A Shirt Tale

It was way back in1950 that my father was scheduled to visit the United States and Canada, to discuss topics of mutual interest in the gas industry, coal gas in the UK in those days and mostly natural gas in the US and Canada. It was the cause of much family excitement that he was going to make such a trip, and a predeparture party was held with fake weather forecasts ominously predicting hurricanes for his sea voyage, which actually happened. The whole family went down to Southampton to wish him Bon Voyage, which resulted in my mother, who hated driving, having to drive the 80 miles back home in our unreliable slightly bomb damaged 1935 Morris ten four.

He had a very busy schedule for a three week visit, being in a different city nearly every night. One of his concerns was how he could look respectable, with no opportunity to do laundry. Drip dry was essentially an unknown word back then in the UK, but he was advised that if he purchased nylon shirts, they could be washed at bedtime, hung out to dry overnight and be nice and clean in the morning. As a result he purchased two nylon shirts, which easily lived up to his needs. He continued to wear them for a number of years, and then, getting tired of them passed them on to me. I was never that keen on wearing them, but they came in extremely useful as aprons for the young, when they were doing something messy. No matter how much paint the kids got on them, it all came off in the wash. One of them was actually worn by our middle daughter, Robin, when she was a star in a children`s painting show on Television in Newfoundland in 1968.

One of those shirts about to make another starring experience, as I wear it inside out and backwards as one of the tasks in the WinterPlayChallenge, organised by the same daughter who wore the shirt in Newfoundland. This task requires one to wear clothes inside our for a day, and I have decided to go the whole hog and wear it backwards too. The shirt is as intact today as it was back in 1950, a real tribute to the nylon shirt makers of the period. Perhaps the fact that it has worn so well provides a hint as to why you do not see entirely nylon shirts in shops any more, they do not wear out fast enough.