Periods

My lovely Mum could never talk to me about anything vaguely to do with sex. Amazing that she and Dad had my brother and me!!! Wwhhen I was about 9 or 10 she shoved a small booklet at me which was supposed to educate me about periods. Never did read it thoroughly. She did say that part of becoming an adult meant I would bleed 'down there' every four weeks. When I started (one Saturday morning), aged 11 years, she gave me that ubiquitous belt and a pad, and said I did not need to go to my normal Saturday dancing class.

I felt very modern when I said I want to go - and did so. Mum just gave me one final warning of 'not letting anyone touch me down there now'. And that was that This was early 1950's

Did not discover how wonderful tampons could be until after I was married.

With my own four daughters, all of whom were very sporty - they used tampons from day 1 and were able to continue their normal active lives. From quite young I encouraged them to explore their own bodies, and during bathtime showed how tampons expanded.

I always explained periods as the body preparing a nest for a foetus - and discarding that nest if it was not being used that month.

As an addendum to these quite sad tales I would att that at the grand old age of 52 I suddenly developed horrendous bleeding lasting two weeks, with a two week interval. I felt dreadful, but a removal of the womb lining called endometrial ablation solved all problems and I never looked back. Thank you NHS. There is no need to suffer. It was a day case procedure and painless under anaesthetic.

I lived with my father, when my periods started (still at junior school) I had no idea what was happening, I went and told her! My poor daughter was at Scout camp when her periods started!

Oh Lordy not a clue….started 1st term of secondary school.
We’d had a talk at primary but before anything useful was disclosed they said go home and tell your mum what we’ve been talking about and she’ll tell you the rest.
No such luck; my mum was cleaning the windows and just said “oh that’s good dear”.
Thought I was dying when I started…finally blocked the loo with toilet paper and mum realised what had happened and gave me some pants with a hook and pads that attached. And a little pamphlet about reproduction.
Which is why I never ever shared anything about my personal life with my mother. And also why I got a huge shock when I had a boyfriend at 17 and we started getting physical - had no idea what was down his pants (going to an all girls grammar school didn’t help either) 🙄

Just did quick check - and that VAT applied all the way to 1 January 2021. Thankfully it's been removed nowadays.

Labradora

Ma explained in a religious context with some sort of little book, if I remember correctly.
I menstruated at 11 years old so no tampons but sanitary towels.
I wasn't shocked or frightened by my periods but I found the towels , should we say " unhygienic" . I was told about tampons in my teens only by my friends and I assume because I was still a virgin when I tried to insert one, clueless, I nearly fainted.
I think I always had low hormone levels for reasons I won't bore you with so I had a lifetime of 3-day light periods with very little pain.
Condolences to ladies who struggled on with heavy , painful periods.

Thanks for the well-wishing - as I was certainly one of the ones with those heavy, painful periods - for years!

That was the other aspect to periods - not just 1. What was what when they started - but 2. How things went from then onwards?

I wonder how many of us never got caught out by our own bodies after it had all started up? I spent years fearing being "caught out" and a few times my body did embarrass me with leaking and such. It certainly stopped me dressing exactly as I had decided for a few days every month - just in case of let-downs.

Add the sick leave from work and - once they got to the stage they were looking for any excuse they could to reduce our numbers in the cheapest way possible = it was unnerving to have to take the odd day off on sick leave for that reason. I figured I could keep risk of embarrassment under control - but I couldnt stop the element of often feeling ill with it. So I would land up every year with several days off work on sick leave for that reason - and worried in case they added them onto my own sick leave (ie with illness a man could have also had). I mentally divided my sick leave between a. my own and b. "female" sick leave and was ready to defend myself with stating "discrimination against women" if they counted the period sick days against me - as well as my own so to say (ie what a man would have had too). Thankfully I at least didn't have to claim "sex discrimination" against them - whew!

I really couldnt figure why VAT was put on period products (probably still is) - as the whole concept of VAT is it's not applied to necessities I thought. A noticeable amount of money was coming out of my poor single person paypacket anyway - as I had to use so much sanitary protection - and it added insult to injury knowing the Government was charging me tax on it too!

