Autumn Term At Crepey Towers

[QueenQueenie]

I did it!

Actually it must have been 1980 when I wore my LA brushed-cotton sprigged number.

This group reminiscence is quite an indictment of our S&B status, isn't it....

In other news I have passed my middle aged lady health check though perhaps was a little euphemistic about my alcohol consumption.

MI, does somebody tell you to go to a middle aged lady check or do you volunteer? Should I be calling the doc or will they find me?

I imagine you can request one but I got a letter. Followed by another letter because I was trying to dodge it till I lost a bit of weight.

Didn't John Lennon die in the late 1970s? Or have I somehow slipped a decade?

Bought the Baukjen dress you recommended QQ. Better late than never. I held it up, saying this is my new concert dress. DM looked at it and said 'is that what they tell you that you have to wear?' . Am delighted with it tho can see how QQ would look a lot better in it than what I do (grammar)

I believe Mr Lennon met his unfortunate end in 1980.

Was there some diktat in the 1970s about having to make your daughter's clothes? The whole knitting and sewing business put my mother in a furiously bad temper (mind you, a lot of things did) and yet she always persisted with my stuff but never so much as knitted a jumper for my little brother.

Have just looked it up - 8 December 1980. Everyone was talking about it. While I tried to focus in my blue frock and black hair ribbon.

My mother had a sewing machine in an attic room, where she had a huge telly and a packet of fags... I remember climbing the stairs to say goodnight as she ran up short shifts, medieval costumes for dolls (for school) and enormous taffeta numbers in the 80's

I know BTM a knitted tie! How bloody weird and folk crafty. I still have it in a trunk with my homemade womble,( uncle Bulgaria) LA fabric Holly Hobby Doll, a stylophone and a picture of me with Rabbi Hertzog in 1978
Memreees.....

Oh lawks, we suffered under the yoke of the home-made dress too, sadly there were no fashion designers involved, just my granny and my aunties.

And we'll not even go near the medieval torture of the home-knitted balaclavas.

Mind you, I caught a glimpse of my rictus grin in the mirror at Pilates today and for a fleeting moment I quite fancied a full-face balaclava.

Well done on passing your MALHC, mi!

I do remember John Lennon being shot, or at least hearing the news of it on the radio. Verily verily I am old.

For some reason I have a stronger memory of Bob Marley's demise about the same year maybe?

I first heard of Elvis when he died.

It's one of those standard NHS ones offered to everyone over 40, or maybe 45, Ruby. (I feel I should for once defend my ancient crepiness.)

I also shocked a whole history class at DD1's school when we were looking round a couple of weeks ago for DD2, when I looked at one of the newspaper headlines on the walls and said that oh yes, I remembered when Elvis died...

...DD2 wanted the floor to swallow her up

I made my own university clothes. Ho yes.

I've passed both those ages and they haven't found me yet....

I remember Elvis dying... I was standing at the bottom of the stairs and my sister shouted down to me!

I remember Elvis dying - in the kitchen of the house I lived in as a child. And then watching all the old Elvis movies.

I remember hearing the news about John Lennon on my little yellow transistor radio on Radio Luxemboug in my bed. Sad day at school - being so close to Liverpool, it was big news.

And then Bob Marley. My DM didn't even know who he was!

I remember Elvis dying, mainly because the girl I sat next to on the school bus was an obsessive fan and cried all the way to and from school for about a week. I was entirely bemused by this.

Elvis, Laura Ashley, John Lennon? What is this, 1978? C'mon ladies, get with the new millenium! Let's talk about Rizzle Kicks - who wants to start?

Beachy - envious of you having your mum's old patterns, wish I had some of mine, they were awesome. Mum was an amazing seamstress, made everything, even corset boning for 80s ballgowns. I've just had to snort, even typing the word ballgowns. [wonders if I will ever have need for a ballgown again]

Who/what are Rizzle Kicks? I'm abroad so can claim ignorance.

I remember Holly Hobby two - I had a poster in my bedroom

I think our mothers must have been quite talented to run-up clothes. I wouldn't know where to start and am going to have to pay 20E to shorten a coat.

There is someone in my dd's year at her school who played at Glastonbury, Bestival and Camp Bestival and hung out with Rizzle Kicks. He and dd got selected to go on a G&T residential music course years ago when they were at middle school. He clearly made better use of it than she did.

I took two jumpers that I had knitted myself to university. And left behind the Laura Ashley black velour dungarees that rustled when I moved and were very, very sweaty....

Hmm - have a secret hankering for dungarees - they don't ever seem to have come back in fashion. Can't think why

Hatty, dungarees have been around again here. See here
Not that I'll be getting any myself. I've still got my ludicrous 1980s ones and use them to do the decorating.

Hatty, DD was after some shorts dungarees! However she came back with the standard batty-riders and cropped Tshirt (looks pretty darned good in them too)

And that you don't know who are!