with John Rowing
oday the design, manufacture and sale of country clothing, whether for out door or inside use, is big business. You will rarely find magazines devoted to fashion or country life without an advert of at least one
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company, often more, extolling the merits of their new outdoor clothing designs. This has not always been the case. Very few strides had been made in its development until the middle of the last century and it may be noticed that a picture of a shooting or fishing party in the 1950s, the men would not look very dissimilar from that of Edwardian times. Ladies, of course, had sensibly discarded the long skirts and are frequently seen to be wearing ‘Newmarket’ boots, of leather and canvas on their liberated legs. Nylon and silicone had yet to come onto the market. In the late 1940s and early 1950s
parachute silk made some girls’ hearts flutter and the gift of a pair nylon stockings from an American G.I. could arouse envy and in some cases suspicion. It took a long time for the austerity of wartime to disappear for resources had dropped almost to zero. Clothes, along with other commodities,
were still being rationed well after the war and a lot of ex-military clothing was worn especially by those working out of doors. Apart from servicemen returning with their uniforms many men between the ages of 16 and 60 having been members of the Home Guard retained theirs. Several useful ex-military items could be bought from the shops in provincial and market towns that normally supplied the rural working community had the advantage of not being rationed. It may seem strange
to many these days but until this ex-war department material came on the market at a reasonable price it was not unusual to see a gang of field hands working in wet weather perhaps picking sprouts, or a cowman cutting kale for cattle fodder, unenviable jobs, covered almost from head to foot in corn sacks. Ice cold water splashed down one’s neck as the thick stems of kale were cut at ground level
40 March 2011
Country clothing
and fingers, hands and arms tingled with pain as gloves and arms got soaked with water picking sprouts. Those who have never carried out these or similar tasks in harsh weather can have little idea what it was like to have worked in those conditions. These sacks were larger than those of today being capable of holding two and a quarter hundredweight of wheat. Being made of tightly woven jute the sacks were pretty waterproof and their use for this was not entirely appreciated by the farmers and corn merchants who had paid a deposit upon them to the millers.
One of these
sacks folded lengthways and worn over the head and shoulders would give a certain amount of protection not only from rain but also from the cold winds that often plagued outdoor workers. The ensemble was generally completed by another sack tied kilt-wise round the waist giving the wearer the ecclesiastical look of a cowled monk. If it did not keep the wearer completely dry it usually kept him warm providing he did not stand about. There was a country saying; ‘You have the choice of going home cold or tired’! In pre and early post World War Two years before village life was diluted by the ever-increasing influence of outsiders each village had its
quota of elderly rustics, or
old ‘Gaffers’. Many of these old gentlemen could be seen painfully hobbling along aided by one or sometimes two stout sticks, the victims of arthritis or rheumatism brought on by hours of toil and frequent days in damp clothes. Compounded perhaps by sitting next to a fire in a cottage or an inn slowly steaming themselves dry. I often think that those ex-army great coats did a lot to reduce much of the suffering
• Modern country clothing is available from Linnell Countrywear
seen in those pre and immediate post Word War Two days. The rapid change in agricultural working
practices that started in the 1940s not only changed the look of the countryside but that of those working in it. Tractors started to replace horses and slowly the lines of men and women seen in the fields hoeing, singling, or thinning out, such crops as sugar beet and mangolds were disappearing. The lines of workers themselves had been increased by the arrival of those unsung heroines of the war, the Women’s Land Army. Whatever hardships these suffered, and there were many, long hours sometimes
starting at five in the morning milking cows,
perhaps by hand,
often miles away from home with little leave. The agricultural worker in the early 1940s still only got seven days paid holiday a year which included Christmas day and Good Friday. That Friday the cottager traditionally planted his
potatoes. This was not a strange ritual it was the only time he had in which to carry out such a big job. The Land Girls were well clad. Their uniform was designed and made for the hard work they did while at the same time looking attractive. Their ‘British Warm’ a short topcoat was as stylish as that of any army officer. Their leather boots and canvas gaiters were the envy of many a farm worker both being vastly superior to the army ammunition boots and anklets and with their dark green jumpers and corduroy breeches they were fairly well equipped for the hard out door life they led. Until these days of synthetic materials it
was tweeds, moleskins, whip or Bedford cord and cavalry twill that were favoured by those country persons able to afford them for the very good reason that they had all stood the test of time. Mole-skin clothing is not made from the skins of that little black pest but so called because it has no knap, the direction in which the fibers of the cloth lie. Like the mole whose fur can be brushed in any direction, a state of affairs that helps the mole to move backwards or forwards in the constriction
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