I came home from school one day, went to the toilet and thought I was dying. Mum wasn’t prepared and had to go to the next door neighbour for a sanitary belt and pads. She told me to wrap my used ones in toilet paper and put them in the airing cupboard. She then brought them down and put them on the open fire. Sometimes they sprang open on the fire. Pretty gross.

My mother had told me about periods but when I started at 15 I did not recognise the stain in my pants as blood - in the school toilets it looked more brown, and as my tummy and whole digestive system was in turmoil I assumed I had somehow soiled myself. When I got home, I rolled up the pants and hid them at the back of a drawer. I don't know what happened to them. My mother never mentioned them.
My second period started when we were on our family holiday. We were having lunch in a cafe and I went to the Ladies at the same time as my mother. I remember looking down, recognising blood and feeling completely panic-stricken. I heard my mother open the door to leave the toilets and another woman coming in. I had to shout to her to get her to come back. "What is it?" Mum said. Then knowing that the other woman could hear, I said "I think I've started my period." Only for my mother to say "Let's see" and then "Congratulations!" The shame!
We went to rejoin the rest of the family and my mother had a sotto voce conversation with my Dad. Our outing was then interrupted by a trip to Boots and I was given a belt and a packet of pads.
After that, there was always a supply of pads in the bathroom cupboard at home, but it was never discussed. In those days we used to flush used pads down the toilet.
I kept a note of my periods in my diary for all of my menstruating life and still have that record!

My best friend at the time was the daughter of the local GP and her mother was a nurse. When we were about 10 we looked in one of her father's gynaecology books and got a shock (!) so we asked her mother what it was all about. She explained a lot, including periods of course. She must have done it in an age-appropriate way, because I never had any anxiety when periods started.

I cant remember how I knew but was a 13/14 year old with only relatively light periods (that was all my life and I. had an easy menopause at 56 and I am so, so grateful for my good fortune.
Mum gave me belt and pads and I thought this is horrible and grotty and how can I swim.

Anyone recall the girls magazine Jackie. I spotted a discreet advert featuring "nurse someone or other" advertising free tampons (lillets). Sent off, they arrived, I got one in, no problems (no, not a horse rider or naughty girl)

And told my mum, who was very surprised but not at all shocked and just bought some with her general personal shopping from then on. I was lucky. My mum told me nothing about sex, I learnt from girls at school,

But she was generally very "nothing to be ashamed of about bodies in any way" for us girls and thats served me well all my life as regards sex and doctors and nurses.

I was 12 when I started. My mum gave me a belt and pads which she said after use were to be burnt on the fire when my dad and brothers were not about. A couple of years later I was going away with my youth club and asked if I could use Tampax. My mum wasn't happy and said to be careful that I didn't damage myself. At school If anyone said that they couldn't do swimming our teacher would say to stick some cotton wool up and get on with it!

Ma explained in a religious context with some sort of little book, if I remember correctly.
I menstruated at 11 years old so no tampons but sanitary towels.
I wasn't shocked or frightened by my periods but I found the towels , should we say " unhygienic" . I was told about tampons in my teens only by my friends and I assume because I was still a virgin when I tried to insert one, clueless, I nearly fainted.
I think I always had low hormone levels for reasons I won't bore you with so I had a lifetime of 3-day light periods with very little pain.
Condolences to ladies who struggled on with heavy , painful periods.

albertina

All Mum said was that I shouldn't be surprised to see blood in my pants soon. Didn't make sense.

For that reason I began explaining it all to my two daughters long before their periods would begin. We had a little period party with cake when each one started.

That’s so sweet

I’m 67 and I remember my mum telling me all about periods and putting a pretty pink sanitary belt, with some pads, in a paper bag tucked into my undies drawer when I was 10, I still didn’t really understand, but about two months later I had my first period, whilst staying at a friends house, and all became clear! My mum never had anything explained to her and was terrified when her first period came!

I was 12 and went to use the 'po' one night before bed. Seeing blood, I banged on the floor for Mam (kitchen was below bedroom) but she sent my Dad up. He then sent her up.

