To ask for post war slang for having a period/menustrating?

[Thelowquietsea]

For a story that I'm writing. I'm not sure what slang would be most relevant in 1950s Britain to suggest a woman was menstruating.

Any ideas? Woman is lower middle class.

Neither my mum nor my Nan would hang the unmentionables on the garden line.

A friend's next door neighbour complained to my friend's mother about having friend's red and black sexy(indecent) underwear on the washing line, it wasn't decent when there were men about. Apparently white and utilitarian was OK!

Flag week.
The curse
Monthlies
On the rag
Rag week

"time of the month"/"monthlies" or "show"

I'm writing during & post war and the topic is alluded to albeit with a shudder and a pursed lip.

My DM is 83, I reckon she probably started hers aged around 13 in 1949. She's always called them 'monthlies' or referred to 'time of the month'. Her mother, my DGM who was born in 1905, called it 'the curse'. Both from NW England.

NW, The painters are in.

On the rag

My mother always called it "her business." So she would say "it's horrible when you've got your business..." Urge horrible name for it!!!

I had this conversation with my mum a while back. She says that she can't remember what her own mum called it because she never talked about it, ever. The menopause was The Change, or The Change of Life.

Mum used to ask if I'd 'got my visitor'

When I began menstruating in the 60s, we used to say '** utd are at home'. The local football team playing in red and white.

'On the rag' 'Man U at home' and 'monthlies' were also used.

Pretty sure I remember 'monthlies' being used on 'Call the Midwife'

I've got 'the painters and decorators' in

Time of the month or Aunt Rose.

I think 'on the rag' was more working class. 'Monthlies' more middle class. The curse was more Northern/Scottish.

Betty or Mary!

www.knixteen.com/blogs/the-rag/period-slang-euphemisms

This is American.

My mum (born just post war) would say ‘the curse’, and she went to a posh boarding school in the Home Counties.

I was a London schoolgirl in the 1950s and we never mentioned it to each other.

My grandmother (born 1925 so 20 at the end of Ww2) always said ‘the curse’

Generally never mentioned, even to your mother. But “got a visitor” or “the curse” were used in the north east.

Time of the month
The curse

I think a lot would depend on where your character lives, OP, there are probably big variations.

The curse was more Northern/Scottish.

Sigh. It really wasn't.

My mum was born between the war, also a home counties boarding school girl, called it the curse.

My mum used the phrase ‘like that’, as in ‘Don’t wash your hair when you’re like that.’

DM, who is 81 so would have been a teenager/ young woman in the 1950s would say ‘unwell’.

DM born 1932 - "I've got my visitors", "Have you come on?" - (to me)
London, Irish background

I had forgotten about the sanitary towel incinerators in public toilets - wow. How vile. I was too young to use them when I saw them but knew what they were for.

Oh yes, we always said ‘come on’ or just ‘I’m on’ in the 70s and I suppose DM would have said that to me ( South Wales).