Meaning of abbreviation ‘BBs’ in a 1940s Book

[EllieQ]

I’m reading Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard, which is set during WW2, and was puzzled by the abbreviation ‘BBs’ in a scene where one of the characters is thinking about the usual shopping list she would have for a trip to to London - the line is ‘BBs for Clary and Polly’ who are teenage girls.

Google hasn’t helped as I’ve just got results for Bulletin Board Services (know as BBS) or the BBC. I’m assuming it’s something underwear or toiletry related, but can’t figure it out! Does anyone have any idea what it could stand for?

In the 1960s my mother used to wear a bra and pants, then over the top of her pants she would have a pantie girdle, then tights or stockings, and a full length slip over the lot. Does anyone remember “bra slips” with cardboard (or so it seemed) cups for “ladies to put their udders in” (as I informed my mother).

love those books

Yes that makes sense.

This comes up as an issue when dating photos. One looks at the fashion and dates that. But in fact it's also important to look at the person's age and ask, is this person wearing the fashions of their younger years? Indeed the very dresses, skirts and coats of their younger years? These things being incredibly labour-intensive to make and not cheap. So photos of older people can feature fashions from decades earlier.

It's the same with furniture. Most people don't replace their furniture very often, so any photo taken in a home rather than a studio can feature furniture from eras long past.

It's one of the things that jars slightly in retro dramas made now – that the furniture is dedicatedly of the era when the drama is set. When in reality the young couple with a small baby in a rented room might have a few of their own bits and bobs (bed linen, plates), but a lot of the furniture could easily be over 50 years old. Solid wood tables last forever!

Interesting.

I’m pretty sure they do mean erasers (I call them rubbers anyway but obvs not in US haha). What item if clothing was it?

After a google, AI tells us:

India rubbers" (or simply "rubbers") were indeed a type of waterproof footwear in America. They were specifically overshoes or galoshes made from natural, vulcanised rubber designed to be worn over regular fabric shoes or boots to keep them dry in mud or rain.

That would make sense.

Yes. It would seem that it is indeed a British English term for pencil erasers. The rubber boots were called galoshes in the UK.

Sorry for doubting you, Mrs McDowall.

"Katy sighed, but submitted. Later, as the Spring came on, she had a fit of over-anxiousness, and was always sending Clover down to ask Debby if her bread was not burning, or if she was sure that the pickles were not fermenting in their jars? She also fidgeted the children about wearing india-rubbers, and keeping on their coats, and behaved altogether as if the cares of the world were on her shoulders."

Obviously talking about clothing, not stationary.

Could it be BB guns? Airsoft toys for small boys, popular post war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BB_gun

Except its an American book from the 1870s, not British.

"Katy sighed, but submitted. Later, as the Spring came on, she had a fit of over-anxiousness, and was always sending Clover down to ask Debby if her bread was not burning, or if she was sure that the pickles were not fermenting in their jars? She also fidgeted the children about wearing india-rubbers, and keeping on their coats, and behaved altogether as if the cares of the world were on her shoulders."

Ah yes agree, that's about wellies then.

This is surely about stationery tho?

"Philly had a bit of india-rubber in his letter, which was written with very black ink on a big sheet of foolscap"

So I guess it means both?

Just checked the text of What Katy Did at School and an india-rubber is given as a gift (stationery) but also Rose Red recommends the girls wear their india rubbers and an umbrella (boots).

Yes. It meant galoshes in the book, but as a British English term it means pencil erasers, which is why some of us understand the term to mean pencil erasers. The context of clothing was not apparent from your first post.

Bust bodices - old term for bras and not, as I understand it, the same as Liberty bodices (which were more like vests).

I have a friend who was a surprise baby born in the 1940s when her mother was 46, so her mother was much older than most. She recalls being taken to Harvey Nicolls in the early 1960s as a young teenager and dying with embarrassment when her mother announced loudly to the assistant "Jenny has come to be fitted for her first bust bodice", by which she definitely meant a bra.

Just laugh at yourself like the baked beans woman and move on. It's not that deep. You don't need to keep trying to justify a trivial mistake.

Yes. You've just reminded me that as a child reader I was totally puzzled by Dr Carr's instruction to Katy, on leaving her and Clover at the school, to 'Never study till your head aches.' 10 year old me thought he was telling Katy that she should wait until she had a headache before starting to study... 😀

My parents married in 1943 and when they moved into their own home after the war their furnishings, crockery, cutlery and so on were all second hand. Many items were in regular use until my mother’s death in 2000. I still have a few bits and pieces.

No, actually, that is about galoshes, too -- the joke letter is supposedly from a robber who stole Philly's galoshes from under his bed and ate them, and is now sending an uneaten fragment back to make amends. (P had had a nightmare about thieves eating his galoshes after Cousin 'School of Pain' Helen told them an overly-exciting story about robbers.)

My granny used to take her corsets off and scratch. She also had a knittted bag in her long knickers to hold her hearing aid batteries. It was the 1950s, but she was born in 1883.
My mother only wore corsets on special occasions.
The pull on pantie girdles (sic?) replaced them, but never for granny.

My second example tho - from WKDAS - must be an eraser as it was a gift - a pretty one too

Yes, context is all! They seem to have used it for anything made of rubber. I have an example, can't remember where from exactly, of its UK use for waterproof training pants, in a child's memoir that went something like "my first pair of knickers without a rubber on the top".

And on similar lines, someone making up a child's bed and "putting a rubber under the sheet" in case of accidents.

I would still say rubber for eraser and rubber gloves for cleaning; I remember rubber sheets for protecting beds. Our boots were Wellingtons or Galoshes.

My goodness, all these posts later of bickering when I said straightaway that the were galoshes! Nice to know you are listened to... (qualified WKD reader with an American family...)

Indian rubber is very specific.

In the US if you just say rubber it causes hilarity ...

I remember having to look up clothing terms like trousseau and tam o'shanter as a kid. Probably one of the Railway Children with the hat and Anne Shirley getting her trousseau together.