PEASANT DRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 213, 9 September 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

PEASANT DRESS.

THE WEARING OF SMOCKS

PASSING OF THE KERCHIEF.

More than a hundred years ago a young married woman living in a remote country parish began to make a patchwork quilt. In those days it was but rarely that dwellers in the country could visit the town, and in winter the state of the roads made it almost impossible except on horseback. But there was one kind of material on which the lady could always rely, states an English writer. This was the labouring man's red neckerchief. Tlie village shop kept these indispensable articles, and the pedlars came round with them to the back door of every house.

Even now there are few so young in England as not to remember seeing a bunch of red cotton handkerchiefs floating at the door of those shops which eell men's clothing., And they were always to be seen, and still sometimes are seen, hanging from the awning of a market stall in a little country town. Some people can remember seeing a cottage child bringing her father's dinner to the Held or the roadside in a basin tied up in a red and white spotted handkerchief.

The labouring men tied them round their necks, and wore no other collar, since they gave up wearing smocks. And tile old pictures of countrymen in smocka show that then the kerchiefs were worn round the neck, inside the collar of the smock. The red cotton kerchief was a definite part of our national dress for hundreds of years.

At the beginning of last century, when tho lady chose to make her quilt of red cotton handkerchiefs, they were all spotted. There were lai'ge and small spots, round spots and square spots, and it was possible also to find yellow handkerchiefs with red spots and red borders. All the handkerchiefs, -whether red or yellow, had a simple border of lines, straight or wavy, and spots in groups. It was not until later, during the vogue of tho Paisley shawl, that tho kerchiefs became more ornate and were printed with elaborate cone patterns, white, yellow, and black on the red ground. With the red and white or yellow and scarlet spotted handkerchiefs, and odds and ends of white calico and bits /of red and white print frocks, the lady achieved in a few months a work of art which is now famous among those who know about patchwork quilts. It was never finished, because when her baby came she had no more time for quilts and put it aside. But occasionally it has been lent by her descendants to an exhibition, and when hung up at one end of the hall it looks from the other end as though it were covered with large bunches of roses in crimson, pink and cream. The scarlet has faded to crimson and the yellow is now cream, but the quilt glows ■ with a dim splendour beyond that of any printed design.

Lately, O7ie who had seen this treasure suggested that a company of women who wished to do a piece of co-operative work should also make a patchwork quilt of men's red cotton handkerchiefs. She said in her haste, "They can be got anywhere, and are only 4d or 6d each. If every worker will bring one to begin with,, we shall be able to make a lovely quilt." Then she went forth herself to buy her handkerchief. But she had not noticed that there were no more festoons of scarlet and white handkerchiefs at the shop doors. Inside the shops they showed her white handkerchiefs with coloured borders, and dark blue squares with elaborate patterns of fawn and green, and mercerised and artificial silk abominations. There were also a few from the khaki days, with khaki ground and dull red and green patterns. Not one shop had a cotton handkerchief with scarlet ground and white spots. So she went to the market, and an old lady who sold men's overalls and shirts produced a couple at 4d each. And the search continued, the searcher being determined to get to the bottom of this matter.

It was then observed that labourers seldom now wear a handkerchief round their necks, and when they do it is a dark one, not the gay, scarlet handkerchief of former days. As for a yellow one with red spots, eueh a thing is not to be found, so far as the search has gone, over two counties. Even in the little country towns and villages where the red. handkerchief is still in demand by the old-fashioned farm worker they are only to be found in ones and twos left-overs among the more modern dark squares, and there are no yellow onee with red spots.

It will bo a long business to make that new patchwork quilt from red and white spotted handkerchiefs, and it will have to be eked out with spotted material bought by the yard. There are unlikely to be any yellow roses in this piece of work. Even so, it too will soon be a relic of the olden days when the British workman wore a red and white spotted kerchief round his neck and his children brought his dinner, not in the modern "taehy" case and vacuum flask, but in a basin tied up in a red and white spotted square.