To my great embarrassment, Mam got my aunt to examine me to make sure the blood was 'coming from the right place'. I was utterly mortified.

I had been told nothing in advance. I had two younger sisters and we all used the same pile of rags, folded up and fastened front and back to our knickers with large safety pins. If fastened too tightly, the safety pins would fly open and prick me. It was all very uncomfortable. The rags would be boiled in an old pot - I can still remember the horrible smell.

I think I was working before Mam bought me a belt and pads with loops.

And my pain was horrendous. Many years later, the only cure I was offered for my pain (even in my 30s after three babies) was a hysterectomy. Added to the pain was brain fog - I couldn't tell what day it was, couldn't read the time on a clock - I lost a day from work most months for years. Mam's cure was a hot water bottle on my feet, another for my belly and a drink of peppermint and hot water, then I'd sleep like the dead for hours.

All in all, thank heavens it's over!

All Mum said was that I shouldn't be surprised to see blood in my pants soon. Didn't make sense.

For that reason I began explaining it all to my two daughters long before their periods would begin. We had a little period party with cake when each one started.

My mum told me I must have cut myself and left me to it. As a horse-rider, and 15 yrs old, she probably had some half-assed idea of why I was so late starting - who knows? She didn't explain the physiology of it all but as an inquisitive teenager I soon found out. It was all a bit late, and I'd been lucky as had had an unwanted sexual encounter aged 14.

Periods was one of many words whispered in our house .
Sex was the biggest secret of all .

Like a few others on here I woke up one morning to find the bed covered in blood I screamed for my mum and she had a pad and belt ready to go. It frightened the life out of me I thought I was going to die I was 10 and first in my class to get it. I remember saying well that’s that then and mum said no you get this every month - I was mortified! Also remember saying “don’t tell dad “ never cottoned on it was him that used to burn the pads in the garden every month 😂

Periods were never mentioned in our house, mine did not start until I was 16 and I was already working. When I told my mother she just said " ask your sister for some stuff ".
Now the young girls talk about them all the time, my GDs talk about them even I front of the menfolk. My mother would have having the vapours 😆

I had terrible cramps, my mum would give me Indian brandy and a hot water bottle but nothing worked. Eventually after a couple of years of this she took me to see the doctor, a stern Scottish man with an abrupt manner, he just told her that it would all clear up when I had my first baby. At this my mum got a bit cross and said ‘she’s only thirteen!!’

My mum just gave me a booklet that came with a Woman’s magazine that told all. However my best friend had a sister that revealed all. I just got on with it not nice to talk about 😳

My mother told me that when she was a teenager in the 1930's, in their poor rural family she and her five sisters and mother all used rags folded into a pad ; which they then washed and dried for re-use. The rag collection was shared between all.

When she trained as a nurse, for the first time she had enough money to buy disposable sanitary towels, which seemed like a real luxury.

TerriBull

Although my mother gave me the full facts about periods and what would be required at an appropriate age. I do remember being really young and going shopping with her, when this mysterious item has to be collected. It was carefully wrapped in brown paper so the contents were concealed. A certain amount of subterfuge was employed by both the shop server and my mother as to what it was, nothing could be revealed, which made me all the more curious. It was extraordinary the lengths people went to to keep the buying of sanitary towels top top secret.

They were "under the counter" goods when I started. Before supermarkets, back in the 1950's, period products were sold in chemist shops and there was no self-service. You had to very discreetly ask a female assistant for < brand name> and she would produce the secret goods from out of sight under under the counter and hide them in a plain bag.

Nothing! Even though I have an older sister. I was 12.5 starting, so you would have thought SOMETHING might have been said before.

We had moved, and living in an hotel, so dismayed at the sheets - got told off for making a mess.
Handed an elastic belt and a pad with loops to put on, and hurried out to my new school.

Half way through the day the pain hit, and was sent to the deputy head, a very stern single lady. She was marvelous once she realised. Talked me through, gave me a new pad, paper knickers, and a spare and a wash cloth and let me use her private bathroom to clean up.