Dear Lorraine,
I've been reading some of the letters in the club, and I have been amazed how some of the issues raised ring a bell with me.
My sister Alison and I lived with our parents in a small hamlet. We both wore woollen coats, double breasted tailored ones, which had to be fully buttoned to the neck, with little woollen bonnets, which we sometimes covered with the hoods of our coats. Mummy always wore a gaberdine mac with a hood and belt, and she was very strict about all buttons being fastened, and the belt neatly done up. Daddy worked away a lot, but he too always wore a double breasted gaberdine mac in a sort of grey colour, which he always wore with the top button undone but the other buttons and belt done up.
We went to school by bicycle, about a mile along a quiet narrow lane, with Alison on her own bike and me on a carrier seat on the back of Mummy's bike, until I was seven and had my own little bike. At this time (about 1953) there was little traffic, so it was quite safe. We also had rubber macs to wear when it rained, and these were carried in our saddlebags when not in use.
When I was nine, I think, I had my first gaberdine mac, passed on from someone else who had outgrown it. I fell in love with it, and always had my hood up, the top button fastened, and the belt fastened - just like Mummy, who still wore her gaberdine at this stage, old as it was. Alison had just gone to the High school, and had to cycle about a mile to the bus stop, so she wore her grey uniform gaberdine and school beret, but she would always try to wear the coat open at the neck, and refused to wear her hood, even when it rained. She was caned by Mummy a few times for coming home soaked, but she only obeyed for a few days and then got wet again, much to Mummy's despair.
The big event for me was a trip to the dentist just after I had my gaberdine. It was in the October half term, and Mummy took Alison and me, for a check up. I had to have a couple of baby teeth removed, under gas, and came out feeling a bit sleepy. The dentist suggested that I should try not to let the holes get too cold for the next day or two, so Mummy wrapped a blue woolly scarf around my mouth to keep it warm. I can't describe how wonderful this felt - I was a bit drowsy, but all snuggled up in my lovely warm gaberdine and hood, my face all cosy, and on the bus going home I remember snuggling up to Mummy in a haze of total contentment. We then had a bike ride from the bus stop, and Mummy tied the scarf securely so that it wouldn't slip off, and we rode home. The following day, I went for a walk, and got Mummy to tie my scarf on again - just to keep my mouth warm - and from then on, I wanted always to have my scarf tied round my face. I went to school the following week with my scarf on, to the amusement of a few other children, but I told them I had to keep my mouth warm after having teeth out. Needless to say, I wore the scarf all winter, and into the summer as well.
When I went to the local Secondary school having failed my 11+, we had a uniform, including a navy gaberdine mac. I was to cycle to school, about two and a half miles, and on the first day I put on my uniform, and then my wellingtons, which I wore on the bike because I used to get chain oil all over my socks! I put on my gaberdine, with my faithful blue scarf wound round my neck and tucked in at the front, and buttoned the gaberdine up to the neck and belted it. I put on my beret, and then took the black, silver and green striped scarf which was part of the uniform, and wrapped it round my face, tying it at the back. It covered me right up to the eyes, and I put my hood up over it, tying the ties securely, put on my gloves, and went off. I took a lot of teasing, but I simply had to be covered up fully, and as tightly as possible. I had a hooded plastic raincoat for when it rained, and I devised a rule for myself that if I had to wear it to go the school, I would have to wear it coming home too.
Alison, in the meantime, was still awkward about wearing her gaberdine at all, and only the threat of being removed from the High school persuaded her to wear it at all. She told me many times that she thought I was stupid for the way I dressed, I told her the same thing, and I suppose we were both right, as neither of us really dressed sensibly for most of the year. Eventually, in 1962 Alison went on to University, and I stayed at school in the newly created sixth form, to convert some of my CSE's to O levels. My gaberdine was wearing a bit thin by now, so I began to wear Alison's old grey one, which was a bit big for me, but allowed for extra scarves inside. In fact, when the big freeze of 1963 began, Alison was at home, but went back to Uni soon after, and then I began to go to school with my old coat under hers, which was wonderful - two layers of gaberdine, tightly buttoned and belted, my face swathed in scarves under the two hoods, and on many days I wore an old rubber raincoat of Mummy's over it all, with a further scarf over it all, tied at the back of the rubber mac hood. In the summer, I went back to wearing just the grey gaberdine, but always hooded.
