school movement Susan Isaacs answered readers' child development questions, under the pseudonym Ursula Wise, in the 1930s.

• Playwright John Osborne, whose works include Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer, worked for Nursery World during the late 1940s.

• Childcare guru Dr Spock wrote for Nursery World during the 1960s.

• Children's television producer Anne Wood, whose company Ragdoll makes 'In the Night Garden', reviewed books for Nursery World in the late 1970s.

• Nursery World continued to be published weekly throughout World War II despite the editorial offices being based in central London and a flying bomb blowing out the windows in the Blitz.

• Allied airmen hidden in safe house in France during WWII passed the time by reading back-issues of Nursery World donated by British nannies.

• Various royal family members have graced our covers, including Princes Andrew and Edward (aged six and two, 19 March 1966) and even music royalty, in the form of Andrew Lloyd Webber (30 July 1953).

• International charity Mencap was formed through Nursery World. Founder Judy Fryd, under the pseudonym Cinderella, wrote protesting about the lack of help available for her disabled daughter. There was an enormous response from readers, and on 7 November 1946 she wrote, 'I have resolved to form an association of parents of backward children'.

• Sparked by the plea of lonely woman in Nursery World in 1935, correspondence clubs were formed where women exchanged 'round robin' letters. Many developed life-long friendships and continued to swap letters until well into old age. A bestselling book, Can Any Mother Help Me?, by Jenna Bailey, published in 2007 and later made into a stage play, brings together one group of women's letters.

• The pages of Nursery World have also yielded love and marriage. In January 1993 nanny Ingrid Brooks placed a personal advertisement in the magazine looking for friends. It attracted the attention of Shane Hughes, a paediatric nurse living nearby. A flurry of letters ensued, they met after six weeks and were married four months later.