A rare occurrence of lady from the 'horsey set' into the ranks of the corsetieres was not a success. The clientele developed over the years by her aunt, was steadily reduced by the novice's conviction that her clients were as sturdy as her horses and, to paraphrase Tom Sharpe, "She laced and buckled her charges into their corsets with a vigour reminiscent of a race meeting."

A corset (95 times out of a 100) is designed to support, not constrict. Our Thelwell refugee did not last long in the trade!

The Ladies' Man

The Eccentric Lady

The Major's Corsets

Waddle In; Wiggle Out

From a Dutch Corsetiere

Old Women and their Corsets

Granny’s Old Corsets

The Squire’s Wife

Mother's Bridge Friends

What's in a Name ?

Memories of a Marks and Spencer Husband  1

Cautionary Tales of Vanity and Tight-lacing

Memoires de JACQUES

Carol’s Questions

Ghost of Spirella

The Bra Buyer

Memories from Mrs. C

My Mother-in-Law's Girdle

My meeting with Ethel Granger

Joanne's Camp Corsets

The Dawn of the Panty-Girdle

Memories from Holland

The GM's Wife

An Irish woman ordered a black corselette which was duly fitted and the corsetiere watched another presumably satisfied customer depart. A week later the corselette was returned in the mail with a desperate letter asking for a refund. Apparently the woman had not slept for the guilt of buying black underwear and she wanted rid of the evil garment.

A corsetiere asked her husband to pick up a pair of corsets that needed repair from a lady in the village on his way home one evening. He went to the house, rang the bell, and a large formidable lady opened the door. Plucking up courage he blurted "I've come for your corsets". The harridan's gimlet gaze burned into him. "Old Mrs.Withering lives NEXT door" she shouted and slammed the door in his face. "Never again" promised the husband, as he realised he had mis-read the address.

A lady's husband rushed in from work. "Get your corsets off" he shouted and raced upstairs. The lady followed, somewhat surprised by her husband's sudden ardour, to find him getting into his football gear. "I need the corset laces for my football boots; they broke in last game!"

Granny was looking after her daughter's boisterous kids. After a long tiring day, and an hour getting the children to bed, she retired to her own room and divested her clothes down to her brassiere, corset and stockings. She applied a face pack in an unattractive pale green colour and re-arranged her hair for the night. She heard the children begin to increase their noise and at the end of her tether rushed into their room to give them 'what's for'. The children were stunned into silence and as Granny retreated to her room, righteous in her powers of admonishment, a small frightened voice whispered "What WAS that thing?"

On a similar vein, the daughter of a Spirella client was lounging around her Mother's house in an old housecoat, her hair in curlers and with a hardening face pack of ghastly hue in preparation for the arrival of her boyfriend later that day. The boyfriend arrived an hour early and the girl in question fled upstairs where her Mother found her virtually in tears and frantically applying her mascara and lipstick. "Quick, get my new girdle" hissed the girl. As the poor girl successfully overcame the reluctant zip of the girdle, she cried "I want him to see me as I really am!"

Spirella falls into this trap (right), and claims that a properly corseted figure is natural, not the un-corseted figure!

It is a very feminine trait to deceive oneself by imagining that the well-dressed, well made-up woman in the mirror is the 'real you', as opposed to the rather saggy object that emerges from the shower each morning!

Two middle-aged sisters were attending an old school reunion. To save on expense, they shared a hotel room. After breakfast one sister complained that her clothes felt awkward. “I must have lost weight. Everything feels loose”. Her sister wriggled in some discomfort. “You’re lucky. I could hardly get into my corsets this morning.” They looked at each other as the penny dropped. They retired to their room and re-emerged after 15 minutes looking far more at ease. Yes; they had mixed up their corsets. Well trained by their mother, both sisters wore Spencers, identical in all details except size! 

I was showing a prospective couple around a house for sale. The rather attractive widow who owned the property took us up to the master bedroom. I couldn’t help but notice that draped over the Ottoman were a sturdy pair of pink corsets. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of laces (it must have been a Camp or a Jenyns – IL). I tried not to stare, but I knew that the lady knew I had seen them. And she knew, I knew. It felt very stuffy in that room and I blurted out my usual spiel to the prospective couple. “A very spacious room, with a southern exposure and two built-in corsets – I mean closets.” I nearly died of embarrassment as did the owner. The couple told me afterwards that they thought it was hilarious. Mind you, they didn’t buy the house. 

Younger brothers can be so obnoxious. I know I was. My elder sister was a keen equestrian and spent all her spare time (and our parents money) on horse riding. After several years, it became apparent that she had started to wear a corset, since oddly, it was pink and showed clearly through her shirt if she took her jacket off. I ribbed her unmercifully. “Penny’s wearing corsets” I would chant. “It’s a special support for my back” she would counter furiously. Ultimately, I reduced my sister to tears and our mother wisely and cleverly intervened. “Penny. Timmy’s right. Of course you wear a corset; you need the support for your back. I wear one too occasionally (that was news to me), and so will Timmy if he ever mentions the subject again.” So I didn’t.

