Throughout Threads of Tooting we hosted pop up workshops and digital call outs to collect memories of the tailoring industry. Snippets of memories were placed together by our team to look for clues in how people’s shopping experience changed over time.

When the memories are placed together, we can see how shopping experiences changed over time – in terms of relationships with customers, cost, fabrics and more. Take a look at some of our favourites.

“I had my suits made by both Krett’s and Barnes from the age of 16 (whilst still at school, and throughout my teenage and early 20’s) They were both high quality tailors, requiring at least two fittings per suit. The Krett brothers had two shops and fitting rooms. In the early 1950s, one could buy a man’s suit for about 2.10 shillings. My first Krett suit cost 14 Guineas. I still possess wooden coat hangers with labels from both tailors still affixed.” Brian Stanley

“I used to have my suits made by John Barnes, the other bespoke tailor was Krett’s. Both were regarded as excellent tailors. I had my first suit made in 56/57, it cost 16 guineas… I remember it well, I was about 17/18 at the time. It cost about a month’s wages. My father thought I was mad but a well cut suit was always admired. Over the next 10 years I had several suits made by John Barnes and was always delighted. Getting married and having children put severe crimp in my walking about money. I’ve often considered going back to Tooting for a suit, I doubt John Barnes is still there, I dread to think how much a suit of that quality would cost now.” Tony Coates

“I used to have shirts made in the 60s at a tailors in Selkirk Road. I supplied the fabric. I cant remember the names of the tailor or fabric shop. I used to have a Saturday job in Burton’s on Tooting Broadway, taking down measurements for suits – 15 shillings a day salary.” Andrew Morgan

“There was a lady in Totterdown Road, called Lily, she made me a beautiful dress and coat – I wish I had it now. She was working as an individual rather than in a shop. I had it made for a wedding, I called to her house, took a pattern, got measured up and we chatted. I then went to buy the material, a beautiful blue, heavy, cotton fabric. It was my best outfit, so 60s in style and I loved it. It was real quality and cut.” Marie Best

“Clothes shops? I remember Silver’s men’s clothes shop. It was one of those places that always had a sale on. 365 days of the year there would be a “sale”. I remember Chelsea Girl being the most popular women’s clothing shop. Chelsea Girl was really in tune with the times and what people wanted. It was the era of the mini skirt.” Roger

“My husband had his wedding suit made at Krett’s in ’69.” Rita

“My dad had a couple of tonic mohair suits made at Krett’s. I worked in Alexandre the Tailors (next to Chelsea Girl) as a Saturday and holiday job for a few years in the 70’s The manager then was a guy from Mitcham called Roger Greenstreet. The cashier was Mrs Betty Rusha.” Tom Hewitt

“I had a grey herringbone suit made at John Barnes – someone burnt a cigarette hole in the back while I was in the pictures. I remember going for the fitting, you would have gone back twice and I think I paid about £15-20 which was a lot of money. I was earning about £6 a week.” Terry Parleton

“My mother was a mistress seamstress for an haute couture clothes designer and when she had me and my sister stopped working in Central London and got a job in a cloth shop in Tooting Market. She was always bringing home off cuts of material from which she would buy her own clothes but would always buy clothes for me and my sister. She was amazing to watch with paper design pieces all over the floor from which she would cut and create. We were taught from young how to sew and darn, which type of stitch to use but we were never allowed near her sewing machine. I remember coming home from school one day with a hole in my sock and darning it before mum got home.” Keith

“My husband always had his suits tailor made. He went to John Barnes, Krett’s and George Wilde.” Shirley

“I had a Saturday job at Jackson’s the Tailors in Tooting. Every Saturday we sold about five made-to-measure (bespoke) suits! It was the done thing in those days! Loved the job! The branch manager was a, let’s say, experienced gentleman, Mr Lawrence. The tills were becoming computerised, which he didn’t understand, so I had to ‘till up’ at the end of the day! Well this was the mid-70s.” Michael Walker

“I remember going to Smith Brothers, Woolworths, and Chelsea Girl which mum liked. And there was this place next door to the Library I used to go to a lot. Can’t remember the name of it.” Geoff

“I’d go in Martin Ford – loved it. Fantastic shop, Martin Ford. It was mostly women’s clothes, roll neck jumpers, ribbed things, and I’d be like, “oh I like that orange one”, something like that. I remember having a suit when I first started work and it was like a dark background with turquoise, crisscross stuff on it. It was lovely, it was. Smith Brothers was where Morley’s is now, and oh god, it was just like “Are You Being Served?”! They had the glass-fronted drawers and that. It was seen as an old-fashioned shop for older ladies.” Jill

A memory of Krett’s sparked off the original idea for Threads of Tooting. A local resident had a fleeting memory of Jewish tailors bringing sharp suits and the tailoring trade to Tooting. Research confirmed that Krett’s & Sons was listed in the business directory at 159, Upper Tooting Road. It was listed until 2008 when the shop closed.

