Episode 122 My expensive Gaberdine. (Gaberdine!? Never mind! They are all 'trench coat stylings)
When I finished my training as a nurse, in my late twenties, one of my early jobs was as an assistant to the ‘District Nurse’ in my own home town. The district nurse had been there some years and she had her own car, a Ford Anglia I remember. I had to use a bicycle!
After a year or two, I was trusted out on my own to visit the more local house-bound sick people to treat them there at home so that they did not have to go out themselves. I even helped at child-births! It meant a lot of time spent outdoors, so a rain-coat was a necessity. My father, who doted on me and was very proud that I had that particular job in our home town, bought me a replacement for my old nurses’ uniform coat and paid quite a lot of money for it, I remember. It certainly lasted me many more years. It was, like my old one, dark navy blue gaberdine, double breasted, belted and with a splendid hood. Jos used to swoon every time he met me out in it!! I said he could inherit the old one, but dark blue gabardine was not his style at all.
Although it was a ‘sensible’ length, 6 inches below my knees, the wrap round effect of a double-breasted style was still not enough to keep my knees covered when I cycled in the rain. Eventually I took into a local tailor who added a buttoned tab low enough down to button over my knees as I cycled. The hood was nicely designed and large enough to keep rain off my glasses, again as I cycled. It tied in place with two ties stitched inside the hood, pulling it well forward
About six months later later, Jos ‘borrowed’ it for a week or so, during which I used my old gaberdine, whilst he had an identical design and sized one made in a specialist shop in London with the same generously sized hood which itself was lined with the same material as the coat itself and even the special lower tab was diligently copied.
There was just one difference. It was not in gaberdine, it was in black rubber-surfaced cotton material, ‘indiana’ it was called. After a lot of persuasion, even bribery, I did wear it out, but only in Norwich where I kept it in my flat, even though I was then living at home a lot of the time for nursing call-outs..
As you will have gathered, I do like SBR raincoats especially those with hoods and just like wearing them, whatever the weather. That first one was particularly nice and comfortable even for everyday wear around the town.
In our small Norfolk town, nowadays I’m old enough to get away with wearing this particular ‘traditional style, traditional material-made raincoat’ without attracting undue attention.
Except from one of the local taxi drivers!
When shopping in the town and perhaps needing a lift home with heavy shopping bags, he always offers me a free lift, saying he’s going home for lunch/tea anyway and.as he drives, always remarks that no-one (except me!) wears proper rainwear any longer.
Once at home, I thank him politely and allow him to watch (not that I could stop him) as I walk up the drive. If it’s wet I probably have the hood up anyway but if not, when I get to the door, I put down my shopping bags, then put my hood up, search for the key and go inside.
I’m waiting for the day when he eventually plucks up courage to offer to carry the shopping bags up the drive for me. He won't say or do anything untoward, I'm sure, as I know his wife and, in fact, attended on her at their last childs birth!
So, you can now read on, knowing that SBR mackintoshes have become equally important to us.
Taxi, Ma'am?
Then, soon after that, I found myself promoted to the District Nurse position upon the retirement of my senior.
In the town a week or so later, I was stopped by the local newspaper reporter and given an interview about my new position and had my photo taken. Both the report and the photo appeared in the local newspaper that week-end!
The photo, copied more recently for our journal and seen here, raised the criticism from my parents that I should have been wearing my 'nice' new gabardine at the time, not that 'old green raincoat of yours'! which I often wore off-duty.
Jos's criticism was different – he said (out of our parents hearing) that I should have been wearing my splendid black rubber surfaced mackintosh.
So this is me as I appeared
in the local newspaper. No
colour printing in those days.
Bottle green and,of course,
rubber-lined
(See episode 107)
One problem with the job was that, being well known in the town, I was often stopped by locals who thought they could consult me about their medical problems, there and then even in the middle of the market place.
Jos came up with a suggestion. If, he said, I was walking/cycling through the town on the way to an appointment and had no time to spare, I should wear my hood up ! (He would think of that, wouldn’t he!). People would soon get to know that they should only stop and ‘chat’ if I wore my hood down and they could see it was me. He finally managed to persuade me that this was a good idea, so I tried it for a time and I believed it did work on the whole.