Sweet Remembrances--Joe

TELE-ADS

Hello, I came across Petticoat Pond by chance. You may be interested to hear about my first job, as the subject will be of great interest.

In 1958, in England, I was 18, and was working as an assistant to the film director in an ad agency. At the time, we had gotten a contract for a product called Stergene, a detergent made specially for delicate items, including those lovely nylon petticoats that were in fashion at the time. Besides ads in the newspapers, we were going to make a tele-commercial. I don't entirely remember the ad we filmed, but I do remember a couple of scenes. One we filmed in a large back garden . The model was sitting on a swing, and we had the camera pointing up from low, so when she swung forward, all the frilly petticoats beneath her dress came into view!

I also remember the final shot of the ad in which a can-can petticoat was laid out on a table, and a bottle of the detergent was placed in the middle, so it sort of emerged from the swirl of frills and lace.

I also remember that one of our secretaries, Elizabeth, obliged by loaning us one of her lovely can-can petticoats to use in the filming! It was very full, pink nylon net, with a lace trim, and seemed to intrigue visitors who saw it in the bosses office!

FOND MEMORIES

The other day I saw two young children playing and doing somersaults over a bar fence. We used to do this in the park. Grasp a horizontal bar on the top of the fence with both hands, and turn a somersault over the bar. This suddenly brought back a childhood memory from my primary school days.

It must have been about 1960. Our class had held and “End of Year Party”, and some of the kids had come dressed up in party clothes. This included several of the girls in my class who came in party dresses. Later, when we were in the playground, three of the girls decided to do somersaults over the railings by the dining room. It just so happened that these three girls were all wearing party dresses, with layers of petticoats beneath. I and a couple of the other boys pretended not to watch as the girls started their somersaults, giving us boys a delightful show of frilly underwear. One of the three girls, was a very pretty Indian girl, and as she turned, she would stop in mid-air, and very slowly drop down. She happened to be wearing the prettiest dress of the three, very bouffant. I remember it was light blue satin, and as she slowly descended, the multiple layers of her very pretty petticoat would slowly “drop” one after the other. I remember there was an inner layer of probably paper-nylon, with lace around the hem. Then there were three layers of lace trimmed nylon net, one in purple, one in yellow, and one in pink. The top layer was a pale blue net, but with rows of pink satin ribbon, rows of narrow lace, and a wide, lace hem!

I have often wondered if these girls were aware the effect their lovely underwear had on some of us young boys, or for a ten year girl was it just “part of daily life”? (If I’m wearing so many layers of petticoats, well, the boys are going to get to see them.)

Such memories.