Did your mother make you wear a Liberty bodice?

No liberty bodice here ,I did have a Siren suit ,in fact I wore it my first day at school .I started school after the Christmas holidays and the snow was lying deep,so siren suit and wellies ,I was very small for my age so it was for a three year old and it was RED.I remember it well ,that was January 1959

I loathed my liberty bodice ( what a misnomer!) and I was often smeared with Vicks underneath!!!!!!! ?‍♀️

I wonder if there was a North/South liberty bodice divide? I was born in London in 1954 and never came across such a thing. Perhaps we just shivered?

paddyanne my memory is sketchy on the term siren suit. Am I correct thinking they were all in one hooded zip up waterproofs? Or did they come in different fabrics?

Ooh yes. I had forgotten about them.

very like the snow suits my grandchildren have ,think overall material though flock lined,not sure if they were waterproof but cosy with no gaps to let in draughts

I grew up in Surrey and I remember liberty bodices and their rubber buttons. I also wore white knickers under my navy blue ones. Can you believe that I wore that knicker combo all through secondary school and - oh the shame - when I left school at 16 I still wore my navy blue knickers for a while. I think I was so used to them that I felt undressed without them!

Does anybody remember being given a spoonful of Scott's Emulsion? Actually it was really nice so I didn't mind.

PamelaJ1

Lucca I was in the northwest, near Lancaster.
Boarding school- great training for the Marines!

Ah. North Wales for me!

paddyanne I remember 40 or so years ago when my own children wore snowsuits my Mum used to refer to them as siren suits.

Not sure if my memory is playing tricks today but I’m thinking I remember as a very young child myself having a knitted one. Maybe I’m havering!

midgey

The white knickers were called linings at my boarding school.

Oh yes knicker linings!!
At my school you were allowed two baths a week and one hair wash per fortnight .........
I left after o levels

I don’t know about being made to wear one, I was glad of it. I lived in Edinburgh during the late 40s and early 50s so clearly remember the winter of 1948. I used to have one of my father’s big army scarves wrapped around my body and pinned at the back under my coat. That was on top of the vest, liberty bodice, jumper and cardigan.

Lucca I only lasted 2 years then I went to the school I should have gone to originally in HK.
My parents didn’t want me to board but I blame Enid Blyton for my determination.
Served me right for pestering. I can’t remember knickers being mentioned at all in Malory Towers.

Hooray I’m not havering, my flash backs to knitted siren suits are real! I had a look on google and found this. I’m sure I had one of these when I was about 4 years old.

I do remember Scott’s Emulsion, every day along with the Extract of Malt.

I wore a Liberty bodice when I was junior school age, in the 1940s. Not sure how long I went on wearing one. I quite liked them, nice cosy fleece lining as far as I remember.

That terrible winter was 1947, wasn’t it? The snow came over the tops of my wellies, so I would arrive at school with wet socks and frozen wet feet.

Oh a definite 'yes' to the Liberty Bodices, and the woollen vest on top, which bore the label 'St Margaret', the name previously used by Marks and Spencer for girls' wear! Boys' wear was St Michael, of course! Plus 3/4 length fawn woollen socks, so itchy!

Grandma70s Yes, I think it was 47/48, my first year at school School toilets were outside and sometimes froze. My father made me a lovely sledge which I could sit on while he pulled me along.

There was just three of us in the class who were subjected to the monstrosity of a liberty bodice. Ghastly things. There was no central heating in those days so we got dressed, shivering by the open fire - between the fireguard and the clothes horses. Houses were colder and damper then.
If it snowed we'd go and make a snowman and went back home to change into dryer mittens (all hand knitted) when the ones we were wearing became sodden.

I remember wearing a Liberty bodice with its fleecy lining on top of my vest in the early 1950s It didn’t button up but went over my head. The rubber buttons at the bottom were originally used for attaching suspenders to hold up black wool stockings - not in my time but in my mother’s. I think they were called ‘Liberty ‘ bodices because they replaced boned corsets and thus allowed much more freedom of movement. Yes I was in the north of England and it was cold with no central heating.

Oh yesss! Mine had lost the buttons in the mists of time as they were always hand me downs, slightly yellowed. So instead of buttons they had cotton tiers(sp) to put one through a loop then tie in a bow. They were thicker and more matted the older and more shrunk they became. I also had a sort of crossover bodice that buttoned onto my kilts and basically held them on as otherwise the kilt would have fallen down skinny little me. The kilt bodice was home made with a folded “hem” in the shoulders which could be let down as I grew. My socks and stockings were hand knitted and could be enlarged by taking back the toe, reknitting a longer foot and casting off again, often with the toes a different shade to the rest of the sock or stocking. The toes would be folded over till I grew into them. Sigh.

Definitey wor them in the late 40s and early 50s, then we went to live in Hong Kong for three years and they certainly were not around when we returned in 1955.

I used to cut the rubber buttons off mine to use as rubbers for school. My DM could not work out why I kept losing buttons off my linerty bodice

I think the rubber buttons must have got damaged in the wringer - remember that?

rockgran

I remember their rubber buttons than broke in half. Very cosy though - especially when warmed on the fireguard first.

Yes, I had to wear one.

the fireguard oh, that takes me back, gloves, woolly hat and scarf warmed on the fire guard. The scarf so long it was wrapped right round me.
It was a long walk to the bus stop and a longer journey to school from age 7, but we stayed warm.

Lucca

PamelaJ1

Lucca I was in the northwest, near Lancaster.
Boarding school- great training for the Marines!

Ah. North Wales for me!

Some of my friends went off to Lowther College, I can remember how envious I was and longed to go.
That was probably because of all the books I read about boarding school and what "jolly japes" they all had!

Oh Tweedle24 the scarf tied at the back , I had that !!!!???

Callistemon
Those books lied ?