My Life as a "Speccy Four Eyes" - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt image shows a desk strewn about with papers, a typewriter  - and  a pair of spectacles.  

My focus is on the spectacles,  for I was a "Speccy Four Eyes"  -  the popular call at my primary school in the 1950s for  those of us unfortunate enough to have to wear glasses.   I was a quiet,  shy child, but funnily enough I cannot recall being upset by the taunt - it was just part and parcel of playground culture. 

My mother was emphatic that I was not going to wear the hideous national health service glasses  with wired pale pink frames and was prepared to pay for a slightly more flattering pair.  I always made sure, though, in those early days,  that I took off my glasses for photographs.   

 

Around the age of 15,  Mum suggested I get my long hair cut professionally   - great - except we were both clueless afterwards how to style it at home.  Here I am being brave in highlighting publicly  this dreadful passport photograph, (left ) taken when I was to go on a school trip to Germany. This was the 1960's era of the Cold War and  I look  like the archetypal Russian spy.   

After five years, you could get a passport photograph updated,  and I could not wait to do this.  I took  great care on my hair and what I was wearing  -  only to be further mortified when, instead of replacing the photograph,  the new one was just stuck beneath it.  This  brought forth more family hilarity and more quizzical looks from passport control! 

 

If you were into fashion,  you could buy spectacles that came with different coloured clip ons to match your outfits - very trendy - but  I never went down that line. 

 

Graduation photographs of my bespectacled brother and myself. 

 

I became a librarian, so had to work hard at counteracting the traditional dowdy image of the profession, and wearing glasses did not help.    So here (below)  is the young professional look for my first job - worn with an (all the rage)  mini length sweater dress  and long necklace  - this was 1967.  

 

 But vanity crept in, especially when I was taking part in my   local Gilbert & Sullivan operetta productions and needed to see my way across the stage. 

 

So I turned to contact lens. They proved to be a great source of stories with friends,  as we recalled  tales of losing them.  I remember one occasion where I was scrambling around on the floor of a pew at church, (not praying) but  trying to find this miniscule lens. 

 I was pleased to be without my glasses for my wedding though!

 Pregnancy and being an "at home" Mum meant I lost the incentive to bother with inserting, cleaning, and removing contact lens - I had trouble getting used to them again and I reckoned I had better things to do with my time, so it was back to spectacles.  

                                   With my daughter, 1973 

We were now at the time on TV of Dallas, Dynasty and Charlie's Angels, with big hair, big shoulder pads and big glasses - hence this rare look for me taken for a work Annual Report. Less glamorously, I was also likened to Deidre Barlow of "Coronation Street" soap opera fame, known for her huge specs! 

 This look was too much hard work  - I gave up on perms but not on my glasses.

 And Finally:

                      A Happy Double "Speccy Four Eyes" !

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity  

to share their family history through photographs

 

 

 

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spotted in this week's prompt photograph.

 

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