Dear LPG,  

Perhaps I am the only one but I somehow think not.  Once the Summer bank holiday is over each year, even if we have had a bad one, it is as if opening the front door on that first day of September completely changes my perception of what to expect beyond it 

They say that one’s extremities are the first body parts to be affected when it comes to feeling the chill of an oncoming winter and, as I get older, I have to say that my feet suffer the most.  The answer is simple really.  This is the time of year when we reintroduce them to socks, but there are so many kinds.   

I remember the long white ones we used to wear to school as girls and the boys would be there with the grey version.  I was never one for short ankle-length socks back then and the white ones never looked the same when they got marked, and lets not talk about when the elastic at the top got loose.  There was nothing that looked quite so bad as a sagging sock on a school girl in my opinion.  

I am also old enough to remember when most ladies only wore stockings and I was also around when they made way for tights.  As a post-war child, I always supposed it was because they were so unavailable during the war.  I have to admit that they contributed to what made me feel all grown up when I first left school and started working in a West End office so I followed fashion for a while.  But they laddered and needed replacing so often, and even when the run-resistant ones were invented the holes were not that flattering at a time when skirts were pretty short.  During the morning rush hour back then, if I was lucky enough to get a seat on those very crowded trains, there would be nothing else to look at but all the feet of the commuters.  The gentleman nearly all wore grey or black socks that looked like the camouflage between their trousers and their shoes.   

But I also remember when fashion evolved and more ladies started wearing trousers to work too.  having a splash of colour between the female ankle and shoe somehow seemed a little more acceptable and that is where I found myself.   

I find it hard to say good bye to a really comfortable pair which I don’t have to do as often as I used to these days.  It is all well and good to just keep wearing them but there is nothing quite as bad as being asked to take your shoes off at the doctors before getting on the weighing scales and revealing one toe which has escaped through a hole, or following a person down the road whose socks have worn at the heal which is revealed every time their shoe on that particular foot lifts, and the shoe heal drops just enough to reveal the wear-and tare (worse still if you are the person being followed).   These days it is acceptable to just throw away the one with the hole.  While the art of mending them is passé, I still have no problem when it comes to not being able to find the other one of a pair when I want it.  But now anything goes.  Odd socks, stripy socks, Bed socks, spotty socks, support socks, loose socks, socks with patterns, pictures and even personal messages written on them.  Some of us older people will also be forced to learn about compression socks as time goes by but the worst type of sock is the tight sock.  

Can I just mention the need to beware? By tight socks I mean the ones that affect the circulation in your legs.  I find that as my legs get older, when I take them off after a day’s wear I can often see that imprint that a sock with a tight top leaves around your leg.  I have found a bit of internet wisdom instruction on the use of a bit of sock surgery to redress that balance.  I also found an interesting bit of information for the gentlemen owners of loose ones and hope that LPG have included the details below. 

Socks have another really important use.  They have become the quintessential Christmas or birthday present for the person who has everything.  You can’t go wrong with a pair of socks if you can think of nothing else.  I even found an online shop which is offering a pair with next year’s calendar on it. 

That being said I am one of those people who really dislike having to wear anything on my feet and while there comes a time each year when the socks have to go back on, I can’t wait for May when I can put them all away again for the summer.   

HB. Lee 
 

HB offers her research on the subject to tightly topped socks…

 

 

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… and what she has learned about loose socks…

 

 

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