Open Writing

Shirley Temple was the cult figure for my age group. She had everything I hadn’t – dimples, curls, talent, money, clothing coupons. At our cinema we had two larger-than-life cardboard cut-outs either side of the stage, one was a dark, befringed Jane Withers, the other was Shirley Temple, whose curls I prayed for twice nightly.

They eventually arrived by courtesy of dad’s Air Force pension and a perming contraption run by the local hairdresser. My form teacher, who didn’t realise I was now the image of Miss Temple and halfway to stardom, almost gave me a hundred lines for ‘ruining that lovely straight hair.’

Her disgust was such that I now prayed to go straight during school and curly for weekends. This was the make do and mend era. Money was useless without the necessary coupons. When they ran out you did without.

Clothes came in three categories – children, junior and adult. No swinging boutiques geared to the teenage market, then. When you grew up you dressed like your parents. Sometimes you didn’t have to wait till then.

My mother and I took the same size in shoes when I was ten years old. I often spent the hour between hometime and the time she came in from work dancing around our ‘flags’ in her new high wedges, savouring the grown-up sound of cracking high heel on stone.

Then came the day I was compelled to wear them for school, either that or another weary walkabout in my old perforated soles. Tears fell like rain. ‘No one will be looking at your feet, silly,’ my mother consoled. True, they would probably be more interested in my new knitted cardigan.

My mother was an excellent knitter, but her co-ordination left a lot to be desired. If I turned the left sleeve up twice it matched the other, but nothing could alter the fact, the left front was longer than the right.

My friend was waiting at the school gates. I opened my gabardine to show off half my new cardigan and pretended I hadn’t seen her. ‘Are those your mother’s shoes?’ she shouted.

Another Forties fall-out hanging around today, are the snappy suspender belts. My teenagers are so hooked on these, big brother bought his fifteen-year-old sister a racy-looking black and red affair for Christmas.

Unfortunately she inherited the dwarf-like legs that run in my side of the family and apparently these elongated expanders were designed for legs that start at the armpits. Hence the rude off-putting guffaws when she lifted her skirt to reveal two black nylon concertinas drooping unladylike around her kneecaps.

These tortuous accessories are sadly over-rated. I never seemed to possess a complete set. More often than not I coped with one suspender per leg – usually held by safety pins. This held the flesh in sort of slings, which clapped together when you moved.

Running for a bus once, one gave way. I sneaked my hand through a hole in my pocket just in time to grab the descending stocking top. But I had to pretend I was a hunchback for the rest of the journey, in order to hang on to it.

I learned my lesson though – be sure your ‘pins’ will find you out! Wear tights!