"When I first put this uniform on........! Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a group of schoolgirls in the uniform  of the 1920s/30s.   It made me look back at my own life in Uniform and immediately came to mind the lines of the song in  Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "Patience" where the soldiers' chorus proudly sing:                                             

 "When I first put this uniform on,

I said as I  looked in the glass......." ".

 

 

There was not a strict uniform at my primary school, but I was desperate to wear a gymslip.  My mother did not like them, but eventually I got one handed down from my cousin Josie,  and i wore  the striped school tie and the red girdle round my waist, feeling I had stepped into one of the school stories I  loved to read. 

   

 

 My hair in pigtails with red ribbons.

 I am second from the right on the second row, with my hair tied in plaits with ribbons, next to the little boy kneeling in the striped pullover.  A typical 1950s style of dress and hair. 

 

When I started secondary school (girls only) in Blackpool,  the uniform had just had its first major change since pre war times.     For the first two years,  we wore short pleated navy "Windsor Woolie" skirts,  with braces - made by a local firm, and still very "little girlish".    I certainly cannot see any self-respecting  12 year old wearing such a style  today!  Unlike the pudding basin hats  or berets of other schools in the town,  we felt very smart and modern  in a  pillbox style hat  - navy with a narrow sky blue band  round it. a fringe at the side and a metal school badge.   I was so proud of that hat!  My mother said she felt seasick sewing the school summer dress - it was sky blue again,  highly patterned with with lots of white sea motifs and waves  - as befitted a school in  a seaside resort.   

 

We moved across country and my next school uniform seemed extremely dowdy in comparison  - long navy pleated skirts, and a  navy beret which sat like a flat pancake on my head (hair now in a pony tail).    You were expected to wear the beret at all times to and from school - major rule breaker if you were spotted without it. . Unfortunately  I have no photograph of myself in these school uniforms. 

 

Shop jobs during my university holidays meant wearing a shapeless, dowdy, usually grey  overall, circa 1950s style.  It was always far too long for me, so the priority was to get it home after my first day and shorten  the hem - after all this was the 1960's and the era of the miniskirt!

Onto my work in tourist information centres in the Scottish Borders - it was the 1980's when kilts were then a fashion statement, so for the first time at work  I wore an attractive  uniform -  a kilt in the mid blue/green of the local Douglas tartan.   However kilts became too expensive as a uniform item, and we later had pencil skirts - but still in tartan.  Men on the staff were just given a tartan tie, so the women had the better deal. 

Uniform  fashions have changed so much  and the trend now is very casual - purple polo shirts and grey fleeces - with no sign of tartan.  Whoever chose grey must have been colour blind  - to think  that it provided a good welcoming first impression to visitors,  when so much of Scotland is often sitting  under grey skies!   I am glad I worked  in earlier times in a uniform that made me feel smart and professional.  

Onto wearing a uniform for leisure  - my first being as a Brownie  and wearing the brown tunic dress,  and a yellow folded tie,  which very practically could become a bandage or sling  - I was never called upon to use it in that way!  In the Guides,  I  graduated to a blue blouse worn with my navy school skirt,  and  red folded tie, as I was in the Scarlet Pimpernel Patrol. 

 

No photographs, but I did knit a Brownie doll for my daughter when she joined the local group - no longer the large tie but a small collar tab.

 

 

Being  a junior dancer in Staining Gala - an annual community event in my village - gave the pleasure of a different "uniform"  each year .  

 

 

Here we gathered in the church hall for a photograph, prior to our outdoor performance.   I am the little one  fifth back on the left.  We were obviously very well trained, all  standing the same way - heels together, toes turned out,  and skirts held out at the same angle.   Our dresses were apple green satin,  with silver cardboard headdresses and our shepherd crooks garlanded with crepe paper flowers. For me, the  worst aspect was the torture the night before of having my hair put into rags, in the hope I would end up with ringlets the next day.  

I am the front row far left.

