Vol 3. Chapter 11 - Handmade

Mum, being a trained tailor, always took great pride in making clothes for me.  Mainly, one suspects, so that people could admire her handiwork.  I could cope with the sailor outfit at aged two. However, dressing a 3 year old toddler up as Frank Spencer, with overcoat and beret, is surely tantamount to child abuse. 

At the age of 11, I started senior school. The school sent us a complete list of what was required for school uniform and PE kit.  Mother went into manic mode and decided to make as much of the sport’s kit uniform as she could. After all, she was a tailoress.  My mother’s attempts put me off sport for life.  Whilst all the other boys arrived at sports lessons with their smart modern kit, I had to wear shorts that looked suspiciously like fat granny’s knickers. Great big bellowing bloomers that flapped about below my knees. Probably very fashionable between the wars, but not in the swinging 60’s. Throughout Senior School, I looked for excuses not to do games.

Mum continued her tailoring skills as a “Homeworker”. Once a week great bales of material would be delivered to our house. A production line would then be assembled. My mother, sitting at her sowing machine, swung into action turning out women’s garments. She didn’t stop between items but sowed them all together, so I sat the other side of her sowing machine and cut the threads and separated the garments. Then, with a knitting needle, I would turn collars and belts, outside in.  It was piece work, so mum had to keep sowing to keep earning, and I kept cutting and turning.  In between it was left to me to bottle feed my young sister, whilst mum worked. Mum, so busy with her sowing, had failed to notice that 18month old Pauline had been born with a deformed thumb!

In my early teens I joined the Red Cross and progressed through the ranks to become a “sergeant”. My mother decided to celebrate this by making me a Sergeant’s Uniform.  She did this by cutting up an old blue army blanket. It was very clever, but itched like hell!

After leaving school I went travelling with friends through Europe –   France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.  My mother decided to make me a pair of salmon pink swimming shorts to take with me. I celebrated my 18^th birthday with a swim at the Venice Lido. Imagine my horror as I emerged from the clear waters of the Adriatic to discover that my swimming shorts were totally transparent! Fortunately the Italians are not known for being prudish.

It wasn’t all bad, during the 1960s my mother worked for various boutiques in the fashionable Kings Road area of London. I always wore the latest fashion in clothes. But being the King’s Road, and reflecting the Beatles Maharishi phase, the clothes always tended to be something “Indian”. Whilst my appearance may have looked a little eccentric in sleepy Berkshire, I would have been trés “a la mode” in Calcutta.

Mum kindly offered to make my wife’s wedding dress. She made it in good time and Jan was really happy with it. At a fitting, a week or so before the wedding, it became apparent that Jan had lost some weight. However this turned out for the best because Jan could wear a couple of vests underneath which were cosy for a February wedding. But a couple of days before the great day, mum phoned Jan in a great panic. She said she had ironed the dress and ruined the front section. She wanted Jan to buy some more material so she could sew in a new front panel. With visions of brown scorch marks, Jan rushed over to see the damage. With great relief, she saw the dress was still white. Mum reckoned she had removed all the shine at the front but by the time Jan got there it looked fine. The day went smoothly with Jan, the 3 bridesmaids (my sisters Pauline & Diane and Jan’s cousin Katie), mum and various guests all dressed in outfits sewn by mum.

Mother could turn her hand to anything. Nothing was beyond her. Sher even made the offering back for Gunton Baptist Church!

My mother also went through a phase of knitting using a knitting machine. There was nothing she liked more than to fit her children and grandchildren out in her woollen creations. No matter if they were allergic to wool.

She found doing plain sweaters too boring. The bigger the pattern and bolder the colour the better. It was no good asking for something that would fit in with or co-ordinate with the rest of your wardrobe. She knitted items that were designed to make you stand out in a crowd. My mother didn’t believe in measuring anything, so sweaters invariably appeared that were too tight around the neck and chocked you or cut off your circulation at the wrists. And if you didn’t wear them, she would ask why.

For her birthday, my youngest daughter was given a bright red sweater decorated with large black and white kittens. A 6 year old would have loved it. However, my mother thought it just the thing for my 12 year old daughter to wear at her birthday bash with friends at McDonalds.  My daughter dutifully donned the red jumper and left the house, but being careful to sneak out something more suitable for a 12 year old to wear. She quickly got changed in the back of the car and then changed back into the red outfit before she returned home to an awaiting grandmother.

My mother took great pride in her appearance; everything she wore had to be co-ordinated. She spent many hours at her sowing machine making her own clothes. She even had her own designer labels made with her name on.  She continued making her own clothes right up until we had to confiscate her sowing machine because she kept fusing all the lights in the Care Home in which she lived the last year of her life. But more about that in Volume 4.

Mum also spent a great deal of her time making or mending clothes for other people. That is until she lost concentration one day and cut the leg off a pair of trousers she was altering for a male nurse at the Hospice.