Dear Lorraine

You ask me for my memories. I am writing from Australia - I have been here since the early 1960s after the end of the single textured rubberised cotton/poplin/etcetera macks - unproofed nylon was the thing then, and pretty boring it was, too!

Up till then single texture mackintoshes were normal wear all of the time in days when one had to wait for buses and walk everywhere. (we all disliked the double texture with rubber in between heavy cloth. From about 1954 onwards - at least around Exeter - probably half of all women wore them almost everyday for six months of the year.

There was a private school in Exeter (long since closed) and a large church-run school which is still there and if you went to either of these you had to wear single-textured rubberised poplin macks as your school uniform - chocolate brown and navy blue respectively. Walking and bussing to school in autumn and winter was always an adventure!

On a different tack, I am amazed at the present trends for hoods to be attached to parkas and not to raincoats! Gabardines don't have hoods, nor do PVC coats - aren't they meant to be worn in the rain? Without a hood, one needs a brolly - and then one doesn't need the mack!

We now have two polyurethane macks, one from you which my wife likes and wears frequently, falling asleep in it sometimes! Latex she finds too sweaty, SBR too heavy. She likes rubberised cottons as raincoats when in cooler, wetter climates (holidays in Germany and Holland, even Melbourne!) where they are almost invisible - she is conscious of people of our age looking a bit like lambs in sheeps clothing!

Yes, I have had many years of fun with raincoats - my Mum's, when I was a very young teenager, then girl friends when about 13 onwards: most were rubberised cotton or poplin (satin was very up-market!) but the occasional surface-proofed rubber (now known as SBR, although formerly also in red or bottle green).

Quite a few girl-friends were happy wearing them for me, and a couple of girls loaned theirs to me. Dad worked sometimes as cloakroom attendant at the local hall (in Devon) and some macks were occasionally left behind. I always offered to put them away in the store for my Dad! At this time, these rubberised macks were worn by almost all females most of the time, so I was never far from them. Later, married and in Australia in the 60s, access was more difficult, but the old South Bucks Rainwear came good, providing a couple of surface proofed coats - black and bottle green were bought - and a latex ... but my then wife was never happy wearing them except solely as raincoats, so the latex languished,and the others got dirty and unattractive in the stables.

Marriage broke, girl friends changed, PVC coats more common. New marriage, his-and-hers in red and black latex and navy and fawn rubberised cotton from South Bucks: the cottons were worn throughout a winter holiday in Europe, and were really excellent raincoats. Later, several PVC, rubberised nylon, plastic and polyurethane were worn.

Couple of years ago, a red PU from you - still in almost daily use - and then a silver PU one, also very frequently worn. I wear them almost as much as my wife does ... but rarely in public! (But a fancy dress party went very well, once!)

Oh well, pity they cost so much! 'Cos I'd like a dozen or so! You and Weather Vain have some very attrractive satin ones ... and Plastique Unique in Newton Abbott (we'll be down there next year) has some that would be easy to wear. I'm learning to sew my own PU ones, now!

Regards
RobJer