What age did:

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I was 12..started exaclty a month after being on a foreign holiday to Majorca. Text books say a holiday can trigger it off.

i was about 12 and a half. Can't remember anything spectacular or memorable about it at all! But that's just my bad memory not that it wasn't memorable cos I'm sure it was!


I'm quite flabbergasted at some of you ladies starting at 9. I think I wuold have been very afraid! Were you more mature or bigger than your friends?

My niece (not Max's daughter!) started when she was 10 which I thought was very young to have to cope with all that comes with periods.

I was 11....my Mum had told me all about periods, but I had not expected to start them so early. I remember feeling itchy "down there", putting my hand down and finding this sort of rusty coloured stuff on it...I remember thinking I must have pooed myself! :laugh:

Eventually though it dawned on me what had happened, and I told my Mum. My Aunt was there at the time, and my Mum sent her out to buy some towels. Now you have to bear in mind that my Mum is 41 years older than me....when my Aunt came back, she produced (as instructed) those horrible old Dr White's towels with the belt!! :sick:

I remember begging my Mum to let me have some Kotex press on towels....but it was years before I plucked up the courage to use tampons.

My mum was on holiday so I nicked tampax from her bedroom.

I can still remember the :shocking: effect, but I always used them from then on.

The first time I used a tampax i spent 20mins trying to unroll it so it would fit in my knickers :bag:

I couldn't use tampons because my bits were too small - I had to go to the doctor and have them stretched to accommodate them! It was very painful, but definitely worth it.

The first time I used a tampax i spent 20mins trying to unroll it so it would fit in my knickers :bag:


My mother came home once to find all the kids in our street playing cowboys and indians on our lawn with the contents of her 'special drawer'. The baddies had masks made from Dr Whites looped over each ear and the goodies were firing tampax out of the tubes at them:w00t:

(I was a lot younger then I hasten to add)

I remember when Ben Elton did a skit on press on towels, saying he used to think they worked on some kind of suction system, he didn't realise you meant press them on your knickers - and my then BF didn't get the joke.

Since then I have done a straw poll and it transpires, worryingly, that MOST men think they are a suction arrangement. :ohmy:

My mother came home once to find all the kids in our street playing cowboys and indians on our lawn with the contents of her 'special drawer'. The baddies had masks made from Dr Whites looped over each ear and the goodies were firing tampax out of the tubes at them:w00t:

(I was a lot younger then I hasten to add)

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I was 11 first day at High School and was too embarrassed to tel anyone so shoved paper towels down my knickers. I have an older sister so I knew what it was all about. I went on to tampax at age 13 I think after suffering those horrible belts and towels. After giving birth I was given towels to use again after about a week I was back on the tampax.

I'm quite flabbergasted at some of you ladies starting at 9. I think I wuold have been very afraid! Were you more mature or bigger than your friends?



As I said in the other thread I was 9 when I first started, I had been warned about what it would be like but it was still a little scary!

I remember when Ben Elton did a skit on press on towels, saying he used to think they worked on some kind of suction system, he didn't realise you meant press them on your knickers - and my then BF didn't get the joke.

Since then I have done a straw poll and it transpires, worryingly, that MOST men think they are a suction arrangement. :ohmy:


You mean press on as in press on you ??

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPP :shock:

That has brought tears to my eyes.......

12 years old, month before 13th bday, Mum and brother 2 in South Africa. Dad coped really well with seepage on sleeping bag in caravan. Bless him.

she produced (as instructed) those horrible old Dr White's towels with the belt!! :sick:


Oh yes! how I remember that white belt that my mum brought me for my sanitary towels! :blush: And whenever I bent down or leaned forward it would show! ... of course 30 years later this fashion has caught on with the thongs showing! but then it was just major embarassment! In my mum's defence I don't think stick on sanitary towels had been around for very long and she used tampons ... which I was told only married women could use!!! lol!

I was 14.

