Mother and me, circa 1963
As I drove home from work on Whit Sunday, I passed a family walking in the sunshine. They were all female, and looked to be from around four years old to great-granny in her eighties. It took me back to my own childhood and similar outings when members of the four generations would gather at Whitsuntide, all in our ‘Whitsy clothes’.
From talking to people locally, it seems the idea of Whitsy clothes never made it this far south. I, however, was born, and spent most of my childhood, in Yorkshire, in the north of England… where tradition said that there must be a new outfit for ‘Whitsy’. The rest of the year clothes came as necessities and were often home-made or hand-me-downs, or both, so the ‘Whitsy frock’ was an exciting sartorial adventure.
Whitsuntide celebrates the Christian feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit…
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Viv Drewa - The Owl Lady 