I OUTRAGED THE OXFORD UNION

EDWINA CURRIE

AH, MINIS. The 1960s. I’m a student biking round Oxford with a Scouse accent. I enjoy a whisper of fame as one of the few women undergraduates, coming from the same Liverpool school as The Beatles. The mini was compulsory. It set out to shock, but we were young and that was our role in life. It meant freedom, from all the dull middle-aged fashions before, from navy school skirts which had to cover the knee. We were a new, Devil-may-care generation, with Women’s Lib on the agenda, the Pill offering sex without pregnancy, a joyous drop-in drop-out world to be adroitly managed by those with long limbs. That cycling certainly helped. The mini shouted that we were not to be confused with our mothers. Or our teachers.

So when Twiggy showed her legs, we were all gasping to follow suit.

Soon you couldn’t buy a longer skirt and we would hitch them over at the waist to get them a bit higher. At Oxford we weren’t allowed cars even if I could have afforded one, so getting in and out of a vehicle wasn’t a problem — but riding a bike became a challenge.

Within my first term, I’d ditched my roll-on corsets and gone into debt for some pretty knickers. We all did.

Did we enjoy being looked at? Of course. See my cheeky face aged 22, in the Oxford Union official photo. The dress code was black tie and long dresses for the ladies. It wasn’t innocent exactly, but it was innocent fun. They do say that if you remember the 1960s, you weren’t there. I was, and here is the proof.