Krett’s & Sons provided Tooting residents with made to measure suits and more for over 70 years. So it was no surprise that we were inundated with memories. Krett’s was a go to place for made to measure suits. Val’s dad bought his suit there for Ron and Val’s wedding. Our team met another Tooting resident at a pop up workshop who also remembers buying his wedding suit from Krett’s.

“Kretts was the smartest tailor in Tooting at the time. It only took two weeks from measurements to completion.”

Our researchers uncovered material that illustrated the Jewish heritage running through tailoring businesses post war in Tooting.

“She found that the Jewish tailors, active in the 60s, were instrumental in the mods and rockers fashion – most were supplied and fitted by Jewish tailors in Tooting.” Ron reflects on his wife Val getting involved in research.

Some of the memories highlight how being made to measure offered an opportunity to have a bespoke item of clothing made for you, comparable to off-the-peg.

“In 1960, when I was 18 years old, I asked Krett’s to make me a suit (I chose them because I lived opposite their shop in Mitcham Rd and I often admired the suits in their shop window). I was very specific about an Edwardian style and gave them a drawing of what I wanted, it showed the lapels on the waistcoat, turnback cuffs on the sleeves, and various other fashion requirements. They were amazed that someone had made a drawing for them to work to and asked if they could keep it after the suit was made. They made a very good job of tailoring.” Kit

The memories provide a sense of the artistry that went into tailoring. This is further illuminated in these wonderful pictures donated by local people.

– COMING SOON –

“My dad had a couple of tonic mohair suits made at Krett’s. I worked in Alexandre the Tailors (next to Chelsea Girl) as a Saturday and holiday job for a few years in the 70s. The manager then was a guy from Mitcham called Roger Greenstreet. The cashier was Mrs Betty Rusha.”

By the 1970s there was a rise in casual clothing and brands were popping up on the High Street offering a range of clothing in a variety of colours, patterns and fabrics.

Big stores like M&S were popping up in high streets like Tooting. Over the 70s and 80s they were developing new products like machine washable lambswool and 1980s ‘Dallas style’ power suits for women. They used their resources to bring in Italian designer Angelo Vitucci to consult to the menswear group. Vitucci had set up his own fashion house, Angelo Roma, where he had tailored suits for Roger Moore, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Curtis amongst others. By 1972 M&S were trialling Suit Departments in their stores.

So technological innovation in the sewing industry and the rise of high street chains made it possible to make and sell ready to wear clothes that felt comparable to made to measure items.

The tailoring industry was changing and no longer was a necessity – it became something of a luxury to get a ready to made item.

“Krett’s, I’m afraid, was way out of reach for a normal working lad like me. I used either Burtons or John Collier who made made to measure suits – relatively inexpensive but very good. I was always pleased with the results. Burtons made my wedding suit in 1967. Very pleased I was too.” Malcolm

Or, it was to remain a love affair for some people who would continue to make their own clothes at home.

During Threads of Tooting, a group of young people explored how the fashion industry and technology has shaped the way they grow up.

Let’s turn back the dial and look at how fashion used to be advertised. Here are a selection of advertisements from local papers of the time that inspired our conversations about the fashion world.

I know… I think… I wonder…

The research from Tooting Threads inspired a range of workshops and projects for children and young people. We used heritage to write poetry and create art. Heritage inspired a play by teenagers reflecting ethical questions about the world they wanted to inherit. Here are three mini workshops to try in the classroom.

Listen to an oral history – read Sylvie’s Story together.

Discussion

Ask the children to consider how we know so much about Sylvia. Is this written by Sylvia or has someone asked her questions?

• Discuss how the story came about (oral history)
• Identify how questions can help us conduct and oral history.
• What did they find out that a history book couldn’t tell them?

