Inspired by another thread - if you are white British/Irish, did your Mum routinely wear a headscarf when you were small, and when did she stop?

[astoundedgoat]

Looking back at baby photos of me from the 70's (rural Ireland), I realise that my Mum (Catholic, born in the 1930's) nearly always wore a headscarf when she was out of the house during the day.

Being the 1970's, the scarves were often brown/orange/mustard and of course nylon, and she must have abandoned them by the time I was 3 or 4 because they were in my dressing-up collection by then. She had a small black lace mantilla and I think I remember that she sometimes wore it to Mass, probably around the time she ditched the headscarf for daily wear but was wondering how to cover her head in church, but it disappeared (into my dressing-up box too!) pretty soon.

Sometimes they were tied behind her head (summer?) and sometimes under her chin, like the Queen (winter?).

My Nanna (Dublin/Protestant/working class, born in 1910) never ever left the house without wearing a hat (usually a knitted one, with a smart one for occasions/funerals etc.).

Was this just Ireland? Common in the UK too?

I know my mother (born 1926) wore them occasionally, she had quite a collection. I think this died out as a fashion thing in mid 70’s as I remember her giving me two very large silk scarves with paisley patterns from her collection. I wore these tied at the back and also as sun tops when I was at university, 74-77. I also used more of her collection in creative sewing projects at around this time.

Born mid 60s, my mum wore on occasionally when I was young but a lot of the older women I knew wore one all the time. Most of them wore them till the day they died.

NE Scotland - both my Grannies always wore them every time they went outside except for Sundays when they upgraded to a hat for kirk. Younger women like my Mum abandoned this by the mid 1960’s, but my Grannies always
wore them

Yes, my mum and grandmother did! In the 80s my mum used to wear one when gardening 😂

My grandma did sometimes (born maybe 1910 ish?? Had kids around WW2 time). White British, lived around Rugby area.
Maybe a head covering suitable for maintaining curls?

My mum - no way, she was a student in 1960’s/70’s, and also hated hats or anything on her head. I don’t remember seeing my mums generation wearing them, but my grandma’s generation - yes.

Also I’ve seen plenty of people wearing them following chemo or similar.

My granny (born Co. Donegal, would be pushing 100 if still alive) wore one, Queen-style. She also had a pac-a-mac version for rain, and a standing weekly hair appointment on a Saturday morning.

My partner’s Nana still does and the plastic cover, she’s mid 80s.

Born in Ireland in the 80s, never mind my mother my grandmothers never wore headscarves! We have loads of photos from the 1950s onwards and I don’t think there’s any headscarves in them other than on some women who were elderly then.

It was very common until the 60s and early 70s.

Yes, my Nan was the same - as did loads of women of that generation as I recall. Not of my Mum's generation though (born 1950). Those scarves featured heavily in black and white films, much more luxe fabrics though.

My mother was born in 1946 in the ruralest of rural Ireland, and has never worn a headscarf. Her mother did, which in my mother's opinion was enough reason not to.

https://images.app.goo.gl/FiaADmSUqcsc9QQF9

I was born in 1955 and never wore one myself but they were very commonly worn even by quite young women when was a child. I don't think the late Queen ever stopped wearing one.

Not my mam but my grandma did. In the 70s and 80s it was common for older women to wear a ‘head square’ tied under the chin when they went out. NE England.

@flipio

The late Queen was rather partial to a headscarf
My nan also wore a headscarf pretty much all the time outside the house, as did most women her age , as White Britsh as the Queen, but we we were working class scousers

My mum (born 1923, I was born 1959) wore a headscarf sometimes.

Yes! My Nan had these when she went out, I even remember a see through plastic one for the rain 😂. My mum is born in the 60s so didn’t, but my Nan was born in 1929.

Granny (not Irish) wore a shopping hat. She would wear a plastic rain mate to protect her hairdo if it was raining. The headscarf thing I remember from the 70s was a fashion thing.

Didn’t they wear them because they were either protecting their hair post doing it fancy, or they had rollers under the headscarf?

I don’t think it was a religious thing.

My mam.wore one (and all female relatives and most women of a similar age) up until early to mid 1980s whereupon she started with a Kangol angora beret. Small town in Northern England

The Plymouth Brethren would wear headscarves, worn in the traditional/old fashioned way used to protect hair rather than like a headscarf worn by a Muslim woman.

White British working class Londoner here, born in 1976, and my mum never wore a headscarf. I only remember women my grandparents' age wearing them to be honest (although neither of my grandmothers did).

However, my mum was reminiscing a while ago about how she and my dad went to a Yorkshire mill town in the mid-1970s to visit a relative and how different it was from where she lived in London, and one of the differences she cited was that 'loads of the women were still wearing headscarves' so maybe it was a more regional thing!

White British Welsh, grew up.in 1960. The women of my mother's age always wore a headscarf, a la Queen-Elizabeth-at-the-races type, when out and about. Unless it was a posh do, when they'de swap it for a hat.

Yep my mum did in 70s when she was out and about.
Also wore a nylon housecoat all the time indoors.

My mum did wear it too.
Im born early 70s.

And it wasn’t for a religious reason (my mum is a fierce atheist) but simply instead of a hat - aka to keep (a bit!) warmer.