Two days later was Friday and when I returned from school my Mum called me to her bedroom and there on the bed laid out were the most exiting garments I had ever seen: A navy blue gym dress, a white shirt with long sleeves, a suspender belt, a pair of sateen panties with elastic top and bottom, a pair of long black stockings, a pair of girls’ black school shoes and a red and white GHS school tie.

I must point out that in those days there were no panty-hose, hence the suspenders. I had sometimes caught a glimpse of these mysterious items of female clothing but now I was to actually find out how they functioned.

My mum told me to take off all of my clothes and then came the exiting part. First I put on the suspender belt which was quite tricky but Ma helped. Then a thrilling bit when I was shown how to roll up the stockings and carefully pull them up over my legs and clip them onto the little metal and rubber clips at the ends of the four elastic suspenders attached to the suspender belt.