Paper Petticoats

by Maggie B Dickinson


There was a time when I carried a tape measure in my handbag and whipped it out when Teddy Boys approached me for a date. If the bottom of their drainpipe trousers had a circumference of over 17” they didn’t stand a chance – Elvis look-alikes or not. 

My reputation was at stake here as my own drainpipes were tailor-made in gabardine to my own specifications. As stretch fabrics hadn’t been invented, and gabardine was peevish in terms of give and take, zips had been inserted to allow my feet to get through the bottoms and into my thick crepe-soled shoes (yes, girls wore them too). 

These drainpipes caused a stir wherever I went for they were not dissimilar to the black leggings worn by Sandy in Grease and consequently they were long before their time. With hindsight I expect the drainpipes, accessorized by a large combat jacket, half a ton of mascara and eyeliner, and a Gina Lollobrigida hairdo, gave the impression of a gangster’s Moll. And talking of Grease, once I’d donned this gear, my persona became very much like that of Sandy’s high school chum Rizzo, admirably portrayed by Stockard Channing.

Nothing lasts, especially extreme fashion, and by the late 1950s I had met my fiancée and undergone a complete makeover. The Teddy gear had been cast aside in favor of girly frocks and I teetered along in very high stiletto shoes which, in my old age, I do not hesitate to blame for odd-shaped feet, strange toenails, and arthritic ankles.

Gone too was our hero James Dean. His passing had caused fans like me a tremendous amount of angst for he’d stood up to be counted as a rebel against parents who, in the western world, were hell bent on spoiling our fun. Now he wasn’t around any more to lead us into temptation.

In the second half of the fifties, music of a romantic genre came to the fore once again. Suddenly we English Teddy Girls were reverting to frocks that were antipodal to pencil skirts, in terms of hemline circumference, in that you wore not one but several “paper petticoats” underneath. They were made of extremely stiff taffeta and were double-starched to push the skirt of the dress out at such an angle that on a Saturday night our local dance hall appeared to have been invaded by fugitives from a performance of Swan Lake ballet.

The photograph showing my favourite late-fifties dress, was taken at a hotel in Torquay just prior to a group of us imbibing in several glasses of Babycham, a sparkly alcoholic drink still in its infancy at that time. When served in proper Babycham stemmed glasses (as per the photograph), with Mantovani’s orchestra playing on the music system, we came dangerously near to the peak of sophistication. Sitting there all ladylike with the yards of fabric flounced over crossed legs, which ended in smart white high heels, we were a million miles from our former antics when we had rocked all night to the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. Cool, that’s what it was, cool Daddy-o as we were fond of saying because of the 1957 tune by Bill Varley and Wally Whyton called “Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O”.

Two years prior to the Torquay holiday, which I took with my fiancée, I’d spent a riotous break on the Isle of Man. Several hundred teenagers descended there in the first week of July for the annual holiday, notably from Scotland, Ireland and the north west coast of England because Glasgow, Belfast and Burnley shared the same holiday period. The island, in the middle of the choppy Irish Sea, was accessed by boats on which most of us were violently sick. But it was worth it because this was serious holidaying for it was tantamount to going to foreign climes in those days, because as all three cultures had difficulty in understanding each other’s accents we might as well have been on another planet anyway.

If the Isle of Man had been heavily invaded by rock and roll, Torquay in 1959 hosted waltzers and smoochers who patronized its upmarket hotels. The establishment in which we stayed was extremely demure, with beautiful and extensive grounds and snobby staff (who should have worn white coats). Clearly they weren’t enamored at having a group of young people under their roof and in an effort to keep us in check and not raise our libidos through music, they played Pat Boone long-playing records at every single meal (and we were on full board, I might add). By the end of the holiday I never wanted to hear “Friendly Persuasion” ever again for in the space of a fortnight they had turned a former loose cannon into the prototype of a Stepford Wife.


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