I remember it well because me and my brother that day were meeting my mum in town. So I just got a press-on towel from my mum's bedroom, used that, and then when we got of the bus at Blackpool and met my mum, I informed her I'd started my period. I can still see it now (me telling mum, not my period:w00t: ), just outside what was Fine Fare:laugh:

I was 12 but a year before whilst we were on holiday, I spotted then. I even remember the date, 4th August! How sad is that! :bag:

Oh yes! how I remember that white belt that my mum brought me for my sanitary towels! :blush: And whenever I bent down or leaned forward it would show! ... of course 30 years later this fashion has caught on with the thongs showing! but then it was just major embarassment!

So true Dol...but the thongs today are nice diamonte encrusted not the off white twisted (why did they always get twisted) bits of stretchy cotton they were then. I only tried them once and was onto tampax by the second period...I remember it kept falling out when I laughed (wasn't inserting high enough) and thought this was why all adverts showed the woment looking glum.

My mum used to be so embarassed with her's, they used cut up sheets and they were rinsed out in a bucket; contents of which where then used to nourish the tomotoes on his allottement.

Oh yes! how I remember that white belt that my mum brought me for my sanitary towels! :blush: And whenever I bent down or leaned forward it would show! ... of course 30 years later this fashion has caught on with the thongs showing! but then it was just major embarassment!

So true Dol...but the thongs today are nice diamonte encrusted not the off white twisted (why did they always get twisted) bits of stretchy cotton they were then. I only tried them once and was onto tampax by the second period...I remember it kept falling out when I laughed (wasn't inserting high enough) and thought this was why all adverts showed the women looking glum.

My mum used to be so embarassed with her's, they used cut up sheets and they were rinsed out in a bucket; contents of which where then used to nourish the tomotoes on his allottement.

You mean press on as in press on you ??

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPP :shock:

That has brought tears to my eyes.......


Yes, that is exactly what most guys think.

And we all know how painful it is if you catch a stray hair in the sticky bit - imagine a whole towel!!!!!! :shock:

Are some men really that stupid?

Are some men really that stupid?

I suppose some are, but not all of us. (Hope no-one minds me butting into this feminine thread.)

I suppose men just wouldn't know about these things....they just make it their business not to.

I bet they don't know what happens at a smear test either if you asked them.

I suppose some are, but not all of us. (Hope no-one minds me butting into this feminine thread.)

dab!! :shocking: What are YOU doing in here - I was just getting changed!!! :ohmy:

I suppose men just wouldn't know about these things....they just make it their business not to.

I bet they don't know what happens at a smear test either if you asked them.

On the same lines....
Most men know what tampax are, but I bet alot of them would have no idea how they work.
Give a tampax to a man and he'd have no idea what to do with it.

i was either 11 or 12 i think, anyway it was at first year at school whilst i was on holiday to hk. it was when we crossed the border and ventured into china. i remember thinking what **** luck i was having coz on the same day i started i fell into a stinking ditch in the field and got stuck. my cool nike air maxes were ruined and i had to wear disgusting shoes.

On the same lines....
Most men know what tampax are, but I bet alot of them would have no idea how they work.
Give a tampax to a man and he'd have no idea what to do with it.

I have demonstrated to Mr G in the sink, because last time I sent him to buy Lillet type tampons for me, he came back with Tampax, which I hate. I therefore explained to him in great detail why they are different :D

I think he feels better for knowing :D

On topic, I think I was 14 and I'd been ice skating during the day, it was late night when I realised, and mum and dad told me to go back to bed. I did after stuffing tissue in my knickers, then the next day I took myself to the 7-11 and bought a pack of Lillets, and that was that really.

I was 14 and I used just the one "towel" which was the one I used while going to the the chemist to get some liletts (sp?), I soon graduated to tampax and have used them ever since!

I was 12 and I can remember being really, really excited about it, most of my friends had started theirs and because I was the smallest in the class, I thought it was going to take forever. I couldn't wait to go to school to tell everyone!

My mum went out and bought me a pack of Dr White - they were all wrapped up in a paper bag and she handed me them and told me that I was now a woman! And they were HUGE, it felt like having a nappy on! I wasn't allowed to use tampons. :(

II wasn't allowed to use tampons. :(

Like I said Bella ... only married women can use them! I'm 42 and I'm still not married and therefore am not allowed to wear them!! I hope the other unmarried ladies are following the rules!