The first issue of New Scientist was published on 22 November 1956, and some of our readers have been with us since the very beginning. We asked subscribers, young and old, to tell us how they first encountered the magazine and how New Scientist has influenced their lives.

The volume of responses and the gratitude expressed within them were quite overwhelming. Here are some of our favourites, featuring a spectacular maggot experiment, science-inspired poetry and even a match made on the short-lived New Scientist dating site. Huge thanks to everyone who wrote in.

I was interested to see that New Scientist was launched “for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences”. At the age of 13, I saved up a shilling from my Saturday morning “jobs” to purchase the first edition on 22 November 1956 and became one of those people interested in scientific discovery. Seventy years later, I remain a subscriber, after a scientific career that took me to many (if not, most!) countries in the world. New Scientist covered things like the opening of Jodrell Bank telescope in 1957. Since that was only about 50 miles (80 kilometres) away, it necessitated a bike ride to see what it really looked like! Peter Hall

I seem to have been reading New Scientist for the full 70! I do recall my encounter with the first edition: I was at Bec Grammar School in south London in a second-year physics class – it was 1956. The teacher, a genial boffin-type, announced the advent of the new publication and handed out copies – all I remember is its grey (or was it beige?) pages, which I read in a perfunctory way (I was only 12!) little thinking it would follow me through life and around the globe. Robyn Williams

I was at Malvern College in England for my O level examinations from 1955 to 1958. My science master at Malvern had recognised my interest in science and technology and he bought the very first issue of New Scientist with his own money. At the next science class, he stood up in front of the whole class and waved the first issue, saying, “Young Inman, a new UK science and technology magazine has been published and here is the first issue for you.” I went on to reach 60 years as a member of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers. Peter Inman

1956 puts me back at school – Fettes College in Edinburgh. The school adopted New Scientist from its first edition and it was available in the library, where senior boys interested in science were recommended to read it. And so began a lifetime of New Scientist – I have been a regular for as long as I can remember and a subscriber for a very long time. I am very grateful to New Scientist for maintaining my interest in all the sciences and new developments, which I am sure has helped me to think laterally and to have a greater understanding of what makes everything tick. Frank Evans

As a pupil in the mid-1960s at a girls’ grammar school in the north of England, one day I picked up a copy of New Scientist in the library. I was mind-blown by an article about Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity and time dilation, including a coloured diagram! I went on to study physical and material sciences at university and worked for eight years in research. But motherhood and misogyny (in those days before equal opportunities legislation) led me to change tack and I’ve been making pottery by hand for over 55 years. I like to think my science education hasn’t been wasted, but handed down to my daughters, one of whom reads New Scientist online in France. Every week, the paper issue landing on my doormat is devoured with excitement! Anne Rodgers

The stories that most interested me were about emerging electronics, the Sputnik satellite and the launch of Laika the space dog. The last of these prompted me to construct a module to house a maggot atop a 3-pence standard firework rocket and launch it. I later recovered the maggot unharmed and used it as fishing bait the next day. Mel

We are a group of 12 ladies “of a certain age” who meet once a month to discuss three or four articles from New Scientist. We tackle topics such as AI, quantum computing and cosmology – all of which are quite daunting! We persevere and continue to try to understand topics like these that are very challenging. We look up terms and concepts we don’t understand and then teach each other. We also love to read articles on climate change and medical science, as these feel more relatable. We plan to get the recordings of the talks from October’s New Scientist Live, so we can watch together and discuss. We want to thank you for making science accessible to us – we all feel that it’s important as we get older to not give in to the temptation to ignore all the new discoveries and changes in the world. Diana Currie, Dawn Segrue and the Marlow Science Group

An article about Benjamin Libet’s experiments in the 1980s showing there was a time gap between the brain making a decision and conscious awareness of that decision inspired me, as a psychotherapist, to find a way of using that gap in the field of psychological therapy. Two years of exploration and testing later, I taught the first cohort of students, and now it is being employed by psychologists, counsellors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists all over the world. Terence Watts

Back in 2019, I stumbled across an eye-catching magazine on the shelves of a Tesco store. The title-page article caught my eye: “Does this one microbe cause all these conditions… and does that mean we can beat them?” It was at that moment that I truly fell in love with biology. Years have passed, and I have since graduated with a science degree from the University of Edinburgh and am now a returning student at my alma mater pursuing a master of research postgraduate degree in life sciences.