Looking back, this was c.1952,  not long after the war, with people still having to put up with rationing, but the gala days were a great tribute to community efforts, and my mother, as the local dressmaker, was heavily involved in making the costumes.   I was delighted to wear this dress as my uniform for the day,  and  which was  later destined to be my party dress for the year. 

Back to the white blouses and dark skirts of the prompt photograph:   Below is  the alto section of the choir I sang in for nearly 40 years - the Roxburgh Singers -  I am on the back row - second left.  This photograph was taken before  our performance of Handel's  "The Messiah",  c.1978 - the first time it had been performed in my small town for a very long time, so was quite a momentous occasion.

Two decades later, it  was decided that our long black skirts, white blouses of our own style and varying shades of whiteness   were not smart enough and we needed to up our game.  The result was  an outfit of  still the black skirt, and a black camisole top worn  with an over blouse of  jade green - I was happy as jade was one of my favourite colours. But what happened?  No sooner had we all bought these, then  amateur choirs starting adopting the more casual,  look of black trousers for women and self-coloured long sleeve blouses.    But we kept our formal look.

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 

       to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

Click HERE

to read more from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

A Wartime Family History Tribute

 I have written before on my blog about my father's wartime experiences.  Dad, John P. Weston,  served in the RAF as a Code and Cipher Clerk in a Special Liaison Unit ,  attached to the 12th US Army, led by General Bradley.  

For Christmas my daughter gave me a unique present  - she sponsored a brick in her grandfather's name,  on a new Codebreaker Wall at Bletchley Park, north of London,  which became the centre for British code breaking operations  during the Second World War - and is now a visitor attraction and museum.

 

Dad  often talked about this experiences  and I am afraid it did provoke the reaction “Not the war again, Dad”. We also used to joke about him being in the Intelligence Branch.  But later we came to realise what a defining period it was in his life.

I persuaded my father  to write down his memories and Dad's own words form the basis of this family history narrative supplemented by letters written to my mother  in 1944 and photographs from the family collection. 

It was only much later that I came to realize that Dad's sometimes lighthearted style was a sanitised version  that masked the awful wartime scenes he must have witnessed. 

I did send away (at some cost) to the Ministry of Defence  for Dad's service record, but it proved to be a disappointing contribution to this story, being little more than a list of dates and meaningless abbreviations.    As the covering letter said  "The record was compiled at the time of his service and contains very little detail of his postings and movements".  

 

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Dad was calleded for an interview with Group Captain Fred Winterbotham where he was told  "You are being considered for a very secret job".  

 

 

Dad was appointed to the Special Liaison Unit for training at Bletchley Park and the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, London. He was seconded to General Bradley's US 12th Army Group and in June 1944 was with them when they landed at Omaha Beach  just after D Day.  

"On the Monday morning we zig-zagged our way across the Channel  (to avoid enemy submarines)  and arrived off the beach at around 11pm, some distance off our landing point.  Sporadic  bombing went on during the night from high level German bombers. We slept where we could on the craft.  Just as dawn was breaking,  at 04.00am the captain started up the engines (there was quite a roar) and we moved in  fast to the beach.  The ramp was dropped, we drove off and we were in France!  

 

The first night I slept in a tent  but during the night it poured down and my sleeping bag was in two inches of water.    I had a brief time off and went into the village. I saw some small bottles of brandy in a shop – and not much else, so I bought the lot (16 bottles) – they cost around 1/8 (under current 10p.) a bottle!

 

We made our way to a little village near a copse – Laval. It had rained heavily and became very humid. In a clearing the GIs had set up trestle tables to hand out meals. We had portioned trays, but the Americans just had billycans to hold the meal of chicken and peaches. There were millions of wasps committing suicide in the fruit juice.........." 

 

In a letter home dated 27th August 1944, he wrote "We went through Le Mans, and Chartres to Versailles - very little damage.  We set up shop there and we had a good hotel with peaches growing outside my bedroom window, but I could not reach them!

 

 Onto Paris, where Dad was stationed at Versailles and experienced a warm welcome from Parisians. 

