Letter: Fifties better than you think

Letter: Fifties better than you think

Sir: Further to Peter Popham's article on the Fifties (23 October), we did not eat off Bakelite plates. I don't know anyone who even had any. We had good English pottery. Plastic belongs to this day and age.

We may not have had imported clothes, but that was no loss. I had English leather shoes, which lasted for years and cost half a week's salary. I wore tailored suits by English manufacturers in pure English wool, and summer dresses in pure cotton - not the synthetic tat they have these days, where seams are badly finished and buttons fall off in a week.

We were not insular. I went to Italy on my own in 1950 and bought pure silk underwear in Milan. When we were married, and before the children came along, we went to Switzerland together.

My husband had been all over the world in the Navy, like many of his contemporaries, and seen many other cultures.

Mrs D V BAIRD

Eastbourne,

East Sussex