Time Travel

My pocket Oxford Mini dictionary from 1986 (name inscribed at the front in fountain pen, bless) defines fabric as cloth or knitted material.
That’s the mini definition. The maxi one encompasses texture, colour and – clasp those donnish mortar boards – time travel.
Yes. Like a Tardis, fabric sucks you into a twisting, swirling, musical kaleidoscope of madness before plonking you back in your past, in my case that usually being sometime circa 1980.
I got just such a nobbling recently. I was walking along, minding my own business when there was a flash of blue and white and whoosh, 25 years vanished and I was deposited back in the school playground.
What material could have such power? Gingham of course. Those blue and white checks that will forever be school summer uniform, heralding, with the first hint of warmth in the air, the end of heavy winter clothes and the arrival of short sleeves.
I never knew exactly when the changeover would happen – it seemed to be yet another of those adult mysteries – but it was always a moment of joy, the bringer of good things to come. Of sitting cross-legged in the grass slitting and threading the sticky stalks of daisies. Of playing outside in the long evenings when the sun never seemed to go down. Of the soft, distinctive squeak of rubber-soled sandals that you wore with white ankle socks.
It was the end of wool, the start of cotton; winter itchiness replaced by summer freshness; long jumpers giving way to bare arms. Only a matter of weeks until the long summer holiday and life couldn’t get any better.
There was one dress in particular, just a plain shirt dress with big white buttons down the front that I remember fondly. It was the days before uniform uniforms, when any gingham would do, and no one – absolutely no one - had the same dress as me. It was cool and comfy with something of the nurse’s uniform about it, making me feel like someone of importance as I doctored my daisies to death.
If I still had that dress, and was still age 6-7 clothing, I’d probably wear it now. I’m not sure the same could be said for our other time-travelling fabric of the day, which I discovered in my bag of off-cuts.
White cotton with a spattering of blue cherries – dum dum dum dum – peel back the years to unveil a little girl, all round red cheeks and shiny white hair in her version of gingham, with smocking down the front and thin straps on chubby arms.
Not me, my sister Nats, who, not yet at school, had her own uniform in the cherries, almost good enough to eat. I’m sure she wouldn’t wear it now, but back then it was the height of cuteness – and fashion. Life was so much simpler. Sigh. I’m going to start a campaign to bring back smocking. And gingham. And yes, I might even get a dog called Toto.