For the last two years I’ve joined in the #atozchallenge, namely to post every weekday in April using each letter of the alphabet in turn. In 2015 it was places I’d been to, in 2016 it was London themed. This year it is a dictionary of my family, recounting incidents small and large that have taught me lessons down the years, caused me consternation or generally seared themselves into my memory. I hope you enjoy them. To find other bloggers doing the challenge and maybe be inspired yourself, check out the A to Z Blogging Challenge Blog, here.
Recently I have lost a little weight and the only clothes I have that still fit are those with some form of elastication. What would I do without that magic material?
Growing up in what my parents would describe as a rural idyll but to the teenage me was the arse end of nowhere, I desperately wanted the kind of life 1970s TV hinted at via some of the more avant garde programmes, such as Nationwide and Blue Peter. Trips to fun fairs, visits to shopping precincts with cinemas, ice skating and above all the ability to hang out without having to commute.
Hanging out required two things, it seemed to my nascent and barely there teenage brain: other teenagers and something to sit on. It didn’t need New Forest ponies and boggy heathland.
My mother was not an insensitive soul. While she might have abhorred hanging out per se, she understood the psyche that wanted to experience it. But we lived miles from anywhere, a gallon of petrol cost the same as the national debt of sub Saharan Africa or at least that’s how dad justified not giving me a lift anywhere and anyway the sheer awfulness of being taken by my parents and ‘seen’ would have undermined any hanging out credits that might accrue.
Then Mike, my best friend, turned 17, he passed his driving test within hours (or so it seemed), his dad had more cars than the average forecourt and we were set.
Except I wasn’t. The lack of hangingoutness experience meant I’d failed to develop a sartorial instinct and my dress code was more sesame than street. Jeans had passed me by, flares were things they shot in the air when boats got into distress and cheesecloth was used to, erm, make cheese, not shirts.
No one in my part of Hampshire had any spare readies and when the did the fact they called the pound note a ‘small green drinking token’ told you all you need to know about their spending priorities. It wasn’t on clothes.
So it was with a degree of reluctance but a certain inevitability that I turned to mum again, this time for her dress making skills.
She was game, worryingly so. She took me to the haberdashery department of some enormous store where she delved into their pattern department. ‘What style do you want?’
How the hell was I to answer that?
‘Denim?’
‘That’s a material not a style.’
‘Jeans and a, erm, jacket.’
Mum had never sowed denim before. She bought some brushed blue – ‘a popular choice madam’ said the pert and prissy salesman, not exactly filling me with any confidence that we had made the right choice – and promptly destroyed five needles on her ancient Singer as it fought to penetrate the cloth to make the seams.
It was with reluctance that she gave up and offered me a needle cord alternative. Again I chose and a patchwork of red and blue appeared. It was actually admired at the Hawkwind concert we went to, well almost.
You see, to save time she elasticated the waist. Someone noticed, someone who understood the faux pas that this was.
Laughter. Humiliation. Mortification. But you know what? Those trousers were the most comfortable I’d ever had because they were tailored to my rather bizarrely shaped thighs.
The needle cord was hardly robust and the trousers soon tore but mum was on a roll. She made me some flares in a check, a tartan set with straight legs and pink denim jeans. They were unique, ghastly and very me. And all were, to a greater of lesser extent, elasticated.
This is the only picture I can find with me wearing any of them – the blue check. I was in my third year at uni so they’d lasted at least 5 years and my then girlfriend, now wife liked them and admired mum’s skill. She hated the stay-press trousers, though. Those I acknowledge publicly here were a mistake.
At the time I’d have given several years of my allotted term and two vital organs for Wranglers or Levis. Now I’m glad I held out and was my own man. I may not have learnt much about myself at the time but a few years down the road, being somewhat independently minded proved to be a good thing. Until I married, of course.
And now? Elastic is both a cost saver and comfy. I’m not knocking it.