A provincial newspaper reported this dreadful scandal in 1961. A teenage girl at a gymkhana 'dressage' competition was disqualified when another competitor's mother told the judges that the girl was wearing a back-brace to improve her posture. Whether this was illegal or not, it lead to a rather verbal exchange between the two mothers with accusation and counter-accusation culminating in tears all around.

When I was in the WRNS, I developed a chronic back-ache from leaning over operations boards that left me unfit for anything after just an hour or two. The doctor was unhelpful along the lines of "If it hurts when you do that - then don't do that!" A horse-riding friend suggested that a support might help and loaned me a corset that she wore for riding. It was quite short and adjusted by pull-straps. Frankly I was horrified, however, it did the trick and I had to admit that my uniform seemed to hang all the better for it as well. I knew the corset bones showed through my shirt when I leaned over the board but nobody mentioned it. I even got the Navy to pay for two corsets each year.

Imelda Marcos is widely credited with her extensive, even excessive collection of shoes and designer clothes. Less well known is that this sartorial magpie had an equally extensive selection of girdles from which to chose. 

One of the less attractive epithets for the corsetiere is a ‘meat-packer’. One man who was embarrassed to mention his wife’s profession often claimed that she was in the ‘meat-packing’ business. In Herman Wouk’s book ‘Marjorie Morningstar’, the chubby friend of the heroine takes a job in the corset department of Macys. When her experience was questioned, she replied “I’ve spent all my life forcing human putty into the shape of a women.” 

Life was so confusing for the young women in the 1950’s. My mother used to scold me that wearing tight girdles would give me varicose veins. My poor sister, however, developed alarming veins during her first pregnancy when she was only 28. The nurse attending her blamed the veins on inadequate corsetry. You can’t win.

(In the late 1960’s) I was invited for afternoon tea with an acquaintance. This lady had a young son, seven or eight years-old I suppose, and his noisy presence eventually began to irritate us both. “Get your toy cars out and stop whining” the boy’s mother told him. He returned a few minutes later with a box of cars. The box depicted a lady in a rather elegant girdle and was emblazoned ‘Gossard’. My hostess blushed to the roots of her hair, although why, I couldn’t imagine, for we all wore girdles then.  

We were driving with my aunt in the Ardennes of Belgium. It must have been the hot summer of 1962. My aunt's face grew redder and redder as the miles passed (there was no air-conditioning then). Finally she asked me to stop and she waddled hurriedly off into the undergrowth. Ten minutes later a cooler Aunt returned clutching a large pair of white perforated rubber corsets, apparently not uncommonly worn in those days. I remember thinking that her shape seemed the same, however, her stockings had become distinctly baggy. She professed to wearing these garments every day as well as vest, knickers and her thick support stockings; no wonder she was hot!

A female prisoner in Britain escaped from jail using a lock pick fabricated from a spiral steel corset bone. Corsets obviously were not confiscated after the event since female prisoners still form a small but regular clientele for the remaining British corsetieres.

The spiral-wound stay, although a great revolution for corsetry, did sometimes cause embarrassment when it broke loose from its casing. In the Spirella magazine of October 1959, a lady recounts walking home at night when she was terrified by something that tapped her on the back of her neck. She ran home only to find that the tapping was an errant stay from her corselette that had ridden up. 

David Niven also recounts the episode of a large and heavily corseted actress who was dancing with her partner closely clasped to her bosom. At the end of the dance, the man didn't let go and she hissed "the dance is over". "I can't move" replied the man, "One of your stays is up my nose"!

Whilst lying in bed and attempting to finish the Telegraph crossword puzzle, the gentleman in question made a mistake. Finding that the eraser on top on his pencil had expired (his mistakes were frequent), he rose from the bed, ferreted through his wife’s underpinnings on the chair, and started to rub the offending letters with the rubber material of her Playtex girdle. This ruined both the newspaper and the girdle. This incident was portrayed in a 1960’s situation comedy starring Freddy Frinton and Thora Hird.  

It is a fact of life that women’s underpinnings do vanish mysteriously from washing lines. A corsetiere that I used to visit near Croydon, lost a Spirella corset in this manner. Corsetieres are not well paid, and although she had acquired the corset at cost price, it would take several weeks’ work to earn enough money to replace it. She connected the incident with the loss of a brassiere that she had put down to a stormy evening, however, her substantial corsets would definitely not blow away. Like all corsetieres she had some samples that she used to show clients. Taking an old sample corset, she washed it and rubbed all the bone casings vigorously with “Deep Heat’ cream. This cream, used sparingly, is excellent for the treatment of muscular aches, however, it’s a powerful irritant if mis-handled. Predictably, the corsets vanished overnight. I’d love to say that some unpleasant youth had to attend the doctor’s surgery for an ‘unexplained’ rash, but that would be too good to be true. Suffice it to say that the thefts stopped!

An elderly widow was asked if she missed her late husband, "Oh yes, I really do" she replied. "I've nobody to do up my back suspenders any more!"

