Hi Frances

Yes it was called a Liberty Bodice..... and yes I was persuaded under duress to wear one in winter. Even more so from seven years old when I started having chest problems from measles. Still do to this day, (that is have chest problems not wear a Liberty bodice!! LOL ;O]

I too hated this so called 'Liberty' bodice, it was bulky and uncomfortable, and I hated the feel of the rubber buttons up the front even doing them up. Where the name Liberty came in I can only guess, it must have been the manufacturer's name, this garment certainly didn't afford freedom of movement.

I guess as usual, this was only parents trying to look after us as best they could in those difficult times, but naturally as a child I didn't see it that way!

I can even remember having to wear one in winter under my pyjamas, which I wore under my Siren Suit when sleeping in the Anderson Shelter in our back garden.

Did anyone else have a Siren Suit?? Similar to Ski suits worn today but with enclosed feet at the end of the legs and mittens on strings hanging from the sleeves when not on the hands, it opened down the front to get into it and also had a hood attached with drawstring to fit neatly around the face. Made of thick material, very warm but not exactly a pretty sight.

Nevertheless a very good idea for the cold, sometimes rather damp atmosphere in the shelter.

For the first few years of the war, 1939 until 1941 before we moved out from the naval city of Portsmouth to the country, I went to bed every night in the Anderson Shelter in the garden wearing my Siren Suit. My father had rigged up sort of bunk beds for sleeping in the shelter. I thought my 'bedroom' in the house was only for afternoon naps when there wasn't an air raid on during the day........ I was only three and a half when the war started and we moved out of the city when I was five. At that age I didn't know any different.

I had cousins who didn't sleep in their shelters, as I found out later, but still went to bed in Siren Suits so they could be picked up from their beds and taken out to the garden shelter in the middle of the night when the air raid sirens wailed. At our tender age, I sometimes think we were extremely lucky.

Although we would no doubt have sensed the danger and tension, through our parents reactions, we really couldn't remember life being any different. With no knowledge of peacetime comforts to compare it with, we had no way of knowing what we were missing. Not sure if that will make sense to anyone else. Margaret - Perth, Western Australia

I'm just taking a wild guess about these underthings, but from your description of the rubber buttons, etc., it sounds to me like they were designed to stop boys from taking liberties, hence the name.

Now I could be wrong, I was, once before.

Ciao

Gerry WIseman

I was too young or too naiie to take liberties with girl's bodices, but well remember my sister wearing them before the war. My wife Nita, another ex-sufferer of the dreaded liberty bodice, confirms my belief that the rubber things (suspenders) were to hold up the long woolen stockings which were the winter norm for little girls at that time. As the girls grew up they graduated to girdles or suspender belts for the same purpose with their lisle,silk or nylon stockings. I had more exposure to those. Panty hose came much later.

Nita asks if you remember the knickers with pockets in them for your handkerchief. These seemed to go hand in hand with liberty bodices.

I only hope that this thread doesn't get around to jockstraps!.

By the way Frances, I apologise, our age difference is 11 not 9 years.

Ralph, the Ancient Brit.

Margaret -- thanks for your liberty bodice input, as well as the other interesting things you write about!

Yes, I too hated the feel of those rubber buttons (hard to push through buttonholes), along with the feel of the bodice in general. Did you ever use the suspender things at the side? I see that Ralph's wife says they were for holding up long woolen stockings that little girls wore. I didn't think of that, since I never wore long woolly stockings. Only knee socks that were forever falling down, because the elastic in the socks was forever giving way. The elastic bands I used as a substitute tended to cut off circulation a bit, and I had such chilblains on the exposed flesh between socks and hem of coat. I suppose boys did, too, since they wore those short trousers.

The interesting thing is, I don't believe I ever complained about anything. I bet that goes for the rest of us in this group. We just accepted what life handed out and got on with it, and I for one am glad I learned early on to "not sweat the small stuff."

And those siren suits -- my goodness, I'd forgotten about them! I don't think I ever had one, since we slept in an indoor Morrison shelter, but I do remember, now that you mention them, that that style suits was called a siren suit till well after the war, wasn't it?

Fun to read about your night time shelter experience. You're right, in that we didn't really know another way of life. My very first memory, aged two and a half, is of sitting on my mother's lap in the hall during an air raid, and hearing some of our windows blowing out.