TanGental 
That brings back embarassing memories. I was desperate to have a pair of jeans – everyone was wearing them. Finally my mother agreed and we went shopping for jeans. I was so proud when I wore them until I met my friends. How could I have seen that everyone was wearing jeans but been totally oblivious to the style of jeans they wore? Flared jeans – well, they were called bell bottoms then. Mine had straight legs. Mine were what workmen wore to dig up roads. Mine were such a total fashion faux pas I don’t think I left the house for weeks.
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Loons! Do you remember loon pants – are you too young? When I went to uni with my pink denims – like yours straight legged, every had these bloody loons, well anyone cool. Looking back I was ahead of trend but that didn’t help!
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I do remember loons but I never wore them. I htink by then I’d decided to go my own way fashion-wise.
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yes, when I got the confidence to do my own think it was truly liberating..
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“my dress code was more sesame than street.” Love that line His Geoffleship!
And I’m Inclined to agree about elasticated waists!!!
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the older I get the stretchier I need to be
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😅😂
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Loved this post and hooray for Mum’s sewing skills!
When she sent him off to the frozen wilds of Wisconsin as an undergraduate, my mother-in-law made the Hub a bright orange coat puffed into a gigantic ball with massive amounts of down. He was still wearing it fifteen years later when it sprang a leak, making him look like a molting pumpkin.
I cut it down from coat to parka length by sewing a line of elastic cord to the new bottom, harvesting enough down in the process to make a baby bunting that warmed all four of our children. Meanwhile their father got another ten years out of Grandmom’s gift coat.
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Wow, that sounds like it was still growing – like the yoghurt mum once had that never seemed to stop. I’d love to see the molting pumpkin though – sounds like a punk band
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Full marks to mum for improvising and creative thinking. There must be a market for elasticated denim clothing, right?
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If only there were we might be rich…
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I’m definitely into elastic, so you are forgiven. My Dad told me when I was 13 that he would no longer pay for my clothes. I could use the money I earned baby sitting (at 10 cents an hour) to buy what I needed. My Mom didn’t sew, so I had to learn. I can’t say I was high couture – maybe more like just high on something if you had seen what I made! Plaid pants and flowered dresses!
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We need pictures Noelle – you cannot dodge your fashion shame for ever!
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After all these years, I wouldn’t mind showing off my sewing and fashion fox paws,but we weren’t much of a picture taking family. No evidence, unfortunately!
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hmm, do we believe her? I wonder?!!
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What a gem your mum was, making your trousers for you.
I agree that estastic is aways a good choice for comfort 🙂
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I want to see your ecstatic trousers, Judy!!
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On the rare occasions I wear them to work I have elastic waist ones!! My new uniform will be elastic waisted trousers too I believe!! 😀😀
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My newly emerged into teen years daughters used to make me park around the corner from the skating rink or the movie theatre where they were meeting their friends. The sight of their hippy mumma in her little white Volkswagon with the engine in the boot being way too embarrassing to publicly acknowledge. It was about this time I took to singing or reciting poems as I walked along the high street taking them shopping, just to watch them skittle several metres ahead or behind so as not to be thought associated with me 🙂 I wasn’t allowed to make them any clothes at that point, not uniform enough. I once had a pair of hipster, flared denim jeans, printed with bright red devils bearing little forks and the words ‘the devil made me do it’ scattered about. I loved those jeans – I found them in a sale somewhere and no-one else I knew had them. I also had a pair of red cowboy boots around the same time and wore them for years with everything. Loved them too! Nowadays I go for flats and elasticated waists 🙂
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ah to have known the hippy Pauline, huh! Yes, now sometime I’ll tell the story of my obsession with getting a pair of green Kicker boots.
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Oh yes!
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Are you stretching a point? 🤗💝
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snap!
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Ouch!!!
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As someone who lives in sweatpants, the problem with elastic for me is, I can’t tell when I’m gaining weight! Have to try to snuggle into those skinny jeans every now and then for the rude awakening!
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yes, freshly washed jeans are a good test of weight growth
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Vg! I thought the check ones might be some sort of homage to Noddy Holder!
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oh really? It never occurred but now you mention it… *groans at even more lack of taste.
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Yay for elastic! Love the pants. 😀
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Absolutely!!
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