There were two women's charitable organisations in Calcutta that produced exquisite needle work. They had been set up to provide women with work that they could do and still continue their normal day to day life. They were the Good Companions and the Women's Friendly Society. Every Christmas I would be given satin slippers embroidered with pink rosebuds and a matching tissue box. My mother would get a jewellery roll -you get the picture.
Good Companions had a doll hospital hidden behind a swing door - ~i imagined the dolls lying in their dolly beds waiting for the doll doctor to come and make them better - fixing an errant eye, realigning a rickety head or sewing up a sagging teddy. It was a terrible shock when I got older and realised that the toys were just placed on a shelf in the stockroom and to wait their turn.
The Women's Friendly specialised in the most beautiful party dresses and every year I was primped and pricked in order to walk down the catwalk at Tolly and show off one or two of the dresses. I did not enjoy this - the petticoats prickled and the elastic on my little ballet pumps was always too tight. But my mother always made me do it and made me feel as if I had a starring role. I would walk to the end of the runway, curtsy to the British High Commissioner's wife and then walk slowly back. And yes - she always bought the dresses for me to wear to parties. My cousin Sarah still had one sent back to England for her to wear to show off at parties here. I believe her own little girl had worn it too.
If you think about it these were revolutionary 'good works'. Committees formed by women for the betterment and advancement of women and all done in the fifties and sixties - I think Good Companions predated WW2. Friendly societies were the backbone of the early trade unionists and yet all this was being done by the memsahibs who would have been horrified at the idea they were spreading the germ of feminism. But they were.
Even better than that they gave me a chance to be, albeit briefly, a style icon on the catwalk. Sadly my modelling career floundered when I got to be seven and refused point black to ushered into any more of those frivolous, beautiful, exquisite frocks.
Good Companions had a doll hospital hidden behind a swing door - ~i imagined the dolls lying in their dolly beds waiting for the doll doctor to come and make them better - fixing an errant eye, realigning a rickety head or sewing up a sagging teddy. It was a terrible shock when I got older and realised that the toys were just placed on a shelf in the stockroom and to wait their turn.
The Women's Friendly specialised in the most beautiful party dresses and every year I was primped and pricked in order to walk down the catwalk at Tolly and show off one or two of the dresses. I did not enjoy this - the petticoats prickled and the elastic on my little ballet pumps was always too tight. But my mother always made me do it and made me feel as if I had a starring role. I would walk to the end of the runway, curtsy to the British High Commissioner's wife and then walk slowly back. And yes - she always bought the dresses for me to wear to parties. My cousin Sarah still had one sent back to England for her to wear to show off at parties here. I believe her own little girl had worn it too.
If you think about it these were revolutionary 'good works'. Committees formed by women for the betterment and advancement of women and all done in the fifties and sixties - I think Good Companions predated WW2. Friendly societies were the backbone of the early trade unionists and yet all this was being done by the memsahibs who would have been horrified at the idea they were spreading the germ of feminism. But they were.
Even better than that they gave me a chance to be, albeit briefly, a style icon on the catwalk. Sadly my modelling career floundered when I got to be seven and refused point black to ushered into any more of those frivolous, beautiful, exquisite frocks.
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