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Monday 30 May 2011

Web Page 942




Top Picture: A publicity picture from the early 1960’s promoting the mini skirt, who would have thought it would have lasted so long?




Second Picture: This postcard says award winning Portsmouth, how wrong could anyone be, I think most of the residents of Portsmouth were glad to see the Tricorn go.

Fashion


I know that fashion is a subject that I have looked at a couple of times before but very recently I have had three different conversations with ladies of my own age and they all came out with the same basic fashion story. I wonder if ladies you can relate this tale that they all related?

“My Father was dead against modern fashion but Mum usually managed to pour oil over troubled waters whenever I came home with a new dress or skirt that Father did not think ‘proper’. Eventually we came to a compromise as to the length of my skirts and for a time we drifted along on an even keel. However once Father had got used to seeing, and accepting, the skirt length of my favourite skirt I thought that I could quietly make the odd alteration without him noticing. How wrong I was! During the weekday evenings, when I was in my room supposedly doing my homework, I was actually unpicking the hem of my smartest skirt and taking it up about an inch at a time. I though this was very clever as when I went out on Saturday evenings Father had got used to the skirt and passed no comment. But I was not prepared for the observation powers of Father because over three or four weeks the hem of that skirt went up by about an inch at a time and I thought I was very clever getting away with it. But, as we all know, parents are cleverer than we give them credit for and one Saturday evening as I was coming down the stairs getting ready to go out Father looked up at me, then looked at the hem and said ‘there is no way a daughter of mine is going out wearing a skirt like that, it makes you look like a tart, go up and change.’ Of course in those days Fathers word was law so I meekly went up and changed into my second best, longer skirt and he was happy, but he never, ever let me wear that skirt again.”

Does this tale ring any bells girls?

Mind you it was not only you girls who suffered fashion problems. I myself came across it. My mother was dead against winkle picker shoes and I was told that all the time I was at school and they were buying my clothes I would have what they wanted me to wear. Like most of us I managed to get a part time job when I was in my latter years at school, I worked in a garage, for the Post Office and in a record shop. The upshot of this was that I had money of my own. So one Saturday afternoon I plucked up my courage and cycled into Cosham and bought myself a pair of winklepickers, sorry Mary-Ann I did not buy them from your fathers shop, Christophers. Having got them I felt very proud but on the way home I realised that I somehow had to get them into the house and not only that when I wanted to wear them I had to get them out again. I had not thought the problem through. On the way home it dawned on me we lived in a semi detached house and I could get past the kitchen window and into the back garden and from there into the large shed we had half way down the garden. So I developed a plan to creep past the kitchen, up the garden and hide the shoes in the back of the shed. This I successfully managed and I wandered into the house as if nothing was wrong. The two things that I had forgotten were that whenever I wanted to wear the shoes I had to say goodbye, go out the front door get down on my hands and knees and crawl past the kitchen window and once I had reached the shed, which had no electrical power in it, I had to rummage around in the dark until I found the shoes. Of course I had to reverse the process when I came home. This worked well during the winter months and early spring but come the lighter evening my father would often spend some time outside gardening and in so doing putting the retrieval of the shoes impossible. Still by the time the summer came and I was getting ready to go to college the ‘in’ footwear were sandals, Mum did not mind them and so the winkle pickers were left in the back of the shed. I cannot remember ever retrieving them when I left home or even when my parents moved, so if the shed is still being used there could well be a 50 year old pair of winkle pickers wrapped in newspaper jammed between the boards in the back left hand corner! If they are I don’t think I will claim them back!!!

Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

More from Jonathon:


The chap I reported into on a daily basis at the Coop Bakery was a charge hand called Alex Rose, a dour middle aged Scot.

Did you ever work there. I don't recall names well but there were certainly some characters on my shift. One was a chap who was not completely all there because of his war experiences. He was a POW in WW2 who got involved in one of the infamous "death marches" from central Germany into Russia, he was as tough as old boots and used to do several jobs around the clock. His idea of a summer holiday was lifting potatoes at a farm on Farlington Marshes!!!!!

There were a number of different jobs that I got tasked to do at the bakery. The least favourite was in the Proving space, where you were cut off from the rest of the staff and received a constant stream of machine kneaded dough "lumps" that had to be placed in tins on moving shelves on one side of the space that had been vacated by moving the tins of proved dough and on the other sides's shelves.

Humping huge sacks of flour in the mixing attic was another and my commonest job "oven hand" where I would physically lift and bang out baked bread and simultaneously load proved dough into the oven......2 tonnes an hour!!!!!!

Some days we had the treat of preparing sweet cakes for the coop, this involved taking the cake sponges about 8 inches in diameter. Slicing them through the middle and filling them with cream and jam before boxing them.

News and Views:


Pete Townsend of the Who has announced that he is writing an autobiography. The as-yet untitled tome will be published in Autumn 2012 by HarperCollins.

On this day 29th May 1960-1965.


On 29/05/1960
the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Sterling Moss wins Monaco Grand Prix.

On 29/05/1961
the number one single was You're Driving Me Crazy - The Temperance Seven and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Probation Officer (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/05/1962
the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was London share values crash.

On 29/05/1963
the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/05/1964
the number one single was You're My World - Cilla Black and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/05/1965
the number one single was Long Live Love - Sandie Shaw and the number one album was Bringing It All Back Home - Bob Dylan. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions

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