A mother was reading in the sitting room. Through the open window she heard her seven year-old son discussing with his friend, and apparently with quite some knowledge, her own girdles. "My Mummy's got lots of girdles. She wears the really tight one when she goes out with Daddy. You can tell 'cause she walks funny!" Her son's friend was less of an expert but volunteered that 'Gran' wore a corset. Later that evening, she was sufficiently concerned to ask her husband if she did, indeed, walk funnily, and was re-assured that she didn't. But the doubt was always there afterwards!

Weight loss is a common problem in the older woman, just as weight gain plagues her younger sister. Several years ago I visited a lovely old-fashioned corset shop in Rouen, France. The proprietress appeared from behind a screen and asked us if we would mind waiting for five minutes, as she was fitting a customer. My husband, who was with me, is quite used to the interior of ladies' shops, however, the groans and struggles from behind the screen eventually unsettled him and he wandered outside. He later explained that he felt dreadfully embarrassed and that somehow he was intruding on a rather private moment. After 10 minutes the corsetiere and the lady emerged. The lady was in her 70's and explained that her corselettes were too big for her and she had decided to buy a smaller size. The groans were caused by the effect of the first corselette, which was far too small, and the ensuing struggle with the zip until the corsetiere intervened and procured a larger size. Typical of French underwear, the corselettes she had chosen were beige, constructed from heavy elastic, well-boned and zipped up the front. Sadly, the charming satin panels were no longer included.

Spirella set great store by their corsets' life-saving properties, although I doubt if any withstood the test that my aunt tried. In a London Hotel (and thank Goodness it was the foyer), she entered the open doors of the lift, and fell into the machinery below, since the lift had stuck one floor above. She was recovered unharmed, except for the loss of her dentures, although completely filthy and covered in grease. The hotel staff were most solicitous (as well they might be), and provided a room and a doctor in short order. "It's amazing" he said, "she could have been killed." Ever after my aunt claimed that her sturdy corsets were her salvation, although we suspected that the cushioning effect of numerous gin & tonics had something to do with it!

In the early days of the metal zip fastener, there were some catastrophic zip failures on girdles, which is why, these days, all such zips are backed by hooks and eyes. The old corset shop in Croydon, sadly extinct, refused to stock zippered girdles for several years. Talking of which, yet another euphemism for girdle was ‘zipper’. It wasn’t so common but I’ve heard a mother ask her daughter at a wedding “I hope you’ve got your zipper on today”. My husband speaks of a girl-friend who referred to her ‘waist nipper’ as a ‘zipper nipper’, although whether this referred to the garment’s zip fastener, or to the poor girl catching her flesh in the zipper was more than my husband dared to ask! This girl, who was somewhat overweight, later purchased a basque, however, the boning on the garment simply wasn’t up to the task, and every time she sat down, her tummy would force the front bones to fold back on themselves. 

The origin of the phrase “My girdle’s killing me” is lost in history. It was probably uttered too often to be associated with any one source, although Playtex cemented it into advertising legend in the 1960's. My husband claims that at least one girlfriend uttered the phrase after a long (and expensive) dinner. A female cynic might add that the phrase originated from the first woman ever to wear a girdle.

This was heard at a restaurant in Aberdeen, amazingly in 2001. "Oh, my girdle's killing me." My husband and I turned to identify the source of this archaic expression and were stunned that it came from a pre-teenage girl, and by no means plump or chubby. We were astonished!

During a mixed foursome of golf at the RAC Club near Epsom, I drew the 'short straw' and ended up with two women of the 'jolly-hockey-sticks' sort. Formidable, opinionated and loud, they made for uneasy golf companions. After a couple of hours, Agatha was driving and on the back-swing, we heard a distinct snap. She lowered the club and stood back. "Excuse me" she said, and took her friend off into some convenient bushes. The friend returned and asked if we had a safety pin. Actually, I had. (In the early days of the zipped fly, failures were not uncommon and I always carried a few safety pins just in case.) I gave her the pin and tendered my help. She looked at me in what is known as an 'old-fashioned' way and said "No - but thanks." Her companion returned and play was resumed. I told them why I kept the pins and it seemed to break the ice. The lady revealed that a suspender had been torn from its moorings. We all laughed, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the game. I married the 'broken suspender lady' a year later, both of us having lost our partners some years before.

My cat had been missing for two days when, just before retiring to bed, I heard a  mewling sound from the garden. I quickly slipped on a dressing gown and some slippers, and went downstairs into the garden, following the sound which emanated from a patch of wild roses. As I moved over to the flowerbed in the dusk, I tripped and landed in the rose bed. Not seriously hurt, I was, however, stuck, as the barbs pulled at my hair and dressing gown. I wasn't going to spend the night there, so I managed to back half out of my dressing gown and with a convulsive jerk I pulled myself free, unfortunately leaving my expensive wig and gown in the rose bed. So if you were the gentleman walking his dog who was startled by a middle-aged, bald woman running across the garden in her corsets, then I apologise!

In the days before central heating (Britain in the early 1960's), a woman wrote to an 'agony aunt' that her latex girdle was so dreadfully cold to put on in the morning. Rather than receiving a helpful suggestion (my old aunt slept on top of her rubber corsets to avoid this problem) the 'agony aunt' retorted that one must suffer to be beautiful!