One day, I aim to be able to contribute – even if just a little – to aiding humanity in its endless fight against malady and illness. All of my academic achievements thus far may very well not have been possible had it not been for that magazine that caught my eye, that day in August 2019. And for that, I quite literally owe New Scientist all my academic achievements, and all that I have done, to this day. Stephen Wang

I am 87 and have been reading New Scientist every week since October 1964. I still have a note from my grandson, Maximilian, from when he was 5 years old, thanking me for reading New Scientist with him. He is now studying biology at my one-time college, Merton, at the University of Oxford. In the meantime, he has already succeeded, while travelling with his mother in Amazonia, in identifying, describing, naming and publishing a new genus and species of damselfly. He and I continue to discuss issues like evolution together, though I am a classicist by training. Anthony J. Nieduszynski

Your magazine is vital to our family. It sparks many conversations at the kitchen table. Our 11-year-old grandson keeps beating us to the latest issue. Our 6-year-old grandson has been enthralled with the cover art since he was 3. I cut out the cartoons and post them on the fridge. They have become the “cartoon of the week”. Often my grandsons see details I didn’t even catch. Krystyna Rodriguez

I have been a reader for almost all the publication’s life, as I first started when I was studying for A level qualifications in 1959/60. The article that really got me was one about the trouble the UK Ministry of Defence was having with dolphins that disrupted its torpedo testing by racing the torpedoes and giving them nudges of encouragement or perhaps challenge, thus putting them off target. I was hooked. It settled my decision to study engineering and, about six years later, I was actually employed as an engineer, working in a team trying to design turbine blades with better efficiency. I am now 83 and retired (well almost), but I still read every issue from cover to cover. Bryan Wilson

We first met when I was 18. I liked you a lot, but didn’t subscribe until I started my modest career as a poet of science rhymes for children (2009). Your writers, including Graham Lawton, Michael Marshall and Leah Crane, inspired 26 of the 80 poems I had published in CSIRO’s children’s science magazine Double Helix in Australia (plus many other poetic creations). In 2021, you kindly published my poem Brassica Bonanza on your Almost the last word pages (9 January), and Frosty Window Pane made it into Almost the last word in 2023 (13 May). So, I feel like we are friends now as well as work colleagues. And somewhere within that timeframe, my regular New Scientist magazine became INDISPENSABLE for more personal reasons. You have become my safe substitute for cigarettes. Every time I take a break, you help me not crave those nicotine nasties with your enlightening prose. Please don’t leave me! Love, Celia Berrell

I met my husband, Simon, on your dating website in 2012. It took me 50 years to find him, and without your mag, I probably never would have. We are two halves of a whole, and have been happily married now for 11 years. He is my heart’s delight, he makes me laugh, wears cravats with his T-shirts and is altogether quirky, like me. I still read New Scientist every week, and hope to be reading it still for many years to come. The quality of articles is outstanding – one day I may even get to understand quantum physics! We both love Tom Gauld’s cartoons, and keep a selection of them on the wall in the toilet, to entertain visitors. Andrea Cohen

I was delighted when my question about whether anything eats wasps was published in The Last Word (29 January 2005), and even more so when there was a full page of answers. But I was amazed when my question featured in the title of the first New Scientist questions book later that year. Apparently, the book was one of that Christmas’s bestsellers. Not only that, but there were two consecutive reviews in The Times – pretty good for my complete published scientific writing! And what did I get out of this? The original answerers got 25 quid each. Me? Not a penny. Only a fleeting, obscure fame. Fair enough. A great science magazine for the ordinary folks like myself. I will not be cancelling my subscription. Tom Eastwood

I answered my first two Last Word questions in 1997, when the column was relatively new. Amusingly, both appeared in the same issue, something I gather the rules now prevent. I had always admired New Scientist, but never quite imagined it would publish anything I might write – perhaps a touch of imposter syndrome. Nearly 30 years later, I’m still providing answers. I particularly enjoy questions requiring a back-of-the-envelope calculation or a little mathematical modelling. I like getting absorbed in a problem and trying to explain a tricky concept clearly and concisely. It is one of the few ways I experience mindfulness.

Some questions have spun off in unexpected directions. One, about whether pigeons sweat, led to an email while I was scuba-diving in Thailand asking me to appear on the TV programme BBC Breakfast. Answers have also developed into articles elsewhere, sometimes after reading somebody else’s answer and questioning my own. My favourite? Like the Eye of Sauron, my focus is always on the one I’m looking at right now. Mike Follows