"I was stopped by a Frenchman who said in English “RAF Sir? My name is Joseph Calmy. I was the Shell agent here before the war”. I offered him cigarettes and he then invited me to a building and gave me a bag full of Chanel perfume, toiletries, powder and cream – it lasted Mum for years. I flew back with it when I got some leave in March ‘45.  We ended up in a café and went through some rush curtains into a back room. In a few minutes a man and a woman came in carrying a bag, which they unloaded to reveal eggs, butter, meat, grapes and champagne. I had a meal of steak with a large bunch of grapes.  When we came to leave it was as if I was walking on air – I floated out of the café!"

 

Dated on the reverse in Dad's writing
Paris - Sept. 12th 1944

From Paris,  Dad moved onto Luxembourg where he became friendly with a former member of the government and they remained in contact for many years.  

 

  "We had a good hotel and were able to buy some very good cakes in the town. I became friendly  with a former member of the government [Mr Battin]  and was invited to his house. He produced champagne from his cellar and served them with lovely cakes with kirsch in them".

 

 Conditions were much tougher once the troops moved north. 

"It was now December 1944 and bitterly cold – lots of ice and snow. Out of the blue at 4a.m. on December 16^th came a major attack on the American front.  It was pandemonium...... This was the Battle of the Bulge.  We carried thermite bombs in a safe in our operations vehicle to be used to destroy our codebooks and machines. We had rifles fully loaded with us at all times.......Anyone moving around that night not giving the correct password (which was Betty Gable), was shot on the spot......The weather did improve somewhat. We were dropped supplies of food and more important the GIs got further weapons and ammo. supplies. At one stage we  were being served up five boiled sweets for one meal!"

 

This meal of five boiled sweets became an often repeated,  apocryphal family story.

 

The advance on Germany continued

 

"We cracked a signal from von Runstedt to Hitler, which read, “Our troops are exhausted, we have little fuel, we are retreating”. After this we moved north of Luxembourg to Malmedy on the west bank of the Rhine...  On March 7^th 1945, there was great excitement in our operations vehicle. We learned that a railway bridge across the Rhine at Remagen was still intact – the charges had failed to explode. A US infantry battalion rushed across the bridge to the east bank.

 

I crossed into Germany at Trier. I recall that vividly. Patton’s tanks were ahead of us and were nearing the Rhine. His engineers threw a pontoon bridge across and we followed. I was driving our operations vehicle – there were GIs on the bridge with machine guns, urging me to push on quickly in case of air attack. We made it and an hour later drove into Wiesbaden to what had been the Luftwaffe’s former HQ.

It was then April 1945.

 

"V-Day arrived. The GIs went wild, but we took it all quietly, with coffee and doughnuts from the Red Cross post – very very nice!”

 

From Germany, Dad was posted to the Far East. " In Burma things were moving to a close.  I was there at the ceremony in Rangoon when the Japanese capitulated.  I was based at the university.  We were always short of tea, which seemed odd in that part of the world, but there was plenty of cocoa.  I also had a ration of one bottle of gin and one of lime  juice a month.  I used to drink that under my mosquito net at night watching the insects run up and down the wall". 

 

 

"I had a short break in Bombay before sailing on the "City of Asia" for home.  I was in charge of a deck of some 200 men.  We eventually arrived at Liverpool on Christmas Day and went to a camp at Birkenhead.  Then I caught a train to Blackpool and arrived home by taxi at 2pm. 

 

"One of the first things I did was to cradle you in my arms – you were shy – no wonder!"  MY WAR HAD ENDED!"

 

 

 

This has been  a very enjoyable and at times moving project to read again Dad's own words and create a post on his war memories.   I am now even more proud that my daughter has made this further tribute to her grandfather by adding his name to the Bletchely Park Codebreakers Wall.  

 

 

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Copyright © 2025 · Susan Donaldson.  All Rights Reserved

Two's Compamy - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a couple side by side.  So take a look at photographs on the theme of "Two's Company."

 

One of the oldest photographs in my family collection of my great grandparents Matilda Such and James Matthews  of Wolverhampton in the English Midlands. 