British public schools (which in the quaint English terminology mean private schools) to this day boast the position of matron, a female cross between house-mother and nurse. As late as the 1970’s, this character would wear, as part of her office clothes, the full regalia of a nursing matron from the white head-dress to the watch pinned to the left bosom. At a famous south London public school, the matron was very much a formidable character in true ‘Hattie Jacques’ style. At the beginning of one Easter term, the assembled staff were surprised at the laughter that greeted the raising of the school flag. As their collective gaze swiveled to the flag-pole, there, for all to see just below the school flag was a large pair of corsets. Any doubt as to their owner was dispelled by Matron’s scarlet face. There is a small addition to this episode. A school-wide hunt went out for the perpetrator of the act, and a 15 year-old pupil was found to have secreted away beneath his mattress, a good collection, not just of Matron’s foundations, but those of some of the masters’ wives as well. The pupil quietly vanished from the school.

I must confess that during the mid 1960's whilst at boarding school I too played a similar prank when I noted our own Matron's Marks and Spencer white satin-panelled girdle on her washing line billowing gently in the breeze. Clandestinely, I removed it and hoisted it up our particular flag pole. I made the mistake of bragging to other boys of my prank and an unknown school snitch reported my misdeed. Fortunately I was not expelled like the other boy. However, our headmaster was furious and I was given six of the best with one of his canes over the seat of my own white Marks and Spencers "St Michael" underwear! They were aertex material so the Head's cane really hurt!

Still on the subject of schools; between the wars, at a girl's boarding school near Perth in Scotland, the girls would wait until after lights out to start making a noise. The new housemistress, who slept in a separate room at the end of the corridor, was a young and inexperienced teacher. If the girls timed it properly, the teacher would rush in to scold them without taking time to reinsert her dentures. A lady in her late 80's recounted this tale (for she was one of those girls) and added, it's hard to take anyone too seriously when they're standing in their corsets shouting "Go to shleep, girlsh!"

My husband and I were walking past the Corset Shop in St. Leonards (which still exists today I.L.- 2002) when I saw a stout old women emerge from the shop with her daughter (perhaps even grand-daughter). The old lady was crammed, not to put too fine a point on it, into a classic twin-set over a white blouse. A rather lovely Jaguar saloon car pulled up and the younger lady’s husband emerged. Jaguars look superb, however, in reality, they are very low and quite cramped in the rear. The performance that ensued with husband and wife, at first helping the stiff old biddy into the car, and latterly pushing and pulling, was quite comical, but rather sad. The whole story was clear to see. The old lady would come to the shop once or twice a year to replace her corsets. This expensive habit precluded the purchase of newer more fashionable clothes. Ironically, if she had purchased even a new suit that fitted her stouter body, she might not have needed such tight corsets in the first place. The proprietor of the shop (for it is owned by a man), confirmed that she came in every six months for two brand new Twilfit corsets; one in white, and one in tea rose brocade.

Walking along the Embankment by Waterloo Bridge in 1988, my husband saw the most obviously corseted women he had ever seen. He takes up the tale. “She was about Bunty’s size, but her waist was incredibly small by comparison. About 42-26-42 I would guess. Stunningly dressed”. I asked him if he was sure it was a real women; there are many theatres in the area, and Covent Garden is only just across the river. "You know" he replied, “I’ve never been certain, and I never saw the woman again”.

Madame Chang Kai Shek was famous for wearing a pair of bullet-proof corsets. When her husband was forced to leave China, they left behind many items in the rush, and her pink satin corsets became the proud trophy of one of the bandit chiefs.  

A woman hurried into the restaurant at Selfridge’s in a waft of powder, perfume and parcels. As she joined her friends for coffee, she gushed in a voice audible several tables away, “I’m so sorry to be late. I was trapped inside my panty-girdle!”

A modern tale from two years ago (2001). Three student girls were walking down a street in Sheffield when two of them started to lag behind the third. They started to giggle, as did several passers-by. "What's so funny" the third protested. "Look at the bottom of your jeans". And there for all to see, was yesterday's discarded panty-girdle hanging out and being dragged along the street. Mortification knows no bounds!  

In Britain, well before the advent of the Charity Shop (Thrift Shop in the USA), or even the car boot sale, was the Jumble Sale. These sales took place in Church Halls and the like, and represented the unwanted items that clutter a person’s life, yet cannot really be discarded as pure rubbish. During one such sale in the late 1960’s, whilst rummaging through a pile of old clothes, a teenage girl discovered an old pair of corsets that she held up and showed to her friends. Waving them in the air she crowed “Coo, just look at these; can you imagine anybody wearing these things?” All the assembly laughed, except, that is, for the haughty lady, who had in fact organized the event. Shortly afterwards, the corsets were discretely purchased by that same lady. The elderly women who recounted this tale laughed at the memory. “Those were her own corsets. I know that because the Spirella lady visited me after fitting her. She couldn’t bear to see her old corsets flourished in public and had to buy them back!”  

