The best of the bunch. Review on Saga Magazine

I very seldom buy magazines, except that is for those dealing with computing - you could say that what I spend on those precludes me from allowing my budget to buy other.

However, I do buy the Saga Magazine.

One day, two years ago, a Saga Magazine dropped through my letter box, quite a weighty tome I thought, not the usual, ''junk mail,'' that one expects. Naturally, being free, I read the magazine, cover to cover. I subsequently booked a holiday in Malta and enjoyed one of the best holidays that my family and I have ever beeb on, due, in no small measure, to the services of SAGA. I then decided to subscribe to the magazine as I had found it a very good read.

Once a month, without fail, my magazine arrives and I start to read it before I go to work that day, knowing that my wife will squirrel it away for her pleasure whilst I am out. I aim for the first few pages where I will find the monthly article by Keith Waterhouse, for those that have not read his stuff you are in for a treat. I have been reading his column in my National Daily for years and, whilst his column is cutting, biting, usually tongue-in-cheek stuff relating to the political comment of the day, his articles in Saga Magazine are very humerous and are all observations on life as he has lived it - again, tongue -in-cheek. In April he was waxing lyrical about ''This cloning business'' and how two of him would be two too many. This month, his piece was dedicated to the sadness of not being able to find restaurants that would provide a boiled egg with, 'soldiers.'

Libby Purves is another writer that delights and her articles are entertaining, kindly observations on life. Similarly, Barbara Kelly, - who is 80 this year and who first came to us on television with her husband the late Bernard Braden - writes with tales of her career in the business.

In fact there are so many well known writers who provide the magazine with a wealth of knowledge about life that the magazine is filled with a treasure trove of how we should live our own lives. My current copy is 195 pages in length and yet, on page 34 we are already into readers letters, always an interesting read. Write a good letter yourself and you could be in for the monthly £50.00 prize.

Naturally enough, as the magazine is aimed at the over 50's there are articles about times past and advertisements which aim to sell you, Lonnie Donegan (Who's he) recordings but there is also a great deal of information that you would not find elsewhere about healthy living and nutrition, holiday destinations with some of the best travelogues that you will ever read and financial matters which are not necessarily related to the older generation. There are always good articles about genealogy, that is, finding out who your ancestors were, your family tree. Don't wait until you are in your Dotage to look them up, start asking about them whilst you are young and you will discover a lot more.

As would be expected from a magazine that only costs £2.00 there is a fair bit of advertising. This is however not the, 'In your face@ style of advertising but rather, 'I wondered where you got that,' type. SAGA go out of their way to obtain informative advertising that offers bargains.

There are always articles that are about history as it relates to those who can remember the near past. There is always a lot of joy in evocative reminiscence.

My wife and I go back to our Saga Magazines regularly and enjoy them all over again. I can thoroughly recommend you all to obtain a copy as soon as possible.