The Gold Coast has received a lot of rain during the last seven days. Funny how quickly we become bored with grey skies, when we experience clear blue skies for so much of the year. Anyway, having got soaked for the umpteenth time going to work, due to a non waterproof shower jacket and a broken umbrella, trying to hold off torrential rain, I was taken by the pretty green, plastic mac that a work colleague sported to work on Friday morning. Memories of my childhood in England came flooding back to me.
When I was a girl, everybody owned a plastic mac (short for Mackintosh, meaning raincoat to non Poms!) Males had grey macs females pretty pastel coloured macs.They were fastened at the front with flexible plastic buttons or press studs, that were apt to cause tearing,they often had an attached hood. I remember the grey male style had slits in the sides to enable easy access to the trouser or jacket pockets underneath, whereas the ladies style had front pockets, for hankies and so forth. Mine went everywhere with me, ie to and from school, at least a three kilometre walk each way, folded neatly into it's matching plastic envelope,taking up as little space as possible beside all the school paraphernalia that was required to be lugged on our shoulders for daily lessons. One never knew when a shower would occur and, trust me one could get VERY wet during such a long walk. The plastic mac was my insurance policy against a wet uniform and a cold soggy day.
With the benefit of hindsight, the idea of owning a pair of brown leather indoor and outdoor shoes wasn't such a bad idea as it seemed at the time, because we were at least ensured of dry feet during wet weather,especially when on wet days the rain having hit the plastic mac then trickled down the garment and dripped onto one's feet! Oh we did it tough as kids! Happy days!
Anyway my plastic macs saved me from many a soaking. Damaged macs could be repaired with sticky tape, and so patch up jobs were evident when necessary, when we couldn't afford a replacement.
Also popular at that time with ladies were rain hats made of fan folded, soft,clear plastic with ribbon attached to the ends, that could be opened an used to cover ones hair. After use they were shaken dried and refolded and returned to their envelope for subsequent use. I think these may still be available, though I haven't been in England for several years and thus am unable to verify this fact.
As I sit pondering all this, I wonder when and why plastic macs went out of fashion, when they are clearly so useful.
My colleague said she had purchased hers while holidaying in an Asian country, surprise, surprise!
Plastic ponchos have become quite popular for unsuspecting tourists, visiting supposed sunny destinations. This evokes another memory for me of our family trip to Disneyland, back in the mid 90's. My family members are few of the folk in the world who can testify to the lie of the song lyrics "It never rains in California", it does, and it did, much to our surprise and consternation, during our brief visit to this iconic theme park. we witnessed hundreds of visitors to the park wearing bright yellow plastic ponchos with Mickey Mouse printed on the back, sloshing around in the mud. It rained a lot in that corner of California that day.
Back to my question, what has caused the decline in plastic macs? During my schooldays, there were no family cars available to taxi children to and from school, it was shank's pony or if we hadn't spent our bus money on sweets, then a bus ride, but even then, in my case that only halved the walk! You couldn't walk with a couple of friends on a pavement holding umbrellas, even if we could afford them.
Today, so often, in our materialistic western world, it seems that kids enter the family vehicle in the dry garage, exit the property through electronic gates and are chauffeured to school in the dry. The journey is reversed at the end of the day and dealing with rain is not a problem. Not only do they not have to deal with inclement weather, but they are also deprived of exercise and all the fun of spending regular time actually socializing, face to face with mates, in so doing rubbing off prickly personality traits and learning pecking order and social skills that, I am sure kids in my era benefited from in later life when we entered the real world. So school kids have no need for rain protection, and it would not be cool to wear such garments even if they were available! Indeed we all have much easier access to vehicles that precludes the need for rain wear.
I suppose the plastic poncho is popular due to its one fits all design and size and more economical to stock. Let me say that they are extremely helpful in the rain providing one can keep the lower edges where they are supposed to be! They fold up small and are inexpensive, very handy to have in the glove box.Umbrellas are now very affordable and so the demise of the plastic mac was inevitable.
Long live memories! Where would we have been without those plastic macs?
Simply Susan
This is a snap of a sodden parrot that took shelter under the eves of our deck earlier in the week, definitely not impressed with the inclement weather.
