Dream Jacket

These images fascinate me although (perhaps because) they are of me. They were both taken quite close together but in the earlier one on the right I had my hair combed down for some reason.

But the hair style isn't really the main attraction for me. It is the check jacket just visible in the image on the right. This was my favourite jacket of all time! I remember buying it at an outlet in Birmingham called Weaver to Wearer. I wish I still had that jacket!

There was a story of hardship behind this fashion statement. My mother got a clothing allowance for me of some sort because my father had died early. Despite the fact that she had to work hard to make ends meet, she always gave me this allowance to spend and, although I say it myself, I was quite fashionable in those days because of this.

I found this reference to Weaver to Wearer on the net: "Sir: In the matter of pejoratives, the Burton's of Barnet Churnin's youth (letter, 11 April) had a serious high street rival, a firm of fashionable gentlemen's outfitters that traded as Weaver to Wearer. Its competitively priced range of off-the-peg electric blue suits with their familiar tag, 'One sneeze and you're in your shirt', dominated the Saturday night hops in my northern town. The prettiest girls, it was said, made a beeline for anyone so elegantly attired, and who indeed could blame them?"