I spent the entire evening wearing the dress. And about four or five days later, I wore it again. I probably left it a fortnight before I wore it for a third time. Mum asked if I liked wearing it and I nodded. “I don’t think I’d wear it outside but I like knocking about the house in it.” I told her.

“Something to wear on a rainy day?” Mum said. “When there’s nowhere to go and no one to visit.”

“Yeah.” I bashfully replied. “You don’t mind do you?” I cautiously asked.

“I wouldn’t have bought it if I did.” Mum told me. “In fact I’m glad you like wearing it… it’d have been a bit of a waste if you only tried it the once.”

My nautical dress did become a bit of a regular ‘rainy day’ outfit. Mum bought me some new tights after I accidentally laddered my first pair and all of a sudden I had a choice between woolly white tights and navy blue ‘school’ tights. Mum had also found the book that accompanied the exhibition of Children’s Victorian Clothing we’d visited, and there in its pages is a chapter all about the days when it was normal for boys to wear dresses. I learned that for boys my age, their dresses were only worn for special occasions rather than daily. Younger boys, up to the age of five or even seven years old apparently wore dresses all the time. I often found myself flicking through it, paying more attention to the pictures than the words, baffled by just how ‘girlie’ some of the boy’s frocks are… but I guess in them days they probably didn’t consider them ‘girlie’, just ‘nice’ or ‘ornate’… possibly even ‘pretty’.

 

No matter how many times I look at these two pages, I find it difficult to believe that there’s only one girl in all of those photographs. At some point or another, I’ve imagined being each and every one of those boys.

One afternoon a month or so later, I sauntered home through an April shower with one thing on my mind… getting home, warming up under the shower and wearing my cosy frock & thick woolly tights for the rest of the evening. I was drenched by the time I arrived and predictably, Mum told me that I looked like a drowned rat. She placed a large bag on the kitchen table and said, “I bought you something.”