Did your mother make you wear a Liberty bodice?

Sarnia. I'm sure I had a knitted swim suit when I was quite little.
But, I do have very fetching photo of my mum and her sister, sitting on some wooden steps to the beach, both of them wearing knitted bathers. Mum married in 1933, so it must have been around that year. They were two beauties.

Yes my mother did make me wear one. Were they sort of fluffy inside (like sweat shirt material)?

I wore one in the 50s. The rubber buttons used to get broken in our big mangle.

No, Marydoll, your'e not dreaming. Kilts for small girls could button onto liberty bodices and then you wore a jumper that covered the bodice and buttons. You could buy a cotton bodice to wear with kilts in the dept. that sold the kilts instead of using the liberty bodice

I grew up in the Glasgow area too.

When I was too big for the kilts that buttoned on, I had a liberty bodice with suspenders to keep my long stockings up! I also remember a kilt with shoulder straps in the same tartan.

They were liberty bodices because they were not boned like the corsets little girls used until the end of the 19th century.

But I think it was a brand name by the time we wore them.

The Liberty style of dresses for women were a revolt against corsets that started in the 1890s,

I wore one until I was about six or seven. No central heating and sometimes ice inside the windows. I used to get dressed in bed ! The Lino on the floor in the bathroom was always freezing and no hot water except for a bath once a week. I still only wash my face in cold water!

I remember getting undressed in front of the fire then a mad dash up to the very cold bathroom. This was in the early years of marriage, ice on the inside of the windows which had metal frames. We couldn't afford to replace them. The good old days gillyknits

Yes I was born in 1943 and remember wearing a liberty bodice with rubber buttons. I also remember the horrible long, grey knitted socks which had to be held up with pieces of elastic which were most uncomfortable. I also remember getting chapped legs in the winter and having to put some sort of ointment on them, the name escapes me. We always had coal fires and I remember my Mum standing with her back to it and lifting up her skirt to get warm. She always used to warm my vets and pants in front of the fire so they would be warm for me to put on, unfortunately I didn’t appreciate it at the time but I do now.

My best friend at school used to suffer terribly with chilblains every winter. I felt so sorry for her.

Thrilled with all your reminisces of bygone days. Triggered even more memories for me especially my school clothes heating in front of coal fire and ice on inside of windows.
Such lovely people on Gransnet.

Yes I remember having to wear a liberty bodice complete with the rubber buttons that often broke when going through the wringer on wash days.I always associate them with the camphorated oil ? that used to be put on a piece of lint onto my chest first, followed by a cream coloured vest. We had a Yorkshire Range in our house and the oil ...in a dark green bottle was warmed on a part of the range first. It used to smell a bit like Vicks.

I'm a liberty bodice person - and not so much the Vick but I do remember my mother applying a poultice on my chest once! Anyone else remember that?

We all felt sorry for my lovely friend in the 40s. Her father had been killed in the war and there was no social benefits then just family allowance for the second child. 25p a week. She didn’t have warm liberty bodices or suspenders and brown wool stockings. Poor thing.

We didn’t notice she had no overcoat just a hand knitted cardigan which she wore with hand knitted gloves and bonnet. Good old days....paaaaaah

Sparkling

I never heard of one person being strangled by elastic threaded through coat sleeves on gloves .

No and nobody’s face stuck when the wind changed, and nobody’s eyes ever got poked out by sticks. Lots of things my mum said puzzled me. Still do.

Sparkling

I never heard of one person being strangled by elastic threaded through coat sleeves on gloves .

Did anyone ever have their insides strangled by swallowing chewing gum?

I wished I'd never eaten my crusts though.

Jane43 was the ointment Zambuc? I remember that for chilblains. It was dark green and came in a round tin.

I too had a liberty bodice, but only until I was 5 or so. I think we stopped wearing them when we started school and had to change for PE.

Thank you so much for this has brought back so many memories of my lovely Nan helping me with my liberty bodice on freezing mornings

I remember standing toe to toe beside the airing cupboard refusing to wear my liberty bodice any more. Mum won I think?
(In case having an airing cupboard sounds a bit posh we had just moved to a brand new council house - in Merstham, Surrey - having lived in 2 rooms with a shared bathroom!!)

I remember Snowfire ointment for chilblains Doodledog

In 1948 after the terrible winter of '47, we were in the top class at Infants school.
For PE we all undressed, partially. The boys removed their shirts and sometimes their vests.
The girls wore their vests and navy blue knickers (In modern parlance, full briefs). Can't remember any Liberty bodices - what a misnomer! All except one poor girl. Her mother had knitted her pink directoire knickers. She never lived it down!

I had the dark green ointment put on my badly chilblained fingers at the school clinic regularly as a small child!

lemsip, was it called Snowfire? I used to get it put on my toes!

Vicks, my mother made my brother and I a t with t t spoonful of it with sugar sprinkled over it

Sorry, I will try that again. My mother made my brother and I eat a spoonful of Vicks with sugar sprinkled on it when we had colds. I didn't know that there was a warning on the jar that you were not supposed to swallow it until I was an adult. I'm surprised we didn't die as we got it very often.