Evil, and persistent instrument of torture

 Here are four photos of my childhood. The first is taken in the summer of '71 when I was three and a half years old and my brother had just been born, the second is from the following summer when I was four and a half.

We then skip ahead to a rather posed shot from the summer of '74 so I am six and a half and finally we reach the summer of '76 so I'm a ripe old eight and a half and just at the beginning of p5...

So what do you notice? Yes - I am wearing the same bikini in all of them.

It was bad enough to have to wear the same bikini from the age of three right through to primary five but more traumatic still was the major reason it fitted me so well for so long was because my granny had knitted me it! And being made of wool, it was stretchy. Now I know the UK was not and is not renowned for its tropical climate, but still you don't necessarily want to be wearing a woolly bikini every summer - that last photo was from the heatwave '76 after all! And the plot thickens... As you can see it is a pretty little thing - with a very feminine, integral woollen skirt in a rather fetching shade of indigo... And not only should you notice I am wearing the same swimwear in every photo, the other similarity is that it is always dry... Why do you think I never got my bikini wet? Wool, water, gravity... need I say more? It was an evil and long-lived instrument of torture that blighted my summers with heat, and embarrassment. No wonder I didn't become a very good swimmer till high school.

Maybe I should start a self help group for people traumatized in childhood by grannies' inescapable knitted nightmares...