Wearing the golden fleece

Every opportunity shop in at least the cooler, southern Australian states, has a selection of knitting books. To some these represent something of a treasure trove – they are time capsules about taste, ordinary fashion not high fashion, home hobbies.

 ‘Specially dyed School colours include gold, emerald, purple,tans, blues and clericals’

 The most remarkable feature about this pattern book is that it records a time where mothers made at least part of their children’s school uniform. This would be no small task and particularly when there were more than one child. In the top right hand corner there is a logo that advises that the knitter can follow the pattern and watch television.

According to the information in this pattern book, Patons & Baldwin made this wool in over 70 colours – ‘specially dyed School colours include gold, emerald, purple,tans, blues and clericals’. (What does clericals mean? Clerical as in a clerk in an office or clerical as in a member of the clergy? The former seems to suggest a range of greys and the latter, blacks. Can any reader throw light on this?)

Unlike house paints, knitting wool colours were identified on their labels by a code number rather than a name. 

The children of the era are portrayed wearing school ties and hair ribbons, riding bicycles, playing and studying co-operatively, conducting science experiments. They are not small creatures, the pattern sizes go up to a 39 inch chest.