Tom Sharpe in his extremely funny book ‘Porterhouse Blue’ had this to say about the Dean’s wife:- “Lady Mary adjusted the straps of her surgical corset with a vigour that reminded Sir Godber of a race meeting”. Very eloquent, and very true. Mr. Sharpe, I’m sure had a standard Camp corset in mind here.

My ancient auntie was visiting us for the afternoon. As we toured the garden looking at the flowers, I noticed our recently acquired kitten beginning its stalk and dash game. I looked around for the object of its attention and noticed that auntie’s corset laces were dangling down. Before I could intervene, the kitten pounced on the laces and swung there, its front claws firmly caught in the laces. Auntie and the kitten panicked as one. The kitten went mad, auntie screamed, tripped and fell. The kitten killed the laces, disentangled its claws and rushed off after the next victim. Mercifully auntie, although slightly the worse for wear, damaged only her pride.

My husband was so pleased to hear of this tale. He said he was sure it must have happened somewhere at some time, and indeed it did in Wyke Regis in the late 1960’s – Ivy.

For several years pre-university, I would watch as my daughter struggled into heroically tight pantie-girdles. After a year at university she abandoned her foundations with “I can’t believe I used to suffer like that!” I then found her reclining in the bath one day wearing a pair of new jeans. She was ‘shrinking’ them onto her body in the style of the mid-60’s. So tight were the jeans, that the zip had to pulled closed with a shoe-lace (a trick she learnt from her girdle days). I pointed out the similarities with her girdles but she retorted “this is the uniform of freedom (a contradiction, but I didn’t interrupt); my girdles were objects of male subjugation.” Youth!

My son 'discovered' corsets in 1962. We were on holiday in Berwick and our walk down the High Street was interrupted by the loss of his presence. He was 20 yards behind us gazing at a shop window that was, embarrassingly, full of corsets. "What is that for" he asked, pointing at a particularly complex Camp creation. "They're women's things" I replied, hoping that would suffice. It didn't. "They keep their tummies flat" I explained. That same week, we had travelled onto Edinburgh and were staying with relatives. Their elderly neighbour had a pair of corsets hung on the washing line. We met her for tea subsequently and my son came up to me and said in a quiet, secretive voice, "I know why she's got a flat tummy!"

In the 1970's, before property buying for personal gain became common, a retired couple bought a villa in Spain. In those days, selling the property and exporting the money was prohibited by Spanish law. (The Spanish believed that price inflation of property would kill the market for local people, and lead to rural and social decay - as it has all over most of Britain. It seems that the Spanish were rather perceptive, but I digress.) Eventually, the lady's husband died and she wished to cash in the value of the villa. Transferring the money legally was out of the question so she bought an oversized pair of corsets, withdrew as much as the bank allowed in cash (they were not stupid), and stuffed the corsets with as many pesetas, dollars and pounds as she could manage and fled the country. Paper is an excellent insulator, and she nearly passed out several times from heat exhaustion in the attempt to relieve rural Spain from 20% of her property's inflated worth.

Another corset smuggling episode was widely reported in the British press in the early 1980's. A middle-aged lady shop-lifter modified a pair of corsets to carry all manner of hooks and straps. She wore it over her dress but underneath her voluminous coat. She would enter a supermarket and surreptitiously hang items beneath her coat on the corset. The theory was that in emergency, a quick unfastening of the busk would drop the evidence and she could then make a dash for it. Unfortunately, when she was queried by a suspicious saleslady, she panicked, tried to release the busk whilst running and tripped over her stays. This lady, at least, was caught; red-handed, and one presumes, red-faced as well.

How often when you unlace your shoes does the wretched lace turn itself into a granny knot that can be quite difficult to undo, particularly if any tension has been applied. Corset laces suffer the same problem. I know of one lady who confessed that she had deliberately knotted her mother-in-law’s back-laced corset before tying the bow just to annoy her. Her mother-in-law was off for a weekend break at Eastbourne. Rather than relish the discomfort of the old lady who she hated, confined to her stays for the weekend, the daughter-in-law was wracked by guilt. On the old lady’s return, she was so solicitous and helpful to her enemy that, for a while, relations quite improved. (I've often wondered if the term 'Granny Knot' had its origins in the strange efforts of the elderly to tie the lace ends of their corsets.)

Certainly, the 'Thief Knot', (that is a knot tied in a particular way so that any illicit undoing of the knot will be obvious) was used by jealous husbands when fastening their wives' corsets.

This tale had been backed-up on several occasions. I know of a London Spirella corsetiere who gave up the business. Apparently, having sold a corset, the elderly recipient would often regard the corsetiere's lifelong attention and advice an integral part of the service. More than once at bed-time, the poor fitter was called out to untangle the back-lacing on some poor old biddy's corset!

My Mother-in-Law used to drive me to distraction. She visited all too often and from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure, she recounted a litany of her ailments. Her teeth, her back, her legs, her neck. All seemed to rebel against their owner. Everything she wore seemed to be 'surgical'. Her surgical stockings and surgical corset might have thwarted the aches and pains, but in concert they caused her to walk like a marionette. Occasionally, her ensemble was joined by a surgical collar when a trapped nerve in her neck caused her to lose the strength in her left arm. The benefit was less chatter, since talking through clenched dentures is not easy; the disadvantage was that she needed to be unlaced from her complex foundations at night and re-assembled each morning! A knight in armour would have been less bother.

