My Mum - The Party Dress!

My Mum - The Party Dress!

I have already written in a previous posting of my Mum’s cooking and sewing abilities and I have touched on the delicate subject of my not so delicate knitted undergarments with their kaleidoscope of colours. However, these pale into insignificance when I cast my memory back to ‘The Party Dress!’

Some interfering busybody had taught my Mum to crochet and if ever I meet up with the guilty party then, to paraphrase Agatha Christie, a murder will be announced. That aside, Mum decided to put this new talent to good use by attempting to crochet a dress for me as I had been invited to a birthday party.

Unfortunately, for me, she worked tirelessly in order that ‘The Dress’ would be completed in time. Nonetheless, I found myself getting quite excited when the day came for me to wear it. A new dress was not something that I had ever experienced before (hand me downs and not always from my sister - I had a brother too - made up my usual wardrobe).

Anyway, come the day, Mum helps me into ‘The Dress.’ I say ‘helps’ because, without assistance, I couldn’t lift the damned thing. The dress was so heavy that I think Mum had inadvertently purchased her crochet materials from an Army Surplus Stores instead of a Wool shop as I am taken with the idea that the dress had been crocheted in what I can only describe as chain mail because I could barely stand up in the thing! It was either that or she had crocheted my new party dress in barbed wire because it was also very scratchy.

‘Stand up straight!’ Mum ordered but try as I might I couldn’t seem to get my shoulders up to where they had always previously been located. They were in quite the wrong position for playing Pass the Parcel that was for sure. Moreover, any attempt at movement was destined to fail because I seemed to be rooted to the spot but then when I eventually did manage to walk, or rather stagger, a few steps I don’t think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that I felt pretty sure I heard the dress clang.

‘Mum,’ I wailed ‘I can’t go out in this, it’s too heavy!’

‘Nonsense’ said Mum ‘I’ve spent hours crocheting that dress so someone’s got to wear it!’ With that my sister shot out of the room like a bullet from a gun. Not the sort of get up for a Grammar school girl to be seen in! No, indeed! Even my brother took on a frown, no, frown doesn’t quite capture it...panic comes nearer; doubtless, his anxiety caused by the word ‘someone’.

Anyhow, between Mum and my brother they got me upright and led me to the door. All I needed was a helmet and visor oh, and a horse, my kingdom for a horse, and I could have sallied forth to fight the French, or anyone else that extracted the Michael out of ‘The Dress!’ Needless to say I didn’t win Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs was a lost cause from the start.

Things might still have turned out all right if I hadn’t got caught up on something sticking out from a wall which was furtively lying in wait for just such as me. Life is like that, don’t you find? It’s a jungle out there! Well, it was in this friend’s front room because the dress started unravelling. The more I twisted and turned, desperately trying to extricate myself, the more the blinking thing unravelled! The chain mail dress was the only new thing I was wearing so my undergarments, to use a generous euphemism, were on full show for everyone to see. Something I painstakingly tried to avoid at all costs for reasons I think I have already touched upon in my previous posting. Well, there was nothing for it but to gather up all my chain mail, well, as much as I could carry. I was only about seven at the time and slightly built, so I think I can be excused if I trailed some of it behind me as I made for the one and only toilet and refused to come out until Mum came for me.

One good thing to come out of my party predicament was that it cured me of wanting any more new dresses. No, the designer label I most favoured after that was definitely from the Our Lady of Lourdes Jumble Sale collection! If nothing suitable there, then I could still fall back on my sister’s cast-offs and if they were a bit, shall we say…roomy, then that made them all the more comfortable. My brother too did his bit by helping to make me look like one of the orphans from the musical, ‘Annie’ as I was lucky enough to be allowed to step into his shoes. Actually, now I come to think, they weren’t shoes at all. No, the stout pair of black lace-up boots that I wore with the chain mail dress were, I think, quite the envy of all my friends. Well, they didn’t seem able to take their eyes off them. However, I threw a wobbler when Mum on one occasion started to look at his football boots muttering something to the effect that ‘These boots look as if they could do her a turn!’

And so we come to the end of the story of ‘The Party Dress’. It is nothing if not a sad tale of disillusionment that might even induce a tear or two especially when I tell you that for many years I had to wear a shoulder brace to correct the damage done to my person from wearing ‘The Party Dress!’