WHAT I TREASURE

My dressing-up bag By Josephine Murray

Turning my late Great Aunt’s sheet into a ‘Mary’ costume for my daughter to wear in the Gloucester Cathedral musical nativity play was a satisfyingly creative act of thrift and love, inspired by my mother who made so many costumes for me.

The Cathedral is freezing in winter, so my daughter Kirstie and I raided the dressing-up bag she inherited from me and found my Grandma’s 1980s Marks & Spencer polyester petticoat to wear under the Mary dress. A blue scarf by Grandad, knitted decades ago, held the microphone in place.

The dressing-up bag is about a metre high and half as wide. To get at its contents, my brother and I had to tip the whole lot onto the floor. When called away for dinner, we had to use all our strength to stuff the clothes back in. The homemade fancydress outfits it still holds are far removed from instant plastic costumes easily found by typing ‘superhero outfit’ into Google. There’s a white silky skirt, once covered with glued-on red hearts – the Queen of Hearts, of course; a Flower Fairy dress in a wild-rose fabric; and a regal blue dress with white broderie anglaise cuffs, plus matching blue bustle. There’s also a pair of faded black trousers and a white shirt, which Mum made ragged with scissors in less enlightened times so that I could go to a party dressed as a ‘tramp’.

There are exotic presents from travelling relatives and my mother’s army childhood; a pair of sky blue silk pyjamas embroidered with Chinese dragons, a scarf from 1950s Cyprus, and a black and gold igal – the woven cord circle worn by men in the

Middle East to keep their headscarf in place.

The dressing-up bag survived 20 years in my parents’ attic and the clothes look exactly as they did when my brother and I stuffed them back in for what turned out to be the last time. There are my 1980s Girl Guide and Brownie uniforms, Mum’s 1950s red tap dancing shoes, and a pink leotard and wraparound cardigan worn to ballet lessons by me, and then by my daughter, 25 years apart.

Kirstie’s own acquisition of a police officer’s high-vis jacket herald the 21st century, and gender equality. We’ve created an overspill box for a Roman centurion’s helmet, hats and a medieval shield.

After the Nativity play, she stuffed her outfit into the pink bag in her wardrobe. And, in 25 years’ time, perhaps a third little redhaired girl will tip the dressing-up clothes onto her floor, and act out her dreams.

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