Another reference to armour: R's mother was anything but coy about her underwear. "I've got my armour on today" she would announce, slapping her rigid stomach with gusto. "But isn't it uncomfortable?" chorused our young daughters. "You'll find out when you're my age" she promised them as they shivered in horror. Watching her sit down was basically fascinating. She'd lower herself gingerly toward the chair and then, unable to resist gravity, she would collapse into the seat. She would exhale noisily, the seat would creak and her thighs would spring apart revealing her old-fashioned bloomers. Most dramatically was the alarming rise in her bust, as her corset impacted the seat and forced everything violently upwards.

My aunt was very proud of her erect posture and frequently admonished the younger generation for their dreadful slouching. We all knew that if the younger generation wore corsets like hers, they would have perfect posture as well, but we were far too polite to mention it. That is until one day when she fired off a tirade culminating with “.. look at my ramrod posture.” My son (who would have been about eight at the time) piped up, “That’s because you’ve got ramrods down your back!” “Pardon me, young man. What do you mean by that?” “Every time you bend over I can see two great rods up your back.” I scolded him and told him not to make personal remarks. I explained to my aunt that, indeed, the bones in her corset were quite visible when she bent over. She was mortified that people knew her secret!

In the snooker hall of the Conservative club in Stafford there used to play a disagreeable fellow. We laughed behind his back since when he leant over the table to play, the outline of a surgical corset was clearly visible. He was notable for taking his ale from a quart tankard although not in the presence of his wife, who was similarly abrupt and 'tweedy' in that ex-military family sort of way. I suspected she was as stiffly corseted as her husband, for when she sat down her back never left the vertical. They were a classical 'shoulders back, stomach in' couple, and with the sort of corsets available then, there would probably be no other choice! We often joked that the 'old Major', as we used to call him, wore his wife's corsets, and in the jovial male preserve of the snooker room, this supposition would call forth a bevy of ribald jokes and supposedly true anecdotes (which blatantly were not*).

*A curious verification of this tale is recounted elsewhere.

One of the strangest accolades for a corselette comes from a lady who was an unfortunate passenger on the ‘Morro Castle’, she ship that caught fire off New Jersey in the 1930’s and was a total loss. The poor lady spent some time in the sea, and later wrote to congratulate Spirella that the bones in her corselette didn’t rust after the harrowing experience.

I’ve known several people, usually women, who cannot wear watches. I’m not talking about the allergic reaction to base metals, but simply that the watch would stop or keep bad time. On other women, the same watch would be fine. I mentioned this to my husband who was about to retort along the lines of “silly women”, however, he thought for a bit and said “Take some old biddy with alloy ‘stays’ in her corsets, steel under-wires in her bra and chromium plated suspenders. As she walks through the Earth’s magnetic field, she probably generates enough electricity to stop a watch!” “What about the poor old soul’s heart of gold” I replied, and the argument came to rest there. But I wonder if he has a point.

Famed Olympian and golfer, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, was once asked how she managed to hit 250 yard drives. "It's not just enough to swing at the ball," she replied. "You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it!"

Some women are incredibly coy about their underpinnings, whereas others blether on about their latest girdle or corset (that's when women wore such things of course!) The most devious lady of my acquaintance regularly hung out her Monday washing that always contained a few modern panty-girdles. These weren't part of the wash, simply a ploy to show the neighbours that she was 'with it' (this was about 1970), and had kept her figure. Her fitter, and the corsets that dried discreetly in the airing cupboard, told another story. The panty-girdles were her daughter's cast-offs!

When I started working on the south coast in the early 60’s, I stayed in digs owned by a stout, elderly woman called Ada. She was a member of the Salvation Army and had strong attitudes towards drink and staying out late. Every Thursday wash-day, the hot water pipes in the kitchen would receive their weekly insulation in the form of a pair of sturdy pink corsets wrapped around and between them. They were a “devil to dry” she would say, but dry they must by Sunday since, she candidly admitted, that without them, she would never get into her uniform skirt.

Still on the subject of the WRNS (or any uniformed service I imagine), keeping stocking seams straight on parade and maintaining the requisite tightness of stockings and shirt lead to numerous tactics. An acquaintance who was in the WRNS for two decades swore by her six-suspender girdle. Any less was to court disaster on parade. A firm brassiere was essential whilst marching, and her shirt bottom had several hooks sewn on to attach to her girdle (in the manner of a brassiere's girdle hooks). Airline stewardesses went further, and more than a few airlines supplied their stewardesses with blouse-knickers combinations.

