............to create a quiet corner.

My Liberty bodice had buttons down the front and on the hem - the latter for the attachment of suspenders for the lisle stockings I was made to wear after I'd had pneumonia in the hard winter of 1946/47. Glad it didn't occur to my mother to put me in combinations.

As for hot flushes - I didn't have many when the menopause hit me at 43, but I am getting hot sweats now as a side effect of the gradual reduction of the Prednisolone which I've been taking for 16 months.

A friend of mine has a wonderful collection of old clothes that she has collected from all over the country. She once told me she longed to find a liberty bodice for her collection.
I wonder why they were called that? Will look it up on Wiki and report back if it's interesting.

It seems they were designed to 'liberate' women from the wearing of heavily boned stays and corsets, and their manufacture/use was associated with the female emancipation movement.
In the UK they were worn by maids so they could get on with their work more easily without a corset on. Not sure if I'm pleased or cross about that.

SOOP!!!! Stop it! I thought we were mates!

Sneaky titters from behind hand, Ella

I loved my little red clogs - they made a great noise on the wooden school floors.

I can picture you Greatnan Did you have sweet little sticky-out plaits too. Bet you were so cute.

I've had a lovely day with you lot. Time for me to say goodbye. Keep safe and sound. Back with you tomorrow.

Visions of Greatnan in liberty boudice and red clogs....how am I going to get to sleep? .

I did have long plaits until I was about 13, then I had them cut as I wanted to go with my brother to watch an 'A' film (not sex, just gangsters!)
I never had a liberty bodice - I always thought they were for posh girls! We didn't have any nightwear either - we just slept in our vest and knickers and damned cold it was too. Unheated bedroom, ice on the inside of the windows in winter - I was very glad I slept with my big sister. Nothing like another body to generate warmth!

I remember ice patterns on the inside of the windows too. They were so thick you couldn't cut through them with your fingernails, but so pretty and each one unique.

Greatnan Lino on the bedroom floor, sooo cold when you got out of bed!

Lino!!!! You were really posh - we had just floorboards, which my mother scrubbed until they were white. They were good for drawing circles to play marbles. There was a little black cast-iron grate in the bedroom, but the fire was only lit if you were very, very, ill. I have to laugh when people on property programmes are raving about these 'original features' - to my mind, they just take up a useful wall.
My sister and I have wondered why our mother did not use a bit of imagination to warm our bed. I used to put my girls' sheets round the hot water tank before we got central heating, and my sister used to wrap the oven shelf in a towel to warm her boys' bed (she took it out before they got in!

I used to tip my yuckky medicine into our bedroom hearth.

Those bedroom fireplaces must have let a lot of cold air in too. I don't ever remember having a fire in one.

We certainly weren't posh though, we had hardly any furniture downstairs!

I remember the ice patterns on the windows.

We are so lucky now. (Quite right too!)

They had a "plate" that dropped down to keep the cold air back. When there was no fire, of course! Our (sixties) fireplace hasn't got that. I used to shove newspaper up to keep the cold back but, of course, used to forget it when I lit the fire! Rooms fill very quickly with smoke when the chimney is blocked!

Or, in our case, where the wind blows over the hill behind the house and straight down the "chimbly". Still does that even with a so-called anti-down draught cowl on top of the chimney (which blew off during the hurricane last winter anyway; it's somewhere in the shed now). So we have to use about half a dozen firelighters, or greasy kitchen roll, or dust out of the tumble dryer, or all three, to light the stove when the wind's from that direction. Very satisfying to get it right and not have to de-smoke the room

Don't let Nellie hear you mention firefighters, Bags...she'll be round in a trice

soop darling I was getting all excited and then saw bags had written firelighters. And now I am all sad and disappointed might have to pop in see lil

Screaming with laughter! I misread Bag's message. Sorry to disappoint you Nellie...I'll just swap my specs. Seem to be wearing an out of date pair. Well, that's my excuse.

What you like

Short-sighted and a tad batty!

Thats ok then was scared you was "normal",couldn't cope with that

Nellie I suspect that I'm becoming more abnormal with the passing of time. However, with pals like you, I'll cope.