Those London nights, huddled in the Morrison, with bombs falling all around, must have been a terribly tense time for our parents, but I remember my own Dad trying hard to make light of it, with his corny jokes and little songs. I think our parents acted as buffer zones for us, absorbing the worst of the terrors before they could reach us children. We were not evacuated until 1944, when the blitz made short work of our house. My older brother and I returned from school, parents at granddad's funeral, and found the house little more than a shell. Did we panic and cry? No, as soon as we realized that Mum had not ben blown to bits but was at the funeral, we two, ages six and nine, simply set about trying to restore some order to the chaos, by carrying glass, plaster, wood, out to the curb.

Do you sometimes feel, as I do, that without the war dominating our lives at that time, we might not have such clear memories of our early years, as we have because of the war? I always felt pretty grown up, in many ways, during that time.

I recall hearing my Dad say to our mother at the end of the war that he felt cheated out of those years of our childhoods, as he and Mum had been too busy and worried to be able to relax and enjoy us as much as he wanted to. Be that as it may, they certainly made up for it after the war, bless them!

Anyway, we will be in Portsmouth briefly soon, getting on the ferry to the Isle of Wight, and later catching the train to Cornwall. I'll think of you, Margaret.

Frances

"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for your input re the unmentionable liberty bodice (Gerry, I'm pretending I didn't see your cheeky reply ). Thank Nita for her help, too. Don't know why I didn't think of the suspenders being for long woolly stockings, but I suppose that's because I never wore them (see my reply to Margaret).

As for the knickers with pockets, LOL. My, now that she mentions it, I believe I do, though again that was something I never utilized (the pocket, I mean, not the knickers). I assume she's referring to those voluminous heavy duty navy blue bloomer things? The thing that strikes me speechless now, is the fact that the bloomers doubled as gym shorts, in our school! (Ask Nita about that!) They were thick, dark and shapeless enough to double as shorts and it didn't seem too awful to be wearing them outdoors for netball, unless boys showed up to ogle us over the low block wall surrounding the school. All we had to do to prepare for PT was whip off our skirts, and school necktie (!), adjust the bloomers to look as much like shorts as we could manage, and put on our plimsoles. Afterwards, we pulled our skirts and shoes back on, tied our ties, and went to the next class with whatever layer of perspiration our efforts had added! I suppose there was little choice, as there were no showers in the school, though I don't know why we weren't expected to bring fresh blouses to change into. It all seems so primitive now.

Frances

"Copyright Frances R. Pullen"

Hi all!!

I have enjoyed reading about your experiences with undergarments etc. I too remember being made to wear a liberty bodice, over my vest, and thought it was such an ordeal getting dressed. To this day I cannot understand why such a garment was ever designed, but I suspect Gerry hit the nail on the head when he suggested it might have been to protect a young girl's modesty!

I don't remember wearing those bloomers that you mentioned Francis, but I do remember the plimsoles that we used to wear for PE. (Here in Australia they are called sneakers.) I went to an all girls school and was taught by nuns. Every morning we were forced to participate in half an hour of PE, which wasn't so bad on the milder days, but in the middle of winter, with heavy frosts, snow and rain, it was anything but pleasant. I can still see Sister Joseph, one of our teachers who took us for PE, giving us instructions on what we should do, by jumping up and down in her nun's habit (which in those days was akin to clothing worn by women in medieval times), with her rosary beads bouncing around.

I use to hate PE in the winter. I remember my hands used to get blue with the cold, although I must admit, by the end of the session we were as warm as toast. Some girls would deliberately leave their plimsoles at home, believing they would be excused from PE. It worked for some, but not for me. One day I genuinely forgot my plimsoles, and offered my excuses to Sister Joseph. To my shock, horror and amazement, I was told it was a deliberate ploy on my part to escape PE, and for my sins I would be punished. My punshment was six of the best, with a bamboo cane struck across my very cold, blue hands. I can remember the pain to this day, and the vision of those six 'wheels' rising on the palm of my hand! Needless to say, Sister Joseph was not one of my favourite teachers.

Here in Australia, receiving the cane is called 'the cuts'. My son went to a school which was run by Marist Brothers, and where it was accepted that if you offended, you received 'the cuts'. Sean received them on more than one occasion. Now-a-days, in Canberra where I live, it is illegal for any teacher to administer corporal punishment. I must admit, caning a child is a rather barbaric action.

Eileen Roberts