Prudish 60s

Isn't it odd how we couldn't use the right words. We didn't even say the word (whispers).... period!

Oh these posts bring back embarrassing memories. My mum used to call periods ‘happy days’ (as in, I found out years later ‘glad not to be pregnant’). Cringeworthy!

Also on starting a posh grammar school at 11y we were given a booklet to read over the summer holiday called ‘The Facts of Life.’ All about bluddy fruit flies! And eggs and sperms.

No help, no understanding of any of it.

I didn’t have my first period until I was 14y. A sanitary belt with a soft cotton house brick to loop onto it. I felt like John Wayne walking down the stairs from the bathroom!

When I was 10, we acquired a girl puppy. When she first came on heat, my mum took the opportunity to explain periods to me. At least she explained what would happen, not why it happened. We had a film at school, sponsored, I think, by Kotex which explained the biology only to a year group of girls. I doubt if it was shown to the boys.

When I first started my nurse training in 1963 we had a talk in the classroom from the Lillets lady.
She told us she had the hospital matron's permission to tell us about tampons and that she(the matron) approved of us using them.
We were all at least eighteen years old although none of us were married.In a few weeks time we would be caring for patients and their intimate details but had to have matron's approval on how we dealt with our own periods.

John Wayne image hilarious!

It was the 50s rather than the 60s, but as a child of maybe 8 I was very puzzled as to why - when I knew a baby grew inside the mother - a neighbour's son was the absolute spit of his father.

When I asked my mother how that could be, she said she couldn't tell me until I was older, because it was 'rather revolting'. So that puzzled me even more! Presumably she though I'd find it 'revolting' - I well remember a friend telling me how her own 8 ish dd asked her to confirm what she'd heard - was it true???
Well, yes.
And did you and daddy do that to get me?
Well, yes, we did.
Long pause. 'YUUUCCK!!!'

It was a relief to me to find out the truth at last from a friend - I was probably about 10. 'Oh, so THAT'S how it happens!'

Once my periods began my mother handed me a pamphlet saying "Read it, don't do it!".

That is the one and only time in my life she has ever referred to anything 'biological', and that includes giving birth, the menopause, screening programmes etc. Good job I've never relied on her for info!

When I started my first period at 13 I was in shock didn't know what was happening to me. The next morning my Dad came in my bedroom to see me and said I believe you are a woman now then walked out, lol I was so embarrassed.

My mother never told me about sex. When I was 16 she pushed a book at me called 'Married Love'. One sentence sticks in my mind - 'on your wedding night put a towel under you to soak up the blood.' !!

At school in the 60's, we were shown a film on periods and (very basic) sex; I must have been about 10. The previous week we had to take a note home for our parents to sign, saying that they agreed to this. Out of a class of 20, all girls, only six were shown the film and yes, I was one of them! My mother called it "Having Mrs Harris to stay" , godknows why.
On another note, my husband wouldn't buy me tampons even when in a supermarket with a weeks worth of other stuff in the trolley. As soon as I added them, he went to sit in the car - and would never listen to any conversation /passing remark about periods. He was a total prat.

I remember going to the doctor and asking for the contraceptive pill. This was in the 1970s.

I was questioned long and hard by the doctor about whether I was engaged (I was) and was the wedding date set (it was for a year's time).

I was sent off to come back only a month or so before the wedding date!

I went to the family planning clinic the next day.

Maybelle same for me . GP. knew my husband's parents (in 1969)but when we bought our house we introduced ourselves to the local gp who cheerfully wrote me a prescription. Really dark ages weren't they? My friend couldn't go into boots and buy sts - I had to go for her! In our village Miss Fergie had a drapery shop and she would wrap things neatly in brown paper which to be honest were very obviously what they were.

I think it's one of the great things about being older. People assume you'll be prudish and easily offended when in actual fact I've done stuff in the past that the average 25 year old would never consider.

Draper's shop not drapery.

I do errands for a lady as she cant get out n about, she rang me and asked could I possible go and buy her some KY jelly .... I just couldn't summon up courage to go in chemist(should have gone self service at supermarket but hadn't time) (Im 64) lol so sent Daughter in

More laughs. Lol.
You coward Bikergran!?

lol thats me lol. I work on a checkout at well know supermarket, when I first started this male came through and I picked this smallish packet up and started reading the box...
I said "Oh I've not seen these before" !! (thinking they were a little box of sweets , bit like those poppets) as I was reading I realised they were some new brand of Condoms "feels like skin" or something like that, I quickly slip them down the checkout and as he was leaving I said "Have a good weekend not meaning "Have a GOOD weekend" ( I sometimes wish I had a trap door beneath my checkout) lol

I used to read my mum's women's magazines and had decided, long before I really understood about periods, that I would use tampons because the adverts said how convenient and easy they were.
I did do that, too.
I don't remember my mum telling me anything, but she did give me a little booklet when I was about 11.

I suppose my parents were fairly liberated, looking back. Periods and sanitary towels weren't something I ever remember addressing with my Dad but Mum was certainly open about it. I can remember Mum being up early in the morning burning her used towels in the grate before anyone else was up and about (or so she thought).
On a slightly separate theme - I remember going on holiday when I was about eleven to a self-catering cottage in Walton-on-the-Naze with my family. On our first day, being pretty curious, I reached up to the top of a kitchen cupboard (I was quite tall even then) to look inside a container that was there. Inside it were a couple of packets of Durex which my parents had obviously put there out of reach (!).
My Mum was pretty red-faced and cross with me for being nosey but both Mum and Dad had a good laugh about it when they thought I was out of earshot.
Who'd have kids eh?

I've never been a prude but my parents were. However, it was actually my dad who was delegated to tell me I had to wear sanitary towels when I woke up with blood or poo in my pyjamas; I wasn't sure which when I was 12 ! He didn't explain why though and I had no idea.

I swore never to be like that so my kids, husband ( when I had one), grandchildren, the dog and the cat are all welcome to follow me in the toilet etc. and watch anything I may do there .

I have a friend who I have known since 1970 who called her periods her 'friend' as in 'my friend is here". She still does refer to them as that, although obviously her 'friend' doesn't visit now!

My mother called them "bunnies" I always thought it was just her.

I went into our local little supermarket age 15 to buy some Sts. A boy I had a real crush on came up to me with a basket and said right what shopping are you getting, let me help. The embarrassment of it just sent running out of the shop.

I too remember that brick hammock Urmonstongran, really thick, with loops and a sanitary belt. Wearing something like that is why I have always been repelled by the idea of thongs as you sometimes see the waist band peeking above trousers; it looks too like a sanitary belt to me! My mum didn't really tell me much other than telling me 'you are a woman now' when I started my periods, and advising me to throw the used towels, carefully wrapped, into the solid fuel boiler. I don't remember where and when STs were bought, but as Mum worked and would do most of the shopping on her own, I assume she just bought them in the small supermarket. I do remember a wool shop nearby though, which sold them, isn't it funny how those shops were always run by a 'Miss'?

I have heard horror stories about the brick hammocks, but I've never actually seen one in real life, nor have I used them. Mum told my sister and me that she only ever used them in hospital when she had babies, as that's what the staff had on hand at the time. (This was in the mid-80s to mid-90s; I am the oldest of six.) By the time I began doing maternity work as a nurse, we didn't even have belts and pads anymore - we just had large stick-on pads and elastic underwear for the mums.

I have used thicker stick-on pads in the past, and let me say, I am SO grateful for the ultra-thin but super-absorbent ones we have now!