It was during that summer I went out on my bicycle without my mouth covered for the first time. I began to be friendly with a fellow sixth former, James, and we would cycle home together, since he lived on my route home. We went out one Saturday for a ride, and when we stopped, he took me into a shop and bought me an ice cream. I took off my hood and pulled my scarf down to eat it, and then he asked me why I was always so heavily wrapped up. I told him I liked to be well wrapped up, but he told me it wasn't necessary on such a beautiful day to be covered up like an eskimo, as he put it. He asked me, just for him, to take off my scarf and put my hood down for a while, to see how it felt to have the breeze and the sun in my face and on my hair. I have to admit I hated it, and after another two or three miles, we stopped so that I could wrap myself up again. When we started work a few months later, I realised that I had never been to the Secondary school in six years without my scarf over my face, my hood up, and my wellies on. I actually went to work in my grey gaberdine, as it was now, but always cycled to the bus stop with my scarf and wellies on.
Some twenty years on, I was married to James, with my own children in their teens, having both of them resisted the lure of the gaberdine coat. Both, however, wore anoraks, and were reasonably sensible about wearing hoods or hats in bad weather. We lived in a pleasant suburban house, and Alison, who got a degree, worked in publishing and married later, had three daughters and lived about three miles away. Her girls all attended a private school, which had a brown gaberdine as part of the uniform, and the school was only a few minutes walk from my house. Alison had taken time off to be with ther girls, and agreed to return to part time work when the youngest, Emma, started school. We arranged that, if she should be delayed in returning from work, she would phone me and the school, and I would collect the girls and bring them to my house. The first time it happened, was on a cold wet October day, and I stood outside school, dressed in a Rukka mac with a quilted lining, with the hood up and tightly fastened round my face. Emma and Claire, the middle child, came to me and I immediately fastened the top button of their gaberdines and put their hoods up. The eldest, Victoria, arrived a few minutes later, and flatly refused to have her top button fastened or her hood up. We had a bit of a row, but I wasn't going to argue with a spoilt child in the rain, so I took them home, gave them drinks and biscuits, and had to strip Victoria's upper clothes off to dry them. When Alison arrived I told her what had happened, and she hit the roof with Victoria, and told her that whatever Auntie Deborah told her to do was to be done without question - or she would be off the the local Primary school. It all sounded familiar! She even told her that if I told them to wear their scarves over their faces, they must do so, as I was only doing it for their own good.
The next time I went, a week later, Victoria arrived at the school gate with her gaberdine buttoned to the neck and her hood up. As it was a reasonable day I hadn't bothered to wrap up the younger ones, but I did so now, and we went home together. After that, whenever I collected them, all three girls would be buttoned and hooded up, and when one day in December thay had gone with their scarves round their necks, Victoria asked me if her Mummy had really meant it about having to wear scarves round their faces. I said that she did, and if it got cold the scarf would keep them warm. Victoria gave an exaggerated shiver and said that she thought it was very cold. I asked if she thought she needed a scarf over her face, and she nodded shyly. I wrapped all three of them up, and, again, on subsequent visits, the younger ones would hand me their scarves to wrap them up, and Victoria came out with her face covered.
All three went on to a private Senior school, again with a gaberdine in the uniform, and Victoria in particular loved to be hooded up. She told me once that she had worn her hood every day in the first two years, and only took it off in the summer of the third year, on the orders of a teacher, who felt that she was excessively dressed. I've kept in touch with her more than the others; she lives over a hundred miles away from me, and still visits by train as she doesn't drive. At University, she wore her gaberdine from school, often hooded, she told me, and loved to cover her face up. I saw her last week, and she arrived in a Bench coat, with the hood up and the big face flap firmy in place. As she took it off, I realised that she was wearing another Bench coat, this time a fleece one, as a liner. Again, it was zipped and hooded up, with the face flap pulled tightly across. She loves to be wrapped up, she told me, and so it seems I made at least one convert!
Deborah
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