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?

My gran did (born 1913). Think Hilda Ogden or Tubbs from League of Gentlemen. Maybe was a northern thing, or a working class thing.

It wasn't religious. It was just a custom. Many women would get a 'shampoo and ser' at the hairdressers or do it themselves at home and the hair had to be protected. Also they might wear it to cover up hair that hadn't been 'done' or was still in curlers. When more relaxed hair styles for younger women came in in the mid 60s headscarves started to die out and were only worn by older women.

My late mum did sometimes (born 1933). There are photos of her in the 1970s orange brown summer scarves and she would wear them in bad weather to keep her hair dry all through her life. She had very Queen Elisabeth hair. I also remember those plastic Rain hoods.

Yes mum was born in 1945. No longer wears the scarf. I'm the same age as your mum.

Yes, my mother (born 1925) used to wear a headscarf pretty regularly into the 1970s at least. She still had a few headscarves in her drawers when she died around 5 years ago. She loved her hairdresser visits and used to go around once a week for a shampoo and set, so the purpose probably was to protect her hairstyle when it was wet or windy.

They would also be worn by factory workers to stop their hair being caught in the machinery.

The two old ladies who also worked at my weekend job wore them in the 90s, London. My mum occasionally too but in a different way, more arty, patterned fabric, not so prim. Over her wild curls.

I hadn't ever thought of it until this thread.

Not really. My mother was born in London and was definitely a southerner.

Yes, both my grandmothers wore plastic rainhoods and nylon headscarves until they died. One being in the 90s and the other a couple of years ago. My mother wouldn't have been seen dead in one.
Both Northern and working class.

The comment about factory workers rings a bell. One of my grandmothers was on war work making tanks. She told horror stories of a girl's hair getting stuck in the machinery and being near enough scalped. They all wore what she called a turbun with their rollers underneath.

I was born mid-70s as a (for the time period very) late baby - my mum was born in 1938, and she wore a headscarf or rainmate tied under her chin well into the 80s. She was the opposite of fashionable - she didn't even start wearing trousers until the late 80s.

Chef64 · Today 15:44

AllProperTeaIsTheft · Today 15:25
No. I am white British and was born in the early 70s. Neither my mother nor any white British women I knew wore a headscarf.
What about the Queen? Often seen with a headscarf - even on a horse.

Well yes, but I didn't know the queen

White, British (English) and my mum wore one whenever she went out anywhere that could disturb her perm, right up to the 2010s (when she went into a home, and no longer went outside much.)

My Mum didn't, but my Grandma, Irish Catholic did.

My grandma was Irish but we lived in England. She wore one always when she left the house. I had totally forgotten until now !

"Headscarf"..... In Northern Ireland.... LOL

We used to know them as balaclavas.

Both my grannies wore these, I remember them in the 1980's, it was to keep their "do" in place.

Um, I love my rain bonnet! I've actually just bought another pack because mine is getting a bit ratty after the stormy weather we've been having.

Partly, I think it was just a fashion. However, as others have said, I think a lot of it was due to hair. In those days you didn't just jump in the shower everyday (there wasn't endless hot water) and you didn't have a shed load of products and styling tools to do your hair. Keeping your hair 'nice' was hard work and cost money so you'd make sure you got as much time out of it as possible.

Even up to that time, there were still women who went to the hairdresser to get their hair washed. A lot of women, including my Mum, had a regular perm and then went to the hairdressers to 'get their hair set' weekly ready for social events at the weekend. Most people just didn't have the means of getting that sort of style, which was fashionable, at home. I think Mum gave up on all this in early 70s.

In the late 70s I had a Saturday job on the local market and we'd still see women shopping with their curlers in, under a headscarf, because they were going out that night. That was when showers in bathrooms and central heating was becoming more common which I think is why it died out - and fashions in hair changed.

Don’t recall either of my grandmothers (both born in the 1910s) wearing headscarves but they both wore those plastic Rain Mate hoods.

My mother definitely didn’t wear anything like that.

My mother never wore one, but my grandmother who was born in the 1920s always did.

My grandmothers both wore headscarves or hats whenever they went out, depending on the weather, up until the 1970s. Covering one’s head was considered necessary in the mid 20th century.

I remember quite a lot of fashion headscarf wearing in the 1970s, tied behind as in the earlier photo.

Yes my mum did even in the 80s too I think. Hardly ever saw her without it. First pic in the photo album and there it is..this would have been 1970

My mum wore one throughout the 60s and 70s, some (what I would now think of as) nice silky printed ones. Unfortunately for her, the haberdashers in our village sold chiffon scarves in gaudy colours for pocket money prices, which I used to buy her for birthdays etc, I seem to recall her wearing them - presumably often enough that I wasn't offended- true maternal love!
Later she was still wearing them occassionaly in the 90s, when I and my children lived in a more multicultural area, where lots of S Asian women wore headscarves. My kids thought it hilarious that their Grandma wore a headscarf, even though she wasn't Muslim, and told her so (naughty) ....I think she only did it in her home town after that.

No, I don't remember my Mum wearing one, and she was born 1929.
Come to that, I don't remember my Gran wearing one either, and she was born in the 19th Century.

They did both have those plastic rainhats you whipped out of your handbag when it started to rain though.

My Gran would ALWAYS have worn a hat to Church.