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Christopher Breward
Brown leaves began to carpet the road at the side of the common (“Dash’em!” said City
gentlemen as they slipped and slithered on the way to catch morning trains) . . . Cricket
bats were oiled and put away, and white flannel suits sent to the wash (“They’re never
paid for” complained mothers. “Continual source of expense. You boys will have to make
up your minds to bear the cost of washing another year!”) 21
The holiday season witnessed the apotheosis of a finely honed suburban identity
in which white flannels and straw hat became synonymous with a respectable
release from the daily round, while instituting recognizable modes, language, and
demeanor which could signify a modern fashionability the whole year round. As
Pett Ridge recalled, during the summer months
four wheeled cabs drew up of a morning in Birnam Road, taking pale faces away and
returning them a fortnight later as Red Indians, with habits and customs gained from far
off places lasting for several days; babies going out in burlesque costumes, with wooden
spade and tin shovel, to pretend that the Frying Pan on the Common was the boundless
ocean; girls strolling without hats or gloves, young men in white flannels, a straw hat set
at the back of the head . . . and pianofortes in every house were badgered into efforts to
recall the elusive airs learnt from Pierrots on the sands. 22
Alongside the group photographs which recorded such fin-de-siècle excursions
autobiographer Fred Willis provided the corroborative evidence of young men
adopting “summer suitings . . . most popular of all in blue diagonal tweed cut in
exaggerated double breasted formations, nautically accented with shaped waist,
glass or metal buttons and peg-topped trousers with a permanent turn up, soft shirt
collars and prodigious use of white handkerchiefs.” 23
Whatever the combination of the constituent parts, the overriding aesthetic
stressed relaxation and a conscious paring down of formalities, replacing the
archaic introversion of office or church decorum with the over-familiar heartiness
of the playing field or promenade. Willis further recalled that
the young proletarian swells made certain concessions and modifications in their dress
when they went on holiday – when for instance they took a trip by water to Margate or
Ramsgate. The young man would discard his bowler for a . . . boater. His waistcoat, the
joy of his life, would be packed away among the mothballs and replaced with a
cummerbund . . . His patent leather boots would be replaced with brown shoes, and as a
tribute to the nautical nature of his venture, his walking stick would be put out of
commission. 24
The extension of this irreverence for established sartorial etiquette beyond the
beach could be felt in all those areas of suburban life where young men exerted
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