In the 1960's, my mother wore a corset as she always had done, I wore a girdle and my daughter wore a panty-girdle. We were all fitted by Mrs. S of Winchester. Towards the end of the 1960's my mother died, unchanged in a lifetime of habits, and I adopted the panty-girdle as my friends were doing. Still Mrs. S. would supply us with the best Spirellas (probably Coppelias or Spirelettes - Ivy). My daughter, suddenly inspired by the freedom of university, disposed of her panty-girdles but I rescued these (expensive) items and waited. Four year's later and going for a job interview, I laughed as my daughter bemoaned the loss of her girdles and was going to visit M&S when I produced her faithful Spirellas. She wore them and swore that the confidence they inspired helped her land the job. (Spirella should have used this as advertising material - Ivy)

As a policeman on the beat you come across some amazing sights, but none more so than the elderly lady I surprised late one night. Wearing her corsets over her nightie, she was rummaging around the front garden. “I’m looking for my teeth” she quailed, and indicated an open window upstairs. I found the teeth amongst the ruins of a shattered glass and returned them to their grateful owner. How they got there I do not know. Some things are better not asked.

(The wearing of corsets over one’s nightie is simply the recourse of the elderly when forced to walk around after having prepared for bed. Virtually unknown today of course, thirty years ago, there were women who had worn corsets most of their life and any physical effort without their support was almost impossible. Gerald Durrell and Ian McRoberts both describe elderly women arising from bed and putting on their corsets before venturing further. - Ivy)

My mother's sister gave her a brand new Excelsior girdle that she had tried on but was too tight for her. It wasn't my mother's brand (which was Marks) but it was her size and she was far too thrifty to refuse the gift. A few mornings later, I heard 'language' coming from her bedroom and I went in to see what was up. The girdle's zip was on the left hip, not on the left front as her normal ones and she had managed to do up the girdle all twisted round. She was trying to wriggle it round without unfastening it. She persevered, however, either the girdle went on twisted, or my poor mum's back was twisted as she tried to do up the hooks-and-eyes under the zip. How she suffered with this unaccustomed garment every other week until a year later when it was consigned to the dustbin.

As a teenager in the early 60’s I was used to wearing a girdle and enjoyed the luxury of fitted Spirellas like my mother wore. As panty-girdles came into vogue, mother showed me the Spirelette catalogue and I was fitted for a long-leg model that according to the brochure was aimed at the young market. When the girdles (mother ordered three) arrived I was horrified at their weight and firmness. I couldn’t do much about it because she’d spent a great of money on them and I could either wear them or revert to the old style. I called them my chastity belts which caused mother no end of concern since I had just discovered boys. She needn’t have worried because no boy was ever going to see me in those things! (I suspect a Spirelette 105 was the culprit - Ivy)

When my mother came to stay, our crowded Monday washing line received an addition with Mummy’s pink corsets enjoying their weekly wash. Our young son was always amazed at these heavy garments and would ask what they were. I would explain that older women wore them to keep their figures trim. To this he would ask if I wore them. How do you explain to a seven year-old that a 36 year-old mum is not an older woman. “No. I wear a lighter support called a girdle,” and I would show him one of mine to avoid any unnecessary curiosities developing. At this my 10 year-old daughter assumed a haughty air and announced that in a few years, she too would have to wear a girdle. My ex-naval husband simply used to comment in his dry way “I see the Admiral’s raised her flag!”  

When 'Bob-a-job' was common (Boy Scouts searched the area for job to do. One shilling - a Bob - was given to the scout movement for each job) my son used to roam the houses of our neighbours. Apparently one arrogant woman, who I disliked, had little time for boy scouts and in an effort to be rid of him just handed him a plastic bag and told him to dispose of it somewhere else. My son's curiosity was aroused (why didn't she throw this in her own bin?) and he investigated the contents and found a pair of sturdy pink corsets. They became a clandestine trophy of his troop, and I got one up on my snooty neighbour!

I visited the daughter of a famous British politician (this was in the mid-60's) to fit her for a girdle. When I arrived at the house, a party was in full swing although it was early afternoon. The lady was gushingly enthusiastic and wanted to be fitted in front of her friends, however, I had my standards and refused. Reluctantly she retired to her bedroom where the fitting was accomplished. (What a sign of the times. Even when intoxicated, a women put a girdle fitting high on her list of priorities - Ivy)

The husband of another famous politician related how his wife practiced an entire speech before going to bed clad only in her bra and girdle. She was highly animated in the theatrical way that politicians affect and it was all her husband could do to stop laughing out loud! "You're not listening, are you?" she admonished. Her husband's reply of "No Darling, just looking!" did not go down well.

It is a very uncommon example of a corset with 'no entry'. The only way to don the garment is to release the lacing as far as possible, pull the corset up over the hips and then tighten the lacing. This time-consuming procedure was used by ladies whose vanity could overcome any amount of trouble or discomfort. The typical wearer would lace tightly. But look closely at the picture on the right. The corset has split (actually on both sides) where the fabric would bend as the wearer sat down. Obviously this corset was strong enough to resist catastrophic failure, however, the lady could never wear it again for fear of a more permanent rip. A major re-sewing of the corset is required here and, I suspect, the vain and wealthy woman simply ordered a new pair, whilst admonishing the corsetiere for a faulty product! I have only ever encountered two of these corsets with no entry and the one shown here is in our collection.

At a family gathering one Christmas, a young boy was heard to ask his Aunt whether she wore her corsets too tight like his own Granny. Apparently, like his Granny, she suffered from the slightly pronounced eyes of the thyroid sufferer. The young boy had been told by his Mother that it was a side effect of too tight underwear.

