The red bobble jumper was another favourite. Like the cardigans, I wore it with my black and white kilt. It had white daisies embroidered round the neck, which was, of course, tied with two bobbles. In those days bobbles – on jumpers, on hats, on scarves – were all the rage, so my jumper was fashionable as well as cute.
It was a present from my Uncle Colin, not a real uncle, but a ‘friend’ of my grandmother’s. He was a regular visitor to our house, and quite often gave me presents, but I can still hear my mother’s anxious voice – ‘Don’t mention Uncle Colin in front of your grandpa’. So my lips were sealed. Uncle Colin had an aura of money about him. He bought the presents in an expensive children’s clothes shop in town called ‘Lindy Lou’. When I was very small I was often called Lindy Lou or Looby Lou after the song ‘Here we go Looby Loo, here we go Looby Light’ regularly sung on my favourite television programme, Andy Pandy. So for a long time I thought the shop was there specially for me. My mother loved to dress me in the things Uncle Colin bought from that shop. She would explain to her admiring friends ‘It’s from Lindy Lou’, but she didn’t explain about Uncle Colin.
My mother and I went to Uncle Colin’s house occasionally with my grandmother. The house was unlike ours and the other houses I knew – much grander, Edwardian, with heavy dark furniture softened by pale lavender brocade cushions. It had something of the mausoleum about it, as if the house, like Colin, was still grieving for his dead wife. The garden was a tangle of old roses and brambles, and I spent happy hours there searching for the secret door that would open on to another world. Around this time I was very taken by a story about some fairies losing the key to fairyland. The beautiful creatures pined and languished until some children found the key – a snowdrop – and rescued them. Colin’s garden became the scene for my re-enactment of this story. On every rose petal, every dewy spider’s web I imagined one of the fairies finding a temporary resting place, while like the children in the story I searched for the key and the door that would save them.
While I was saving the fairies, my grandmother was saving Colin, whose only solace apart from her was his black poodle Phil. I did think it was a bit funny that Colin seemed to have quite long conversations with his dog, but who was I to talk, with all those fairies dancing in my head? And it never struck me that there was anything odd about Colin’s place in our lives. Because of Colin I had something lovely to wear for the school photograph. With the photograph in mind my mother permed my straight hair, and for once the result was worth the hours of suffering. With the curls and the red bobble jumper I felt confident enough to muster a half smile for the camera.
Nana on the beach with Colin’s dog Phil. I am just visible in the distance, paddling, wearing a frilly costume and bow in hair.
Was grandpa living with your grandmother when Uncle Colin was around? Gorgeous jumper, I think I have commented on it before somewhere else.
Yes she was living with my grandfather Sarah! At one point she and Uncle Colin ran away to Brighton but my grandmother only lasted a week in southern climes! I think she lived with her brother Alfie for a bit after that, but then she moved back in with Grandpa!
And yes I did post this pic on FB – and after that decided to write about it.
Lyn
Could you give the years? I think I could probably date, say, my green cardigan, my shoes with outrageous heels, my wasp-waisted leather coat (which I still have; amazing to think that I was that small) to the year. I think it’s immensely interesting to connect states of mind and items of clothing, as you do, not least because both are likely to be `period.’
love
Andy
Thank you Andy. I rarely remember the year or the date, just the feeling about that piece of clothing and the moment/s of wearing it, and that leads to other memories and episodes. Of course I have a rough idea of how old I was at the time of each piece, and the photographs help – particularly as some of them have dates. The chronology is important, but at the same time the memories and the writing flit about, forward and back.
I would have liked to see you in the heels, and the coat!
It is a lovely jumper and you look so proud and grown up in it with your hair curled as well. Was this late primary school? Not wearing a school uniform suggests it was.
I don’t remember bobbles or decoration on jumpers or cardigans, maybe because I was a post war baby and clothing was more utilitarian. Jumpers were handknitted and often itchy. We lived in a village and my Mother disliked towns and shopping – I don’t remember shops such as Lindy Lou – maybe they didn’t exist yet.
I am struck by the interaction of your clothing memories with the perhaps heightened tension of the relationship between Uncle Colin and Nana.
Thank you Imogen. Yes this is late primary school – the last year, I think, but the whole Nana and Colin thing started years before that, and caused a lot of tension with my grandfather, as you can imagine! It’s a long story! I can’t do justice to it here but plan to write a novel about my grandmother’s life after this! It has to be a novel because there are so many things I don’t know…
Lindy Lou wow!! I only had clothes and jumpers my mom made….I never even went inside Lindy Lou but I spent ages at the pattern department in Beatties as my mom looked through the sewing books ,then chose. Material was bought from down the market though…I do remember she bought a man home for a cup of tea once though who had taken ill on the number 43 bus and missed his stop. Poor old man but I was so embarrassed and was wondering what my dad would say . Fortunately we walked him back for the bus and my mom gave the conductor instructions where he was to get off.
Very kind of your Mom….And I remember Beatties very well too….