Dr White's looped sanitary towels

[florriepeck]

I didn't know these were still a thing!
DM used to buy these for me when I first started my periods in the 70s.
Saw some today on the shelf in my local chemist while I was hanging around waiting for my prescription to be dispensed.
I was tempted to buy some: remember them being so soft and comfortable .Didn't see any of those belts to wear with them, though.
Set me wondering: does anyone use looped towels these days?
Must be a market for them if they're on sale.

Drapers sold cloth originally so when we still had drawers shops they sold cloth related items eg clothes, linens, haberdashery and I imagine they may have sold sanitary belts!

There used to be a brand of sanpro called "Pennywise"? Wonder if that is where Stephen King got the inspiration for his blood-dripping-fanged clown character.....!

I was in my friends house in the early 70's and three of her little sisters appeared all wearing Dr Whites across the mouth with the loops over their ears, turns out they were in the middle of performing urgent surgery on one of their dolls and Dr Whites made perfect face masks to wear in theatre....

Gym knickers were bloody smashing, extra layer of warmth and protection!

DD has the modern equivalent a skort

I got one in his after miscarriage.

Gym knickers were a cruel perversion destined to make body conscious teenage girls even more unwilling to do PE. That and the compulsory communal showers under the beady eye of the PE teacher.

Themusstressmor I had Bikini. Ghastly. They moved about at the back and the net bit got stained. And the horror of having to wash and dry it.
There were brightly coloured sanitary belts. Why?

Gym knickers were a cruel perversion destined to make body conscious teenage girls even more unwilling to do PE

I found them great. We only ever wore them under gym skirts. They kept underwear plus san pro in place!

That and the compulsory communal showers under the beady eye of the PE teacher

We had private cubicles.

Gym knickers were a cruel perversion destined to make body conscious teenage girls even more unwilling to do PE. That and the compulsory communal showers under the beady eye of the PE teacher

Oh heck, this really is bringing back awful memories!!

Mind you, we had to wear two pairs of knickers: a thin white pair of aertex-type material and thick navy ones over that. The staff did spot checks too ... can you imagine them getting away with that nowadays??

Our PE teacher kept s book of when you were 'on' so you couldn't get out of showers too often. There were cubicles with no curtains and no soap, and you had to queue up naked until one became available.
When one poor girl said she 'Couldn't have a shower' the teacher boomed 'Are you sure you've started your periods, Carol?'

The staff did spot checks too ... can you imagine them getting away with that nowadays??
We had to wear white underwear only and the PE teacher would check. She said we would have to parade round the gym if caught with coloured undies but I can't remember this actually happening. In the days when we had to wear stockings and suspenders some of us took to wearing colourful long johns in psychedelic swirly colours (late 60s) to cover the gap, we were very careful not to get caught as we were only officially allowed to wear white ones - like old ladies' bloomers.

My school days were 30 years after yours Captain!

The gym knickers we had were sports pants - much like you see athletes wearing. We wore them under skirts. If you wanted to do athletics in the knickers and PE top you could, but it wasn’t compulsory.

Very different times then @JacquesHammer.

I remember that if you were caught out and had nothing with you when your period started, the nurse in the medical room had a stash of the Dr Whites loop pads and would issue them with a couple of safety pins to those who needed them. Those bodyform pads were amazing when they came out and my mum bought some for me. I think I tried using that sanitary belt, found it very uncomfortable and then settled on safety pins in my knickers instead.

Our pe knickers were just that.pe knickers. You weren't allowed anything else over the top. T shirt and pe knickers for girls. Boys got to wear shorts

Agree they were designed to humiliate you. Shirts were clearly ok attire since 50 percent of the class wore them...

Thank God I didnt start in primary

oh god the showers i hated pe as it was but the showers you had to go along all the showers then we used to perch on the window sill as the water didnt reach us!
trouble was you had to go back same way so you ended up with dripping hair ok in summer horrible in winter blouse and jumper ended up soaking wet
we used to wonder if the PE teacher was a bit funny as she would stand in the doorway watching all the time god help you if she spotted you sitting on the window sill

When we did gymnastics at school we had to wear polo shirt and PE knickers. I was so embarrassed when we had to walk past the boys class.

And two of the last three posts really confirm why I favour single sex education for girls

We had an awful PE teacher,she was deliberately nasty. We had to walk across the changing rooms naked,we weren't allowed to take a towel with us. She used to stand at one end and and once we'd washed to her specifications we were allowed to walk back to our clothes/towel. 3 in a shower at a time,it was one of those walk through showers.

She also had a book and made note of when our periods were and was highly suspicious if we weren't regular as clock work.

When we were 13 she decided everyone should use tampons so we could all use the swimming pool and if we couldn't use tampons she would give us one and stand outside the door and wouldn't be letting us out until we'd got one in as THERE WAS NO EXCUSE NOT TO DO PE!

I remember telling my mum who wanted me in Dr Whites at all times (see above post) and I don't know what was said but a phone call was made and the tampon thing was dropped immediately.

Shocking, can you imagine that happening now?!!!

I used to think being nasty was compulsory for female PE teachers.

Yes, the first time I tried to use a tampon was when my PE teacher made try and put one in so I wouldn’t miss swimming. I couldn’t do it. I really hope they wouldn’t do that now.

PE knickers were just that in my school. Thicker burgundy pants worn for basketball and possibly other PE activities. Not worn with a skirt.

Thankfully I managed to avoid swimming for my entire secondary education.
Our older female PE teacher was rumoured to inspect the knickers those claiming to have their period.

I think PE in secondary should NOT be compulsory.

Love this thread! I think the incinerator was called a Bunny in our school?
I still have dreams/nightmares featuring school toilets.
I wore PE knickers and aertex shirt only but if on your period you could wear this big PE skirt which made you stick out like a sore thing.
Several of my friends had Dr Whites with belt (around 1974) but I had seen the womens magazines with the advert for Kotex Freedom that someone posted further up - special stretchy pants that had a gripper sewn in that you threaded the end of the pad into at the front - so I persuaded my mum to buy me those but I only had one pair of the special knickers!! So I very soon moved on to Tampax that my mum used after bbeing shocked to find out a friend was already using them at 14. We wore pale blue summer dresses and often girls would be walking round with blood stains on the back of them - a big fear of mine. If only we had had pant liners then.
My mum said her and her sister always used rags - early 1950's.

I hated PE at school apart from country dancing (which felt very silly in gym pants) but I would have like aerobics or zumba type things. Unfortunately they weren't invented then.

Oh god I had forgotten about the incinerators in the toilet - it used to stink to high heaven . And yes we had to do PE in knickers until we were 14 - it was pure torture !