Well, after reading my lovely friend’s blog here
https://diaryofteacher.blogspot.com/2023/08/thursday-03-08-23.html
It sparked a memory of when I got my ears pierced. My Mum had hers done, my Aunty Laura had hers done but my beloved Nanna didn’t! Instead she had an amazing array of clip on earrings. I loved to see her clip one off when she answered her phone and until she was too elderly and frail to go out, she’s wear a carefully coordinated pair with her outfit. She was very smartly dressed, my Nanna as was the generation I think. ( (1914 she was born ).
Anyhoo, the glittery coloured clip on earrings lived in her jewellery box on her dressing table. I remember going in and trying them on one time, admiring myself in the dressing table mirror, brushing my hair with one of those fancy big hair brush, mirror, clothes brush , comb and powder puff sets laid out on a crystal glass tray! Very much like this one I found after a quick internet search.
So one day my Mum sent me to the shop for 20 Embassy regal king size and a loaf of bread. I was 7 I think. The route took me past her friend Dora’s house. We’d go there a lot and me and my sisters would play with Dora’s 3 girls. She was Italian and still spoke with a heavy accent and her English wasn’t perfect and she would often get words wrong. Anyway, unbeknownst to me, my Mum had hatched a plan with Dora.
As I skipped past Dora was at her door and called me in. She said she had something for me to take to my Mum. I said I would go to the shop and then come back. Which is what I did. Back I went clutching my Mum’s cigarettes and a loaf! Ahhh the 70s, the good old days when children could buy fags!
Dora said would you like me to pierce your ears? I’ll plait your hair over so Mum and Dad don’t know!
Yes of course I would!
So I sat in her kitchen on a high wooden stool. I didn’t even know what it would entail! A glass of whisky and a darning needle and cork is what it entailed! I sat still as she did the first one, numbed with an ice cube first and then the second. My ears were throbbing a little bit and she handed me a mirror to look. There, in my ears were a little pair of shiny gold sleepers! She told me to keepa your filthys mitts off little miss!
Well she then plaited my long hair into two pigtails and told me to go wait in the living room whilst she got the ‘thing’ for my Mum.
I remember strongly sitting in her brown sofa in her brown living room not daring to move my head a single millimetre! The ‘thing’ was a bottle of TCP and some cotton wool. It took me ages to walk back home without moving my head. I thought they’d drop out. Ahh the 70’s where you’d go to the shop, get maimed and eventually go home without anyone raising an alarm!
When I got home I gave the bread, cigs and TCP to Mum. She asked me how come my hair was in plaits. I said Dora did it. She always used to do my hair as her girls had short thick wiry short hair whereas mine was long down to me bum and poker straight! Anyway my mum started laughing and asked me if I liked the surprise! The TCP was to bathe them on an evening and salt water in the morning and keep my filthy mitts off! My Dad never said anything in the end. But that was how I got my ears pierced! I never really had very dirty hands by the way! I was quite a clean child!
I later got them pierced another 4 times as was the fashion when I was a teenager. It really bloody hurts as you go further up! These days I just wear three each side and I rarely change them and when I do, it’s just the bottom ones.
I wear a pair of thin small silver sleepers ( hoops ) on the top one, then a silver stud paw print - present off Darren, in the middle holes and then a pair of silver wedding ring earrings in my original holes.
Thanks for the memory spark Joy!
Freddie is here with us for the week as my girl and her beau and a load of their friends head to Cyprus for a week’s holiday and one of the group’s wedding. We went for a walk and then for a coffee! Some of us had a swim in the river and then some of us not only enjoyed a carrot with our coffee but we had an ice cream as well!
As a child we had the butcher, baker and fish man all come in their vans, Friday was always the fish man, baker came every day and the butcher a couple times a week, we lived in a small village in Somerset, great memories. Mum always had TCP at home, these days I'm a Dettox user, nothing else needed. Finally I have some of mum's clip earrings, I have 3 different pearl designs.
ReplyDeleteLoved the story of your ear piercing! Love the cheeky conspiracy between Dora and your mum :)
ReplyDeleteThose dressing table sets are so evocative of that era of nannas.
Cleaning products are so strongly and strangely scented these days aren't they? I particularly hate all the sweet scents - it's hard to reconcile the ability to clean vs washing things down with something that smells like sweeties. A lot of people like the general cleaning sprays from Aldi/Lidl (I think one/the other/both? does really well in Which? or Good Housekeeping reviews and are cheap enough to take a punt on) and I've heard great things about the Neat range.
You were very brave, that's all I can say!
ReplyDeleteThose earrings at the top are gorgeous - I'm looking out for some really nice ones for when I can take the sleepers out and that's just the sort of thing I'll be going for. So pretty.
We had a butcher's shop in the village when I was a child - Pete the butcher's and I thought his name was Pete Butcher (it wasn't). However, we did have a milkman, a veg van and a fish van plus a market gardener who sold endless tomatoes and an egg farm so we were very lucky for such a small village. Later on, we even had a little hair salon in someone's house.
xx