Purple bell bottoms and a paisley shirt

Wandered into a charity shop in a seaside town yesterday and among the kaleidoscope of items for sale was a second hand paisley shirt.  I have not seen a paisley shirt for many a decade and it instantly took me back in time when such a shirt featured majorly in changing my life.

It was sometime in the early 1980’s; at this moment in time I cannot recall exactly what year, what month, but if I sat and reflected for a while I would, however for this story just now, the exact date is irrelevant.

However the fact that it was in the early 80’s is relevant though.

In that era New Zealand had less immigration than we do now with the bulk of the immigrants during that period coming from the United Kingdom.  In the early 80’s folk from the UK were referred to as  ‘Poms’ (or Pomes as the correct spelling should be), the acronym for Prisoner of Mother England.  Interestingly we rarely hear this phrase or reference today in this world of political correctness, but in the 1980’s there was no such modern invention as political correctness. 

In that era the Poms had to have thick skin as generally speaking the English were not held in high esteem by some New Zealanders as they were commonly referred to as “whinging Poms” – a term  the dictionary defines – to whine, to complain.  Whinging Poms evolved from the mass immigration of Poms who arrived here in the 1950’s as assisted immigrants (£10 Pomes) and once here found the cultural differences greater than expected and then began to openly complain about the Kiwi life, lifestyle, idiosyncrasies and habits and how much better it all was “back home”.  This never did go down well with NZ born Kiwis.  Kiwis have never been endeared to complainers.

Poms were also derided by the fact that not only did they whinge, but their dress sense was often seen as something of as uniquely English; ie, odd.  Any male wearing socks and sandals was a sure sign of a Pom.  As were walk shorts for men, hairy faces and boringly conservative cardigans and jerkins (for men and women).

So, in the early 80’s when a sock and sandal wearing  male, who sported a full and red-tinged beard walked into the retail shop my then husband and I owned I remember it  took  merely  one glance to categorise the individual as “oh my, here comes another Pom!” 

This was confirmed on the second glance by noticing his dreadful fashion sense of his paisley shirt with blousey sleeves and purple,  bell bottom crimplene trousers.  

To add to the confirmation of this man being a classic ‘Pommie plonker’, hitched over his shoulders and on his back he had some form of harness, or baby-backpack, in which there was a small baby.  Back-packing baby carriers on mothers were rarely seen in New Zealand in those days, let alone one on the back of a male.

He was rather a sight to a somewhat A-typical bigoted Kiwi raised woman so when he was introduced as the husband of old school friend of my husband’s, I was bemusedly surprised.  I recall politely shaking his hand and making polite chit-chat conversation whilst mentally categorising him as a ‘once met doubt will ever see again’ individual.

Hah!   Little did I know then that over a decade later I would fall deeply in love with the purple trousered, paisley shirted, red bearded, sock and sandal wearing Pom.

His fashion sense had changed by then.  As had my bigotry.  Thankfully.  For both.