Remembering life in the 60s as a child...

why no elastic in socks ? never heard of tying things to hold them up.
surely elasticated socks has been around a while.
the only thing i saw was to get a coloured feather-edge green tab for scouts, under the turn-over in their usual grey socks.
and that was for decoration/affiliation, not to hold them up, as it was added only when doing scouts.

welbeck

well i'd never heard of nor seen a liberty bodice.
i still don't get why a junior girl would need it, surely they didn't wear stockings with suspenders.
we wore elasticated socks, or some posh people had woolley tights that went all the way up, to elasticated waist.
for warmth a vest or two/t-shirt.
the so-called liberty bodice sounds hideous.
i went to boarding school aged 11, never heard of it there either.
sorry for those who have fond memories of the l-b. but it just conjures up notions of victorian repression of the female form, even children.

Hi welbeck, we wore thick woollen stockings attached to our liberty bodice by suspenders from Primary 1 to Primary 7. I think generations before me would have worn them at secondary school too, but I think by that time thick woollen tights had become available so I had those instead. The only alternative to the suspenders was garters and I didn't like the discomfort of those plus my stockings still fell down when I wore them. I certainly wasn't aware of being repressed in any way, I was always nice and cosy, which was the main purpose of wearing it.

glad you prevailed biglouis. big up to you.

When I was in primary school, early 50s, my long winter socks, with turnups, I had garters made from pieces of elastic sewn into a loop to keep my socks up. Put the socks on, turn over unturned. Pull on garter and turn top of sock, over the garter. Simple, straight forward and not uncomfortable

My garters were made from knicker elastic, with a knot in it.
The knot was the worst bit.

MissAdventure

My garters were made from knicker elastic, with a knot in it.
The knot was the worst bit.

Mine too, my Mum hated sewing. Also, I don't think I got a brand new bit of elastic, it would have been unpicked from the legs or waist of my old knickers before they became dusters, so already part of the stretch would have gone.

One was always tighter than the other, too.
Oh, the bliss of moving the garter a bit and having a good old scratch of the welt!
So good it hurt!!

That reminded me of the old joke of the man who had lost his job, his wife had left him and taken their children with her, and he was now homeless, who went into a shoe shop and asked for a pair of shoes, size 6. The assistant suggested he might find a size 8 more comfortable, and he said " the only pleasure I get out of life is removing my too small shoes every night" .

When I was 16 I bought my first pair of tights - I hated wearing stockings so I wore them for work. When she got into her teens my sister used to steal them. I once battered her with a wooden hairbrush for taking my last pair of tights. Then I learned to keep them in my locker at work.

I was paid by bank transfer so my parents never knew how much I earned. I opened an accommadation address in one of the local shops and had all my bank statements and private correspondence sent there. If you think thats a bit extreme my mother used to go through my drawers to see if I had any money hidden that she could "borrow". She used to check my wardrobe to see if I bought any new clothes and then interrogate me on how much they cost. So I went out to work in an old dress and changed when I got there.

My locker at work was full of dresses, shoes and makeup plus any spare cash. I also stowed things in my grandmothers house when I was saving up to move into my own place.

When you have nosy parents cheating becomkes a fun game. My father would not have been pleased to learn that by age 22 I earned more than him.

I was a 1959 baby too. Our socks were kept up with rubber bands from my mum’s office. So was my pony tail. It really hurt when she took it out.

Lino floor , cold on the toes in the mornings.

Sweets were an absolute treat for special occasions, except for penny sweets, which I bought with some of my threepenny bit spending money. ‘Cali’ (coloured sugar) and rainbow drops were measured out into a paper cone. Or you could buy a flying saucer... sherbet in a rice paper UFO shape. Actually, I saw these in a shop recently, bagged and boxed up, of course, and costing more than a penny ??

I've just been talking with a good friend who was born in Germany. I'm in NZ, and we are both 1950 babies. Our early lives could not be more different. She had had endless problems with her bones, owing to the hunger and poverty in 1950s Frankfurt. She is a tiny, thin little thing, in the mould of Audrey Hepburn, for the same reasons. She speaks of the shame of being born German back then. NZ was one of the richest nations in the world at that time, owing to the high price of wool and the need for lamb, beef, cheese and butter, worldwide. We still had rationing when I was a baby, because we sent a huge proportion of our agricultural produce back to the Mother Country. Even so, both my parents were of farming stock, and knew how to make a little home-grown food go a long way. We shared a house cow with our neighbours, and mother used to milk her in the morning, the neighbours at night. I remember her in a homemade flour-sack apron, bringing home pails of warm frothing milk from Beauty. We had a dozen chickens, a huge vege garden, many fruit trees, and we children were all actively involved in food production - feeding chickens, weeding rows of carrots, turning the compost pile, mowing the grass. I learned to sew and to darn socks, though refused to learn to knit at age 5, because my brother was not expected to do so, and I didn't think it was fair.
We played out on the adjacent farm, and parents never knew where we were or what we were doing. There were fast-flowing rivers, trees we climbed recklessly, bulls, and one one occasion, aged about 9, I remember being lost and the panic was awful. My sister developed pneumonia aged 6, and was off school for months. Mother used to leave her at home all day while she went off to play golf. Imagine that today!
The best of times, and the worst of times.