How Things Have Changed
Tonight I saw a friend back to the bus stop. Whilst waiting a guy came past, who’d obviously been to Royal Ascot, as he was fully dressed complete with a black top hat.
It just shows how you can gwnerally walk the streets dressed in any manner you want. It reminded me of how C and I used to walk back from University balls in Liverpool, through Princes and Sefton Park to the Halls of Residence, in dinner jackets and long dresses.
But it wasn’t so long ago, when to do something like that would have been to attract all the wrong sort of attention.
There is always the story of Ted Kid Lewis, who was possibly London’s greatest ever boxer, walking home smartly dressed, before the Second World War in the East End and being set upon by four thugs. As he knocked the fourth out, he produced his visiting card and dropped it on his attacker.
I don’t know whether my father ever saw Lewis fight, but I can remember him telling me the tales of the Aldgate Sphinx.
The Anonymous Widower 
In Liverpool now it seems perfectly acceptable to walk around in pyjamas and bedroom slippers. And a whole host of other odd clothing choices as well.
Comment by liz | June 15, 2011 |