Enigma

Dear Lorraine,

What a pleasure it is to scan through your site and enjoy the tasteful way the mackintosh phenomenon is presented.

This prompts me to write about Ruth, a student in our final year at college in 1952. She was the proud owner of a red rubberised satin mackintosh, which she flaunted in the most coquettish and provocative way imaginable. As this mack had all the qualities and characteristics so amply described and illustrated in your pages I need not elaborate here.

What interests me is the enigma of Ruth herself which I still find fascinating and unanswered. A quiet but fun loving girl she really loved to wear this mack although she disliked the smell when it was very new. It was the rustling, draping and smoothness she loved. One of the most exciting attractions was the fact she wore it with complete innocence and abandon seemingly completely unaware that there could be anything exciting about it - certainly with no complicated mixed up ideas of the effect it had on others.

She would speak openly about the feel and rustle of her mack and once described how she loved to wear it over a summer dress so she could feel the smooth rubber against her bare arms. When she was asked where she got her lovely red mack she said "Kendalls in Derby and it cost five pounds - I hated the smell so I sprinkled perfume over the inside". After we all left college Ruth went abroad, leaving behind the unsolved mystery of whether she really was so innocent or knew very well the seductive effect of her red mackintosh. She was so nice nobody would dare ask.

Regards

Robin