Statue Circle

Ask the children to make a statue of something they remember doing:

• on the weekend
• in the Easter Holidays
• on their last birthday
• in Year 1
• in their earliest memory

Draw attention to particular statues and invite children to ask questions provoked by Who/ What/ Where/ When/ Why. Consider writing up different questions.

TV Interviews

Invite children to work in pairs. Children practice interviewing their partner about the first item of clothing they can remember liking.

Plenary

Children share what they learnt and which questions helped them find out the most detail.

Option: Write up the questions so the children are able to conduct oral histories with people at home.

WORKSHOP 2:
Identifying different types of heritage

Read The Magic Threads together.

Drama Game

Children work in small groups and make images with their bodies to represent elements of heritage in the story e.g. a photograph / an object / a building.

Discussion

Ask groups to discuss what they have in common and how they might have linked to Benjamin. Introduce the idea of heritage vs history.

I know… I think… I wonder…

Split children into small groups and offer each group a page(s) from the book & ask them to identify what might be considered heritage. Complete the following sentence about it (individually or collectively)

I know…

I think…

I wonder…

Plenary

Invite children to identify different forms of heritage in the book & what they feel they know and what they wonder about.

Development

There are a variety of options now. Children could write an extract from Benjamin’s diary. Or, they could make a piece of art that represents an artefact in the attic. They could also research an area of interest.

WORKSHOP 3:
Write a Poem Inspired by Photos

Look at Photos

Invite children to work in pairs and choose a photograph from our gallery that they think is interesting.

Partner Talk

In pairs, discussing clothes worn in the photos – what do they know/think/wonder about the person in the photo? Can they think of a title for the poem – a single word or short phrase would work well.

Mind Mapping

Write down any words, phrases, images or emotions they associate with the photo and the title. Ask them to not use any of the same words as the title or name the thing that they are describing.

Instant Poems

Using their mind maps, take it in turns to add a line each to create an instant poem.

Perform

Host a poetry performance!

Plenary

Discuss what we have learnt from writing and listening to poetry from the photos.

Looking for more ways to use heritage in the classroom? Email us for printer-friendly resources on:

– Poetry and heritage
– Building a mini museum in your classroom
– History study resources – expanded stories and photos of the tailors in Tooting
– Conducting oral histories
– Devising performance from oral history
– Devising performance from heritage
– Using tailoring and textiles in history, ICT, and English.
Email us at: lauren@bouncetheatre.com to request any of these packs.

Throughout our research, we came across early memories and references to a “50 Shillings Tailors” in Tooting. So our researchers looked into the story behind the memories. Here’s a little of what we discovered.

The 1940 London Post Office Directory has an entry for The Fifty Shilling Tailors at 16 – 20 Tooting High Street. By 1960 the company had become John Collier tailors. In the same 1940 Directory there is also a Thirty-five Shilling Tailors at 55 Mitcham Road. By 1960 this was Fontayne (Dolci’s) Ltd. – a Ladies’ outfitters. So, can we establish any connection between the 50/- Tailors and the 35/- Tailors?

Let’s look back at some tailoring records…

(Pre-decimalisation 50 shillings or ‘fifty bob’ was written as 50/- and 35 shillings or ‘thirty-five bob’ as 35/-)

Background to the Fifty Shilling Tailors

The Fifty Shilling Tailors was founded by (Sir) Henry Price who was born in 1877. He was known as a tailor, businessman and philanthropist who made millions from his tailoring businesses. The Fifty Shilling Tailors was one of the most successful ‘wholesale bespoke tailors’ on the British high street through the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

Leeds born Henry Price began work at the age of 12 in a local clothing shop. In 1899 he and his wife, a seamstress, set up a market stall selling gentlemen’s accessories. From these humble beginnings grew Price’s Tailors. Apparently, the stock in his first shop in Silsden, Yorkshire, consisted of just three collars and a few empty boxes for window dressing.

By 1914 Price had workshops in Keighley and branches Burnley, Wakefield, Halifax and elsewhere. When Price’s Tailors Ltd. was created as a private company in 1919 it comprised just 10 shops scattered throughout the North and the Midlands. Price’s big break came in the 1920s with the Fifty Shilling Suit – a quality outfit which the average working man, earning 50 shillings a week, could afford. ”I can halve my prices and double my sales,” he said of his revolutionary production line techniques.

