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Like any other girl of the 50's & 60's I was subject to the wearing of school uniform, especially after I graduated to grammar school at age 11.
For the first two terms of the year, the top layer of the uniform was the gaberdine mac. In the lower years of my school, this navy garment had to be worn fully buttoned up, and neatly belted, although the older girls got away with much 'looser' modes of dress.
I had been introduced to mackintoshes at an early age; early 'offerings' from my mother were of rubberised cotton, with an attached, peaked hood, that I was given no choice in wearing! Standard rubber wellington completed the external line-up. (I hated them - and still do!)
Through primary school, the gaberdine took precedence, complete with volumous hood, tied under the chin. It was a pratical coat, and I think that we generally accepted it as 'the norm'.
One day, when I was about eight, I was alone in the house, my mother having just 'nipped' to the local shops a few hundred yards away. I had declined to go with her - it was teaming down! There was a knock at the back door, which was enclosed in a dark porch. I opened the door - and nearly jumped through the roof!
On the doorstep was a figure in a dark red gabderine raincoat, complete with hood drawn up - but this hood also covered her face - only two eyes showed through holes behind a gaberdine mask, and a nose made a small mound in the centre of the mask. Reaslising my fright, the visitor removed the button-on mask, to reveal a former school-firend of my mother, who was visiting form her home - now in Sweden. Such coverage was apparently normal ther, presumably because of their severe winters - although I have never seen such before or since.
At secondary school, I was considerably shorter than most of my peers, and a natural victim for the bullying of the rougher elements of our town. At break times I often wandered alone, swathed in my gaberdine mackintosh, fully buttoned and with the volumous hood tied tightly over my head - whatever the weather. I think this was my 'retreat' into my own little world.
Even outside the school, my friend Pat (who was equally vertically challenged) would wear our raincoats fully fastened and it took only the slightest suggestion of the inclement for our hoods to be put up and secured - tightly! We even kept them up on the bus on the way to and from school. (The other kids and regular passengers got used to us, and people rarely stared).
My last gaberdine was acquired new in preparattion for my two years as a 'senior'. It was still navy, and had the standard square cut volumous hood. It was worn less than previously - but only because I had also acquired an anorak - also hooded - which alternated with the statutory clothing.
Indeed on a school visit to Germany the gaberdine AND anorak were welcome. We were put up in an old hostel; it was an early cold Easter; the heating had broken down, and the bed clothing was limited. I took both coats. On the first night the anorak went on; some of my contemporaries smiled - but I know who was warmest! The next night there was a frost; I went to bed in my anorak - but my trusty gaberdine went on as well - with the hood firmly up! This time I was envied - and indeed some girls copied my example with whatever coats they had.
I left school at sixteen, and spent a year at the then local college. There I wore my gaberdine - often still with hood, whilst my new contemporaries dressed in modern new coats. I was still a bit of an outsider - but on wet days I think they envied me, snug and dry, whilst they mostly turned up looking like dishevelled rats!
After a year I went out work in a bank. Two other girls started at the same time as me. They were both modern 'chicks' of the late 60's with mod gear, whilst my beloved gaberdine was still resurrected on wet or cold days.
Our office supervisor was a stern woman in her late thirties, who was feared by all from the manager down. She also often wore a gaberdine raincoat to work, a venerable garment probaly dating over twenty years. She also wore it fully buttoned and with its hood when inclement.
Somehow, whilst the others were in awe of her, she and I got on well, and I became her prodigy - somewhat to the chagrin of some other junior staff.
Eventually my mother introduced me to a man some years older than myself, and we started to go out together. If the weather was cold or wet, I often wore my trusty gabedine - it was so pratical - and I didn't have many other coats. It was, however, clear that her did not like to be seen with me in such wear. I should have been warned! Indeed he was always very dominant, and got angry if I challenged or contradicted him.
After a couple of years my mother, who was clearly fond on my suitor, prodded us towards marriage, and we duly wed on a cold day in late March. On honeymoon (in Cambridge - where he had "friends") he bought me a new raincoat - a cotton waterproofed material, in a raglan style. It still has a hood - a continuation of the collar that had no means of being secured. He told me that he wanted me to wear this from now on - it was modern and would not show him up in public.
Although I wore this coat in public with him, it was no a warm garment, so for work, (and at other times) I continued to wear my beloved old gabardine - often complete with hood. This clearly rankled him.
One Saturday, I had to work on rota. We were in the middle of an inspection - and it wasn't going well. We were told that we had to work most of the day - even after we shut the doors at mid-day. It was a balmy September, and I had only taken a thin nylon cagoule. When I got home he seemed on edge, but it was only later, when I opened my wardrobe that I discovered the absence of my old gaberdine.
I asked him if he had seen it, and he replied that he had taken it, with several other old fashioned items (all inherited from my grandmother) to a jumble sale. It was too late to recover them - my beloved gaberdine has gone for ever!
That night we had a tremendous row; it wasn't the first but it was the first time that he has hit me. He stormed out and aid that he was going to his mates at the pub, where they talked sense. I knew that our marriage had been a mistake; thank God that he never wanted children!
I packed a holdall with as much as I could carry, and put some other things in a bag that I hid to come back for. I went first to my mother's house. She told me not to be so silly, and to go home! She said that I should be grateful for him taking me on!
The night was not especially cold, but I had nowhere to go. I knew that he would get home drunk - it had happened before, and usually ended up with me being raped. (Rape in marriage was unheard of then!).
I spent a miserable night seeking somewhere to shelter and rest. An old shed behind the bus station proved a little respite, and the following morning I managed to get a cup of coffee from a bus crew's kiosk).
About lunchtime I was wandering despondently down one of the town centre streets, when I saw a church disgorging its worhippers. Coming out at the top step was my bank supervisor, with another woman very like her. By luck she looked across the road from the vantage of that top step, and recognised me. She also had the intuition to recognise my distress.
The other woman turned out to be her sister, and they both took me home to her comfortable apartment. (Her sister lived nearbye, but had her own house). I poured out my story going back over the last couple of years, and whilst they cared for and comforted me. I was told that I could have the spare bedroom as long as I needed it.
He even had the nerve to come to the bank to demand to see me, but was spotted before he reached the counter and I was whisked into a back room rapidly. He still made a scene, thumping the counter, but was threatened with police intervention, and went away threatening vengance. When I tried to go back for my secreted bag, I couldn't get into my own house - he had changed the locks.
I soon found that Sue, my supervisor, and her sister were fetishists. Sue had
the most marvellous collection of rainwear, to which I was gradually introduced.
They wore it indoors as well as out. Somehow it seemed natural no to be different.
Plastic rainwear soon made its welcome into my life - a situation that prevails
to this day. Indeed I often wear two plastic raincoats (and little else!) when
indoors on my own).
My temporary stay lasted eighteen glorious years, until Sue retired form the bank, and decided to join her sister - by that time living in New Zealand. Over the years she had mentored me and encouraged me to progress through the bank's educational and professional programme. It had been hard at times, but her relentlous coaxing and the occasional reward of another raincoat - always with a hood - spurred me on.
By the time that she retired, I had become a manager of equal rank to her. Today, some thirty years since that fateful day, I am now a senior manager in the bank's Treasury department. Regrettably Sue died a couple of years ago, but I owe my present position and continuing love of rainwear to that mutual affinity radiated by my dear old navy gaberdine mac.
How I wish that I could obtain another one now - complete with voluminous square-cut hood, and perhaps even with a face cover mask like that of my mother's Swedish friend. Alas it is a dream - it must be years since they were last produced.
Steph