Readers’ Lives
FINISHING SCHOOL FOLLIES: the virgin bra
with Jocelyn Thomson.
I’ve been coming to Argelès for 36 years . Am now 86, my boys ex Etonians, are grown, but I still make the long drive from Canterbury where I live – though not in one day any more. I was a medical journalist and moved to Canterbury when I retired to be near the tunnel-well ferry in those days-and my beloved France. Sadly I can only stay for 90 days now – the extended visa is such a monumental pain to obtain
Saturday afternoons in Paris would see us, a small group of teenage girls, heading for the upmarket emporia around the Rue St Honore. Deep piled carpets and uniformed doormen armed with sprays of expensive perfume tempted us inside, though we rarely bought anything, until one day I was beguiled into buying a genuine French bra.
It was utterly beautiful, in pale blue lace, pink and black rose-bud trim and a wiring network which promised to turn a plump Anglo Saxon adolescent into an approximation of Brigette Bardot.
Too self-conscious to try it on in the shop I giggled my way back to school with my friends (is it my imagination or have teenage girls come a long way since then) clutching the gold box, with its silver ribbon and palest green tissue. As you may have guessed the bra was too small. Sadly I cocooned it away and put the golden box into a drawer.
When I left Paris I went to Norway and the bra went too.
It then survived the rigours of 4 years of various student digs, only to emerge when after some dieting spree, I thought it might fit. Alas it never did.
After I married I introduced the bra to my husband. He adored it, gazed dreamily at the pink and black roses, and longed for the day they would come into their own.
The years drifted by and our little family and the virgin bra, were to be found in the USA.
In that subtle way Americans have, my sons nursery school teacher wondered if I knew about ” a remarkable organisation we have here in the States called Weight Watchers” I took the hint, and for the first time since I’d set off for kindergarten, my weight slowly came within the limits set by life insurance companies.
I hurried home from my class on the day I reached “goal weight”, full of the joys of my graduation ceremony and sporting my presentation pin.
My husband seemed somewhat underwhelmed at my gushings “Never mind all that” he said,”How about your French bra” How about it indeed. We lifted it gently down and untied the now slightly tarnished silver cord. I lovingly tried it on.
It was TOO BIG.
