HOLIDAY DRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1936, Page 8

HOLIDAY DRESS

ENTRY TO CHURCHES

WOMEN IN CYCLING SHORTS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, September 2.

The Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Dr. W. G. Whittingham, urges in his letter in the Diocesan magazine, that girls in cycling shorts should be as welcome in church as anyone else.

Describing "an occurrence in one of our churches lately to which my attention was drawn," the Bishop writes:

"A cyclist and his fiancee, who happened to be not only churchpeople^ but Communicants, and who had come into the church not merely to look round, but also to pray, were accosted rather rudely, by someone apparently in charge because the girl was dressed in cycling shorts. They were told that women were not allowed in church.in such clothes.

"Surely that was a very reprehensible thing to have-done. Shorts are worn commonly enough now, and need evoke no comment. It is one of the interesting features of modern travel that so many people take an interest in church buildings and visit them just to inspect arid enjoy them. So long, as they behave decently they should be received courteously in any dress, in which they can with propriety-be seen outside."

The Bishop concludes with the plea for hospitality towards visitors who go to churches whether to look or pray, and he refers to a previous letter in which he corrected "a/mistaken interpretation ■of St. Paul's teaching about unveiled women in church," pointing out that there was no good reason why women should be required to wear hats in church if they did not want, to.

Views of various clergy and others have been sought, and generally they agree with the Bishop of Edmundsbury. ,_

"For some years we have, admitted girls clad in shorts to the cathedral," Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, said. "The younger generation think people have a rather nasty mind to object to such,clothing, and I agree."

The Bishop of Fulham says he would not turn' people out of church so long as they were decently clad, although shorts might be "rather modern."

Dr. W. F. Geikie-Cobb, rector of St. Ethelburga, Bishopsgate: "If girls entered -my church clad in shorts I would point out that if they were summoned to the King they would dress accordingly. Should they not therefore, dress appropriately to meet the King of Kings? However, I would not turn them out."

The Rev. G. E. Higgins, vicar of St. Paul's, Clacton-on-Sea, said: "Shorts are so common now that they cease to afford a distraction to other worshippers. I do not think I should object to beach pyjamas, but I should draw the'line at bathing costumes."

Canon W. G. Elnor, of St. Mary the Virgin, Dover: "When people are on holiday I expect them to come to church in ho)iday attire." Miss Maude Royden, Miss Margaret Kennedy, and Lady Stockton (president of the Cheshire Women's Cricket Association), welcome the Bishop's decision, but Lady Watson (Harrogate) thinks that if girls could only realise how thoroughly inartistic they look in shorts they would riot choose to wear them either in church or anywhere else.

An Eastbourne vicar wants young people in the church, and asks: "What matter how they are dressed so long as they are sincere?" . ■•■:'....-