As a child, being raised by my grandparents in the 1950′s, I remember the being awestruck by the size of the bloomers (or unmentionables as they were called) worn back then by my grandmother.

Copious amounts of material went in to making these rather large pants that ballooned out and were elasticised at the knees. My grandfather would refer to them as “Oxford Bags ” whenever grandmothers unmentionables were flapping in the wind, displayed in all their enormous glory on the washing line.

I believe that the origin of the term “Oxford Bags” refers to pants that are very large and relates to the manner in which the students at Oxford College dressed in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

In those times it was unacceptable for young men to wear knickers to school as they were only intended for use in sport. At the time golf was very popular and the students who attended Oxford would want to get to golf links as quickly as possible after classes. Rather than bring a change of pants with them to school, they had their trousers made extra wide in order to hide their knickers underneath them. Once classes were over for the day, the men would drop their trousers and be ready for golf. And so it came to be that the name Oxford Bags was adopted for these very baggy trousers. The comedian Buster Keaton wore Oxford Bags in his first film Steamboat Bill Jr.

As my grandmother aged she was unable to lace herself into her whalebone corset without assistance and I remember trying to pull the laces as tight as possible for her. What a travesty it was the women were expected to bear this torture in the name of fashion.

None of this rubbish for the modern miss, thank you very much. Dainty bras, miniscule sized panties and nary a corset in sight, except for special occassions.