My Mother, who lived for many years near Ascot, regularly visited the big horse races since, like many of her generation, she was a firm royalist and loved to get a glimpse of the late Queen Mother or the Queen herself. One year, by dint of queuing, and not a little elbowing and shoving, she got right to edge of the Royal enclosure where the great ladies and a retinue of lesser Royal mortals would walk past. Oh dear. My poor Mother, how disillusioned she was. “Pancake” she told me later “Pancake makeup and corsets! There was one old dowager Duchess who looked like she was wearing a mask. She could barely move her face and there wasn’t an inch of movement in her torso.”  

Vanity and its consequences are well-known to the St. John's ambulance crews who attend Royal Garden parties. These days it is usually heat exhaustion and the blistered feet caused by new and tight shoes, however, (and it still occurs but rarely - IL), in days gone by, the word would go around the marquee for a female helper. This almost always meant that some woman, often in a dead faint, required the loosening of over-tightened corsets. Pursuing this theme, I have seen women in such tight dresses that not just walking and sitting was an effort, but the very act of eating and breathing was impeded.

The perils of tight-lacing are legion, and not simply confined to the health of the wearer either. Here’s a well-known trick if you really want to tighten a corset (either front or back-laced). Take the two loops of the corset laces and put them over a smooth, but strongly anchored object and lean away from the object. You weight will automatically pull the laces tight. The dangers are, the laces snapping, or the loops coming off the anchorage, both of which can precipitate the wearer to the floor. Since the commonest strong-point is a door handle, make sure the door is secured shut. I know of one hotel guest who was proceeding to dinner, when she was startled by the explosive opening of the door she was passing. The sight of middle-aged woman crashing backwards to the carpet was even more alarming. It’s one of those situations that you can’t just ignore, the woman may have been injured. Fortunately, it was simply a case of injured pride.

There is a humerous modification of the classic 'Mills & Boon' movelette that goes "She stood alone; her hair blowing in the wind, but far too proud to run after it!"

This actually came to pass (and it must have happened elsewhere) at a wedding in the Yorkshire Dales, where a middle-aged and rather over-dressed woman was assaulted by a gust a wind that first removed her hat and then her wig. A bald woman is a rather arresting sight and with the other guests rooted to the spot, she leapt after her wig with a vigour that split her skirt clean up the back revealing her slip through which her corsets were clearly visible - not that anybody was looking!. The poor woman simply did not have enough hands to conceal her embarrassment.

An elderly and rather vain lady was being fitted with a new pair of corsets. The corsets in question were long and rigid in the back and fastened at the front by means of straps and buckles. She exhorted the fitter to fasten it as tightly as possible, against the fitter's advice, since new corsets do need to be 'broken in' for the first few days. The fitter left and agreed to pass by the following week. That evening whilst preparing for bed, the elderly lady realised that the strength in her hands was quite insufficient to budge the buckles (which once fastened have quite a strong over-centre action). It was several days (and nights) before the poor lady ate humble pie and phoned the corsetiere to free her from her corsets. The lady subsequently reverted to front-lacing corsets since, in extremis, one can always cut the laces.

Above we have shown one of the classic disasters of tight-lacing, the split corset fabric. The example here also has this evidence of tight-lacing, but, regard two other tell-tales, the permanent horizontal creasing and the eyelets hole surrounds coming free from their anchorage. The wearer of this corset probably had laced far too tight then, to compound the folly, attempted to sit down. The forces that come into play can tear even a strong corset asunder.

It's an odd fact. I've known a number of women who have, let us say, laced for vanity rather than comfort. Often wealthy and self-centred, these ladies would spend a fortune on their corsets and clothes, yet would never wash their corset regularly (if at all). One way to prolong the life of any garment is to maintain its cleanliness. Were these women lazy, or did they not want their evidence of their vanity on the clothes-line or in the airing cupboard?

The Spirella corsets were fantastic feats of engineering. I remember suggesting to my mother that she would be far better off without a corset, as I thought that they caused more trouble than they were worth, but she was horrified at the idea. "They are a great source of warmth and comfort", she told me. "Plus, they have the added advantage of pulling in the stomach, and making me look in much better shape than I am". "But Mummy," I protested, "You tell me that they’re most uncomfortable, that they hurt when you kneel down, and the bones stick into your ribs and thighs, that they are impossible to dry after they are washed. Why do you have to put yourself through such torture, just to feel that you are looking right."

My protestations were met with a tight lipped. "Just you wait until you have lost your figure through having babies and you’ll know why people need corsets for their self-esteem". To get back to the corsets on approval, I remember, on one occasion, my mother getting trapped into a corset that she couldn't get out of. It had the usual hooks and straps, but, in addition, it had a zip which went from the thigh to the waist. When she got into it after much difficulty, she couldn’t get out of it. I was called to assist. Eventually, I had to make her lie on the bed while I endeavoured to get the zip down. After a long struggle, I was able to get the zip down and I unleashed the hooks and clamps. Her reaction was, "I don’t think I’ll be buying this one this year".