............to create a quiet corner.

Lino!!!! You were really posh - we had just floorboards, which my mother scrubbed until they were white. They were good for drawing circles to play marbles. There was a little black cast-iron grate in the bedroom, but the fire was only lit if you were very, very, ill. I have to laugh when people on property programmes are raving about these 'original features' - to my mind, they just take up a useful wall.
My sister and I have wondered why our mother did not use a bit of imagination to warm our bed. I used to put my girls' sheets round the hot water tank before we got central heating, and my sister used to wrap the oven shelf in a towel to warm her boys' bed (she took it out before they got in!

Greatnan Lino on the bedroom floor, sooo cold when you got out of bed!

I remember ice patterns on the inside of the windows too. They were so thick you couldn't cut through them with your fingernails, but so pretty and each one unique.

I did have long plaits until I was about 13, then I had them cut as I wanted to go with my brother to watch an 'A' film (not sex, just gangsters!)
I never had a liberty bodice - I always thought they were for posh girls! We didn't have any nightwear either - we just slept in our vest and knickers and damned cold it was too. Unheated bedroom, ice on the inside of the windows in winter - I was very glad I slept with my big sister. Nothing like another body to generate warmth!

Visions of Greatnan in liberty boudice and red clogs....how am I going to get to sleep? .

I've had a lovely day with you lot. Time for me to say goodbye. Keep safe and sound. Back with you tomorrow.

I can picture you Greatnan Did you have sweet little sticky-out plaits too. Bet you were so cute.

I loved my little red clogs - they made a great noise on the wooden school floors.

Sneaky titters from behind hand, Ella

SOOP!!!! Stop it! I thought we were mates!

It seems they were designed to 'liberate' women from the wearing of heavily boned stays and corsets, and their manufacture/use was associated with the female emancipation movement.
In the UK they were worn by maids so they could get on with their work more easily without a corset on. Not sure if I'm pleased or cross about that.

A friend of mine has a wonderful collection of old clothes that she has collected from all over the country. She once told me she longed to find a liberty bodice for her collection.
I wonder why they were called that? Will look it up on Wiki and report back if it's interesting.

My Liberty bodice had buttons down the front and on the hem - the latter for the attachment of suspenders for the lisle stockings I was made to wear after I'd had pneumonia in the hard winter of 1946/47. Glad it didn't occur to my mother to put me in combinations.

As for hot flushes - I didn't have many when the menopause hit me at 43, but I am getting hot sweats now as a side effect of the gradual reduction of the Prednisolone which I've been taking for 16 months.

Ana someone is taking your name in vain in Lil's bar.

Actually,just remembered that I only narrowly escaped wearing clogs too!

We used to live in a mill town! Mum wouldn't hear of it!

soop yes along those lines!

Ana, you're just jealous!

Me too. It was the best bit about shopping for shoes. Think such gadgets have been outlawed.

They don't allow those x-ray machines now do they?

I loved having mine done. Seeing all the bones!

ella The mind boggles. Was your liberty bodice combination designed something like the old fashioned drawers with an open gusset? Must have been chilly when a north-easterly was blowing.

No! Combinations Ella? You poor thing!

Nanadog I've not even got my winter fuel allowance yet and you're trying to take it off me!!!

soop my nose is cold at the end too! How odd? Glad to know that I'm not in a minority group though!

I used to wear a liberty bodice and also a pair of combinations which had a great gap down the back at the bottom (thank goodness!)

Sorry if I've wandered from the point of the thread by mentioning Xrays. And yes, I think that jess is on holiday.

Do you remember having your feet [when buying new shoes] Xrayed? Was that good thing or not?

Isn't she on holiday?

I can remember when I used to do hard work in the garden like that Bags. When/why did I get lazy? Good feeling isn't it, when it's finished.

I've been wondering about jess.