In 1922 the first shop to trade as “The Fifty Shilling Tailors” opened in Sheffield. Regardless of their measurements, customers could buy a made-to-measure suit of clothes – a matching jacket, vest and trousers – for 50/-. Within a few years he had begun mass-production of his famous suit with outlets across the whole country including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Orders were made up at the firm’s huge Leeds factory following a system Price called ‘rational tailoring’. In 1926 Price opened his first London branches in Oxford Street and the Strand.

By 1934 the business comprised 244 branches which rose to 270 by the late 1930s. Eventually there were 500 outlets employing 12,000 staff.

In the early 1950s when it became impossible to sell a made-to-measure suit for a fixed price of 50/-, Henry Price abandoned the name The Fifty Shilling Tailors. He announced: ‘it would be merely wishful thinking to expect that such a price as 50/-. for a suit of clothes can ever return’. His solution was to trade under the abbreviation ‘FST’. Then on his retirement in 1954 Henry Price sold the firm to John Collier which in 1985 became part of the Burton Group. The 50/- Tailor was no more…

But what do we know about The 35/- Tailors?

There are plenty of records for Price’s Tailors, The 50/- Tailors and certainly some for The 35/- Tailors. There was a 35/- Tailors at 26 Bristol High Street in 1937 described as a Gent’s Tailors and there are references to The 35/- Tailors (Ireland) Ltd, which was dissolved in October 1968. So it appears to have been a widespread business, not just in Tooting. However, we did not find any evidence that they were both businesses of Henry Price… that is until the discovery of two adverts in 1950 for vacancies at The 35/- Tailors where applicants should apply in writing to… Price’s Tailors. Surely not a coincidence? So, we can probably conclude that Henry Price was the owner of both the 50/- and the 35/- tailoring businesses.

For further reading:
Tailor’s collection is a snip at £2m (The Argus) 11th November 2000 https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/5157064.tailors-collection-is-a-snip-at-2m/ Full article about a millionaire tailor’s antique and painting collection is to be sold at auction.

Sir Henry Price made millions after creating the first cheap suit and money was no issue when he bought and furnished Wakehurst Place, near Ardingly. Sixty years later the collection, which has not been on show since Sir Henry died in 1963, is to be auctioned off by Sotheby’s. Deputy Chairman, James Miller, said, “It was an exciting moment when we discovered Sir Henry Price’s collection had survived almost intact. It reflects the staggering purchasing power of an industrial magnate.”

Building Our Past – The History of Everyday Buildings https://buildingourpast.com/2022/04/12/the-fifty-shilling-tailor-and-john-collier/

The gleaming arcade shopfronts of The Fifty Shilling Tailors had neon-tube lettering mounted on black Vitrolite, chrome edging, and transom lights etched with the firm’s lozenge-shaped trademark. Two dummies often stood in the windows, one fat and the other thin, with the legend “No extra charge!”

These were amongst the flashiest shopfronts created by any multiple tailor and did not always meet with approval. In Sevenoaks the Council sought to modify the enormous, brilliantly coloured lettering which, for them, represented the “vulgarisation of the high street”.

Refs also taken from:
‘Fifty Shilling Tailors’ – Memories of a Leeds manufacturing powerhouse (Yorkshire Evening Post) 12th Feb 2021
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/retro/fifty-shilling-tailors-memories-of-a-leeds manufacturing-powerhouse-3132715

Over 200 years ago, the invention of the sewing machine changed life for women. Traditionally, women stayed at home to do chores which included making and repairing clothes. However, with the birth of the sewing machine, they suddenly could make things faster and had free time.

Is it possible that the sewing machine is one of the greatest technological inventions of our times? It revolutionised the garment trade and made mass production of clothing possible. Its history is immense. there is even a Sewing Machine Museum in Tooting!

Let’s take a quick snapshot…

1765: “The Spinning Jenny” was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Lancashire.

1790: Thomas Saint recognised that more could be done to streamline the process of clothing production. Thus came his patent of a “sewing machine”.

100 years or so ago: The sewing machine underwent constant improvements, the most significant being by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, who made a fully functioning machine that replicated hand sewing with an embroidery stitch.

1846: Elias Howe was awarded the first United States patent for a sewing machine using a lockstitch design. He also sold the patent in England.

1851: Isaac Singer patented the first mass-produced sewing machine.

