Blast from the past

I'm sure there were extra buttons for bits of underwear. Did some knickers button to your bodice perhaps?

After I'd had pneumonia at the age of 6, I had suspenders attached to my liberty bodices so that I could wear (under protest) thick lisle stockings, Yuk!

I'm sure my liberty bodice had a whole row of little rubber buttons all down the front, not just two...

They did ANA, !!

It's a memory thing Ana. My liberty bodices did indeed have a row of rubber buttons. I was remembering another garment I had to wear.

The mind boggles!

Agus, you just have got to tell us , don"t be shy !!!

Yes, what were those extra buttons on a liberty bodice for? I seem to remember my Mum telling me and my sister that they were for holding up stockings but I don't see how that would work.

I remember ghastly liberty bodices. Yes, rubber buttons all the way down. No other girls in my village primary school wore them. I think my mother, in the 1950's, was under the misapprehension that they were a sign of extra and much needed care and protection.

I now believe they were a result of their experiences of low income and poverty and no NHS in the 1920s-1930s. I was also forced to wear yellow-coloured woollen vests. Again, no other girls I knew wore them.

I remember being told that kids were once sewn into their winter underwear in October and not let out until the weather warmed up again. Poor little blighters - how itchy would that be?!!

NotTooOld - yes I was told about that. And goose grease slapped on the chest as well, to last all winter - - - So I was expected to be grateful that all I had to deal with was a yellow (itchy) woolly vest together with a liberty bodice. And Fair Isle twinsets knitted beautifully by my grandmother, which I thought were so unattractive (this was in S England, not in the Scottish Highlands) - and which I now want to wear - - - -

I had liberty bodices with lots of rubber buttons, but I also had to wear combinations (aka 'combs'), which had short legs like knickers with a split down the back below the waist, so that I could go to the toilet unimpeded!

aaaagh - combs - - - and I thought woolly vests and liberty bodices were the worst things ever - - -

Ana and Nonu.

My Mother had my kilts and pleated skirts made with liberty bodices attached that had two buttons instead of the usual row of small buttons.

Ah yes, onmyown, the full outfit was, at least as far as I remember, the proper dress for girls here, in the 50s, Fair Isle jumper/twin set, kilt, fawn top hoes and Clarks brown lace up shoes. I have a few photographs sporting 'the look'

Hose even. Hoes would have been unacceptable!

Rubber buttons on the sides of the liberty bodice were for suspenders. They were about six inches long and had a button hole which you attached to the bodice, I wore long grey socks which I fastened to the suspenders. My kilts had bodice tops too and very cosy they were

I remember rubber buttons on my PJ's.

OK for you gals with your lovely, thick, warm Lyle stockings. I can still feel the stinging pain from my red and chapped little thighs in the winter. Those coarse, hairy grey school shorts used to rub, and rub just like sandpaper. I really hated them, and the strong-smelling Germolene ointment they used to put on.

Agus - yes, I remember Clarks brown lace up shoes also. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. At the age of 14 I finally persuaded my mother, thank goodness, to allow me to wear fashion shoes (they were cheaper - and by then it was almost 1960).

Since then I have put my daughters initially into Clarks shoes (they are good). And now, decades later, I wear Clarks shoes with pleasure (they are good - and comfortable).

I'd a lovely new pair of Clarks brown lace-ups with punched uppers which looked quite grown-up. It was cold, my desk was beside the radiator and I put my feet on it .... and burnt a hole in the sole of one. You can imagine my mum's reaction. Luckily for me she wasn't a violent woman. There was a good cobbler available and a new sole was stitched on. I looked after those shoes very carefully after that until I outgrew them.

papaoscar - sorry to hear about your coarse, rough hairy school short.

But warm lisle stockings? - not at all. In the winter, cold knees and long grey socks with aforementioned Clarks shoes ("and don't get them scuffed on the way home!" - I did!) and when it rained, wellington boots that chafed dreadfully mid calf.

This was my village primary school footwear, when maybe most of the other children had poorer footwear. I was different.

Then, as an 11+ scholarship girl my mother persisted with woolly vests, liberty bodices and Clarks shoes. My newly found schoolfriends didn't wear this stuff, maybe as townies they had more modern, less rough-cast all-weather styles. Again, I was different. (Still trying to fit in - but in recent years succeeding!)

Re Clarks shoes, I wore them, DDs too and now GDs. I bought GDs their annual Clarks winter boots a couple of weeks ago. My Father seemed to be obsessed with, a good leather shoe that polishes well, with a good shine!

anno I bought a pair of Clarks tan leather brogues last year, so comfortable, I went back a few weeks later and bought a black patent pair.

My first pair of non Clarks onmyown, 1962, I was 12, were red patent slip ons along with my first pair of nylons for a school party. Woohoo

I think we all still wore vests at the Grammar school I went to, but certainly not liberty bodices by then!

I think Clark's shoes were on the school list as mandatory as well.

I do wish DD wasn't so against vests (not woolly, scratchy ones!). Not that my DGDs seem to feel the cold at all - I just feel it for them....

Agus, thanks for the memory! You and red patent slip ons and nylons for a school party aged 12? Wow. If only.

My first pair of non Clarks were a kind of cocoa-coloured post-winklepicker square toed slip-on. Aged 14, around 1959. They didn't fit very well. But I loved them. They were cool. Yeah.

What ancient junior school memories this thread is bringing back. Long lines of wooden desks. Silent classes except when repeating tables or reading in unison. Cold, harsh classrooms and teachers only relieved by school dinners. Marching two by two down to the dining room. Sat at wooden benches in silence. Saying grace and then lining-up to be served. The food was prepared in a central kitchen and sent out in huge round metal containers or trays. When they took the tops off the smell! Awful! Stringy, gristly meat, watery gravy, grey, lumpy potatoes and smelly cabbage with big, hard stalks. Horrible! Vile, lumpy custard and tasteless spotted dick. Don't think I'll linger too long back there!