1975 diary shocker

[NorthernGirl1975]

As part of my PhD I'm looking at primary sources. I'm currently reading a diary from 50 years ago. The writer is obsessed with how she looks, what she eats and weighs and whether or not she's pretty.

There are lots of references to getting male attention. She goes to a summer gala with her friend and talks about the ice cream man being fit.

Then says she and the friend were chatted up on the bus and "Wolf whistled by two guys so that's not bad to say I'm a stone overweight". Earlier she's stated she weighs eight stone three. Says she's joining weight watchers as no guy would want to be seen around with a fat ugly girlfriend. Some guy who looks like Steve Harley keeps staring at her.

She went to buy a dress she liked but there was only one and it was a size 14 and too big. That's a 10 today isn't it? Christ knows what size she wanted to be. She's written measurements down as "35-25-35" and is obsessed with looking like one of Pam's People.

This is so depressing.

@thestudio
the people in the Nick Hedges Shelter photographs from the 60’s look very malnourished, it is really sad

http://www.nickhedgesphotography.co.uk/photo-gallery/slum-housing-and-poverty/families-and-the-interiors-of-slum-housing

So glad I threw my old diaries away. The idea that a PhD student would rifle through my neurotic random musings, deem them a) an accurate depiction of what all teenage girls thought (or even what I was always thinking about) and b) ‘depressing’, then post about it on mumsnet is horrifying.

lol!!!!

Thats a MN classic right there. Well done.

No, they also appeared regularly on The Two Ronnies and various other shows, as a musical interlude.

My 18 year old sister, pub in rural North Wales c1975. 'Pint of Legless please'. Suspicious landlord 'Are you alone? (in case she was a 'loose woman' on the prowl) No, I'm with those people over there.'Hmm. I can't serve you a pint. We only serve half pints to Ladies' this was the kind of place where a bottle of wine was a nasty foreign thing that proper people wouldn't dream of drinking unless they were on holiday abroad. She settled for the half.

I never ever saw Pan’s People on anything but TOTP.

List of the many shows on which they appeared:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_People#Work_outside_TOTP

Ha! Old girls were allowed to get a Port and Lemon on their own, but only in the Saloon bar. Not the Public bar. I think I remember pubs with a small Ladies bar but I may be making that up.

The discussion could have been opened without a poorly written description of an individual’s personal thoughts. You may be happy for your comments to appear in a PhD thesis (and therefore also in the public domain) but please politely respect the concerns of others.

@BeanQuisine I stand corrected: Pan’s People were on The Two Ronnies in 1973-74

Perhaps there are regional variations, though. I always read the term "plating up" used on forums, and I'd never heard of it until recently. Food was dished up in my experience.

I got a reaction to asking for a wine in a pub in the early naughties (in north Wales actually). It was considered posh drink for nice restaurants.

I don't think the term vanity sizing applies to the shift in sizes from vintage clothing. I think that is just adapting to the change in demand for sizing. My mum has a dress from the 70s that that is labeled a size 6 that was far too big on my cousin that is a size 6 in today sizing.

Vanity sizing is cutting clothes generously in regards to the stated size to encourage people to buy. I think Oliver bonas does it. I and every single person I know has had to size down in OB.

It's not for you to ask her for proof of anything.
Plus, the diary entry is anonymous and could belong to anyone.

I was a teen then and we were not obsessed about these things. Size 14 I the 70s was quite a large size to be. I was a size ten at 18 and something like 34 22 34 measurements .

"I don't think the term vanity sizing applies to the shift in sizes from vintage clothing."

Yes, it does.

There is also a separate issue of certain shops having bigger sizes than others (usually to accommodate a bigger target shopper e.g. older or poorer people).

You ought to brush up on your understanding of research ethics.

You can pick up completed 1920s-80s diaries on Ebay etc.

I had my first child in a mother and baby unit when I was 16, in 1980. We were confined to our rooms for the first ten days then we had to go down to the hall for breakfast, there was huge pressure to look normal, ie pre pregnancy. I was so upset because I didn't fit into my regular clothes but my mum was a dress size up from me so brought me some of her clothes. Even those were really tight but I wore them anyway, girls that came down in their maternity dresses were shamed, albeit not openly. A year later I went with another girl and our babies to visit, and we were so excited about people seeing how slim we were! Bloody awful when I think about it but it's the same now, celebrities showing off their bodies weeks after giving birth. It's such a trauma to our bodies the last thing we should be caring about is how it looks.

I was just going to ask if anyone remembered Ayds! I was four in 1975 and used to see them on the shelf in Boots (under the home brew beer kits my dad bought), they looked like cubes of fudge and were wrapped in a very sophisticated looking flat brown and gold box. I’m sure they were very expensive.

I was desperate to try them just because they looked so lovely. I’ve still no idea what they actually were.

I'm not doing research so I don't need to.

I think Oliver bonas does it. I and every single person I know has had to size down in OB.
Don't say that ive just had to send a size 14 top and skirt back for being too small!!

😆 😆

Don’t do that. It’ll identify you and then this poster with nothing better to do will contact your supervisor.

There were many regional variations around social rules in pubs. In London, iirc, anyone of age could buy a drink, although a woman might be ushered to the Saloon Bar, Public Bars were pretty much the preserve of men. And, depending on where you were in the country, a single female entering a strange pub, alone, where she was unknown, might be viewed as 'asking for it'. In fact, I recall waiting for a bus at Marble Arch, 1968 ish, raining, outside a Wimpy Bar. It was around 10 at night. Bugger this, I'll get a coffee. "Sorry madam, you are unaccompanied, I must ask you to leave". ??? Told my mum when I got home. "They think you might be a prostitute".😡 I'm not sure but there may even have been a bye law about it. It's like reporting from the Dark Ages.

I was 26/27 in 1975 was naturally slim and have absolutely no idea what I weighed as I never weighed myself then as I didn't own a pair of scales.

I'm assuming the person who wrote the diary was a teenager, 15ish? The whole obsession with appearance and boys sound very young.

So what exactly do you think has changed from 1975 to 2025 OP? Teenage girls are still obsessed with their appearance and boys.

Weight has been an issue for many women for hundred of years and is still an issue for many women and girls today.

The biggest difference though, as far as I can see from 50 years ago is that nowadays many girls and women will be so obsessed with their looks that they will go on to get their lips pumped up, will undergo painful surgery to get their breasts enlarged or get their buttocks pumped up and often various other, sometimes, dangerous procedures.

Do you really think OP that those types of extreme body modifications are less 'depressing' than the diary of one young girl's obsession with her looks and weight?

And I'm pretty certain that a size 14 now is not equivalent to a size 10 in 1975.