1860: Clothing manufacturers had been the first to utilise sewing machines. In the 1860s, consumers began to buy them for home use, making them a staple in middle-class homes.

1889: The first electric machines appeared for purchase and were hugely popular.

1925: Burton’s Harehills Factory, Leeds was the largest clothing factory in Europe. Sewing machines became more widely available. Clothes were produced more quickly and were cheaper. Leeds factories became the centre of the textile industry. Demand for associated items such as threads, buttons, linings increased. Tailoring businesses began to diversify, calling themselves “outfitters” who sold sets of clothing including accessories such as ties and shirts. Women could now increase their family’s income by finding employment in the textile factories; female workers were a flexible, cheap, and adaptive workforce. As they moved out of the home and into the workplace, they provided business with greater productivity at a lower price. However, employment was usually more intermittent and low-paid than that of adult males and conditions were often very poor.

1940: With the outbreak of WWII many women who worked in the thriving rag trade suddenly found that they were no longer stitching dresses bound for the smartest stores. Instead, as part of the war effort, they were sewing army battle dress and surgical field bandages and, once the fighting began, repairing uniforms peppered with bullet holes. Making and repairing uniforms in the Blitz meant enduring bombing raids and working long hours. One of the ‘Singer Girls’ reflecting on her time in the factory commented, “so many times during the Blitz you would clock into work in the morning and a woman would be missing, killed in the bombing raids. Before we clocked off, we always made sure to say, ‘Good night, God bless, and see you in the morning, please God’.”

Machines Today
With continued advancements in the efficiency of sewing machines and even larger factories it’s not hard to see how we get to the garment industry of today. Today’s computerised sewing machine has 200 unique built-in stitches, 100 letter and number stitches, 8 one-step auto-size buttonhole styles, variable needle positions, the potential is endless.

With great power comes great responsibility…
The sewing machine has definitely changed the way we live and work. However, it is important to consider the less beneficial side of this invention. As clothing production exponentially increased, cotton and wool had to be farmed more intensively. Cotton plantations in the U.S. expanded as the demand for raw cotton increased, further perpetuating the enslavement of African Americans. In the second half of the twentieth century, as production demands went up and competition increased, many clothing companies moved production to Third World countries where regulation was almost non-existent. Workers – disproportionately women – were crammed into ‘sweat-shops’ sitting at sewing machines for hours every day in unsafe conditions and earning very low wages.

Tooting is home to the London Sewing Machine Museum, which documents the history of the sewing machine since the 1830s.

Here, local resident Sylvia Northcott (née Webb) talks to her cousin Lynda about the memory of a sewing machine at home and how it helped her mother make ends meet after the war:

My parents were both born and raised in the Tooting area of London. Dad’s family were mostly in Mitcham, while Mum was born and raised at 36, Hazelhurst Road, Tooting. The house along with many others in the road, was destroyed by a V2 rocket during the war in 1944, killing my mother’s sister and two other close relatives.

When the bomb fell, my mother Lily had gone to stay with her new mother-in-law in Wandle Road, while her husband Bill, my Dad, was away fighting with the army in the Airborne Division. Lily’s brother Charlie Biggs (Lynda’s Dad) was also away fighting in the war.

When Lynda and I researched the history of Hazlehurst Road before the bomb wiped out most of the road, we were surprised to find that many of the small, terraced houses were home to more than one family. One family living upstairs in two rooms and one family downstairs in two rooms. This explained why so many people had died when the bomb hit some London areas, with over-crowded housing being the norm. This helped me understand why, when I was growing up with my parents, at 44 Selkirk Road, Tooting, we only lived in two small rooms at the top of a house.

We lived there from 1946 to 1953, with two new siblings being added to my family in that time. Looking back, I had often wondered how my parents had managed with three children in such a small space, but obviously, that is what my mother had been used to as a child herself.

It must have seemed luxurious to her to have her own rooms after growing up with a much larger family in only the ground floor rooms at Hazlehurst, with an outside toilet. We even had our own bathroom with inside WC and a proper bath, alongside our two rooms upstairs in Selkirk, luxury indeed.

One of our rooms had a dining table and chairs for daytime and a double bed and wardrobe for my parents at night. The other larger room had a sofa for daytime and two single beds and a cot for me and my siblings at night-time. The rooms were very squashed as they weren’t very large, but always seemed tidy somehow.