James (1843-1918) was a man of many parts –  a third son in a large family; under hand roller, underhand shingler and hollow fireman  at an iron works;  a complete change of occupation to that of insurance agent and also shopkeeper; with his wife Matilda, parent to ten children,  and a prominent member of the local Methodist church where he was choir conductor. ]

My great grandmother’s childhood proved to be a challenging research task, complicated by the fact Matilda (1849-1929)  was  the  third illegitimate child of her namesake  mother, whose supposed marriages have not been verified. 

 

 Not family, but a charming photograph in the collection of my great aunt Jennie Danson who had numerous photographs of her friends.

 

Jennie's nieces  - standing my mother Kathleen Danson, born 1908 with her older sister Edith, born 1907.

Someone has been busy knitting here - cousins from the Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire.  

A happy  wartime image of my parents Kathleen Danson,  and John Weston who served in the RAF as a code and cipher clerk. 

Two wartime  pictures of my Aunt Peggy Danson who served in the WAAFs (Women's Auxiliary Air Force)  - firstly with her mother (my grandmother Alice English) and again with a friend.

 

 

With my mother in 1971

 

  

January 1975  and a birthday photograph of my daughter -  snow at one stage seemed to be a constant  feature of her birthdays and played havoc with  party arrangements.   The weather here is much the same today as I write this! 

        Helping Daddy unload the logs - granddaughter in 2010.

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 
to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

Click HERE to read more from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

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Christmas Greetings to all my blog readers and thank you so much for your support over the year.

Christmas Greetings to all my blog readers and thank you so much for your support over the year.

With photographs of Christmas Lights in Earlston and Edinburgh

 

 

A First World War Greetings Card 

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My Christmas Card Scrapbooks: Sepia Saturday

I am taking a look this week  at one of my favourite post-Christmas activities - compiling a Christmas Card scrapbook. 

Firstly vintage cards in my collection :  

The postcard above, sent in 1877, was in the collection of my third cousin,  Janet, who made contact with me through the Genes rRunited website - we went onto exchange family memorabilia. The verse on the card reflects the rather Victorian maudlin sentiment of the time, but it is still a lovely picture.

This lovely German Christmas card came from the my husband's family.   His uncle Mattie married a German girl in the 1950's.   

 Another continental card - this time from France, courtesy of cousin Stuart.  

 

A charming little card I picked up in an antique shop.  

 

 

And below two of the many cards sent  back from Flanders Field in World WAr One by my grandfather to his family 1917 and 1918.

 

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My Scrapbook Project

It  seems  a shame to bin so many lovely images on Christmas Cards  that I have come up with my own way of retaining tmy favourite  cards for future pleasure. 

I  began doing this years ago when my daughter was small, with  "Gillian's Christmas Scrapbook" was a way of conveying the Christmas story and traditions in a strong visual style and displaying  cards that had been especially sent to her.  I hand-wrote the words as this was long before the days of computers. The scrapbook came out of the cupboard every Christmas to look through and reminiscence over  and  it became part of  our family tradition, one continued with my granddaughter. 

 

 

Many  years down the line, I had a growing  pile   of cards that I had refused to throw out, so I created something similar in a more adult version calling it "Christmas Kaleidoscope"- annotated this time by the computer, which of course made a huge difference to the style of presentation. 

 

 

 

By then I had the bug, so the next year it was "A Christmas Anthology",  using the cards to illustrate poems, songs and literature relating to Christmas.     

 

 

 

My next project, spread over two scrapbook,  was "A Christmas A-Z"   focusing on a  wide range of aspects of the Christmas story.  What would I do without the internet to help with history and definitions!

 I  do mean to stop - but already my mind is on the next edition  - perhaps looking at the stories behind Christmas carols.  

Since I began, scrapbooking, it  has become  a sophisticated hobby, but I have kept to  a very simple style with  the focus on the illustrations.

So to anyone who sent me a card, it continues to give pleasure long after the 12 days of Christmas have past. You never know, I might have created a family heirloom collection. 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers 
to share their family history through photographs

 

Click HERE to read more Christmas memories

from other Sepia Saturday bloggers. 

 

 

 

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