All the furniture was Utility Furniture, which was produced after the war to help with housing the many displaced people from the bombing. The receipt for the furniture was still in her papers after she died some sixty years later. It must have meant a lot to her.

We used to play outside on the street with the neighbourhood children, and the road was mostly car-free in those days, with only the odd horse and cart deliveries for the coal man, the milkman or a rag and bone man collecting.

Mum found and moved into 44, Selkirk Road on her own, ready for when I was born in April 1946. Dad was still away with the army serving in the Parachute Regiment and was not demobbed until the end of that year. When he came back, he had to find work somehow. They were pretty hard up, but quite enterprising. Dad (Bill Webb) was a good carpenter and found various jobs.

Mum acquired a Singer treadle sewing machine which sat on the landing at the top of the stairs alongside our little kitchen area. It had a lid and could be folded down to use as an extra table when not in use.

I don’t know if it was new or second-hand, but she often used Provident cheques to buy things. These were loans that you could pay off weekly to a collector who called on Friday nights, so maybe that was the way.

She also somehow had lessons and acquired instruction books in how to use the machine and she became a good dressmaker, and earned some money that way, from home.

She often made clothes or did alterations for people who lived in Selkirk Road.

One May time she made bright coloured dresses for some little girls in Mitcham to dance around the maypole on the Green. We went to watch this most years and met up with our Mitcham cousins. It was a big event with food stalls, and a fun fair, and big crowds. We used to catch the tram in the early days.

Lily would take us shopping in Tooting Market at the top of our road. There was a stall with offcuts of materials in bins outside the shops there and she would rummage for bargains.

I would sometimes be allowed to pick something for a new dress along with a paper pattern for her to cut out. No trousers for little girls in those days!

The sewing machine had different needles and needle plates to do different kinds of stitches. When you opened the plate under the needle there was often cotton and fluff that had accumulated inside and I used to help Mum to clean it all out carefully with my small fingers. And then she would use a little oil can to keep everything running smoothly.

My grandmother would often visit and would help look after my baby sister while Mum would shut herself in one room with the cutting out of patterns or to talk to and measure a customer while my brother and I were sent to play outside.

My Gran (Ada Webb, pictured left) worked in a factory locally and used to bring home bags of cotton reels and empty reels for us to play with. It must have been a place that manufactured accessories for tailors, I guess.

Another time, Lily was quite stressed making bridesmaid dresses for a customer, and she was very anxious about us not getting anywhere near the expensive fabrics.

I used to hear the sound of the treadle going in the evenings long after we went to bed before I fell asleep.

The petticoats for the bridesmaids she made from parachute silk that my father had brought home from the war. She once made me a beautiful party

dress which also had parachute silk petticoats underneath. The silk felt good against the skin unlike the woolly vests I normally had to wear. The parachute material was made in panels with double seams, and she used to use various panels joined together for my petticoats and nighties, and also for neighbours’ orders.

The sewing machine and all the utility furniture, moved with us when the council finally rehoused us in a small, new block of flats off Silverthorne Road, Battersea, in amongst huge areas of bombed out sites.

Great fun for us children to roam around the ruined houses, although forbidden, looking for treasure or dead bodies. Not that we ever found either! Gradually through the years the bomb sites were cleared, and more houses and flats rebuilt, but ours was the first in that road.

We were amazed with all the space in our new flat. Three bedrooms, a large lounge/diner, proper separate kitchen, and modern bathroom. That was in 1953 and my mother was absolutely overjoyed with her new home and especially at having her “own front door”. The home was the best she’d ever had up to that point in her life.

Mum continued to use the Singer machine for many years, well into the 1970s. But eventually she acquired a new electric machine in a portable carry case, and the old treadle machine disappeared.

My mother had trained me well on the old Singer, while I was growing up, although at first, I couldn’t reach the treadle properly. She also taught both my sisters to sew. One of my sisters remembers making clothes for her dolls on the machine.

Thanks to my mother’s patient teaching, when I eventually had two young daughters of my own, I used to make quite a lot of their clothes in the early years, until they became older and fussier. Finally home-made just wouldn’t do anymore! And now they have their own children, my grandchildren, and one of my daughters is quite nifty on her fast modern machine.

One of my granddaughters is interested too and is learning to use the new fast electric sewing machine.”

Edited by Lynda Cazeaux (née Biggs) – March 2023