“How can you tell when a man is wearing tights?” Olga asked me over our morning latté.
“How?” I replied.
“His ankles swell up when he farts”
I just stared at her blankly.
“What do men and tights have in common?”
I didn’t reply.
“They either cling, run or don't fit right in the crotch”

Honestly, she does come up with some nonsense sometimes. She’s going through her ‘I hate men’ period at the moment – because a male assistant called her ‘babe’ in the supermarket.

“All woman’s problems start with men”, she said,
“What do you mean?”, I asked.
“MENtal Illness, MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdown, MENopause, GUYnecologist, and when we have real trouble, it's a HISterectomy”.

No answer to that is there? So I went into the silent mode. It’s the Final Frontier – Where No Woman Has Gone Before. I looked at her reading an old ‘Hello’ magazine she ‘accidentally’ took from the doctors surgery when she went for what she described to me as: ‘You know, one of those woman problems’. I said, ‘Oh’, at the time and nodded – but truth is I don’t know, and I am not sure I want to know. I couldn’t help wondering, as she was buttering her toast, why is it when men go to bed they wake up looking very much the same as when they went to sleep – but woman deteriorate so badly overnight that they needs hours to put everything right again.

We were having a new carpet laid in Olga’s bedroom. So it was goodbye to burn marks, stiletto heel holes, spilt wine blemishes and other more questionable and unmentionable stains. As the carpet layers carried out the old carpet I noticed Olga’s eyes swelling up. Out was going a whole era of bedroom history.

The two young carpet fitters had arrived about an hour earlier when I was still in tights and very short shorts with a black Lycra top. It was only when I was helping them to carry out Olga’s dressing table that I realised I was still thus dressed. They either didn’t noticed my 7 dens stw naturals, or accepted that I was wearing them as a matter of course.

It was when I carried out the three piece mirrored top half of the dressing table that I realized I must have caught my Aristocs on the sharp edge as I put it down. I thought nothing of it and continued to carry some furniture pieces out of the room so that the carpet could be laid. About five minutes later the younger one piped up: “ Your tights are laddered, mate”.

I looked and saw the damage spread right down my thigh, over my knee and disappear into my shoe. “Never mind”, I said, “I’ve got another pair somewhere” and went off to find them. As I was changing I couldn’t help thinking how matter of fact the young man had been about them. He certainly didn’t seem to be disturbed in any way – I wasn’t feeling embarrassed – though perhaps I should have been. When I re-appeared nothing was said of the matter again.

Olga decided this was a good time to sort out the drawers of the dresser and renew the lining. It was then that we came across a torn piece of paper, which I picture here. It is obviously from a US magazine. It is dated November 1919 and it is for ‘Notaseme Hosiery’. Unfortunately the text had been torn away so all we were left with is the picture itself.

We both sat on the floor looking at this picture trying to work out to whom the advertisers were trying to appeal.

Both Olga and I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to playing golf. I haven’t been back since my first lesson at the local golf course. I did a runner when the golfing instructor said: ‘ Keep your head down and spread your legs a bit more’. Olga took my place the following lesson as I had already booked it in advance. She did a runner when he said something, which she had already been made well aware of, many times before, from several of her male friends: ‘Nice stroke, but your follow-through leaves a lot to be desired.’

Anyway, back to the advertisement. They are obviously both wearing Notaseme tights, which lead us to the conclusion that in 1919 advertisers for hosiery were appealing to both men and woman equally. Or perhaps not so equally. Notice that she is standing and he is sitting. Does that make him the caddie and her the golfer or the other way round? They appear both to wearing matching opaques. (Olga and I wear matching tights some days- it’s fun!)

Couldn’t be Lycra because that hadn’t been invented in 1919. Couldn’t be nylon either, as nylon was first introduced by E. I. du Pont De Nemours at the1939 World's Fair. It was only in May of 1940 that du Pont introduced the nylon stockings. More than 60 million pairs were sold before that year ended. Du Pont wanted to copyright the word ‘nylon’, rather like ‘Hoover’ had done, but as so many pairs had been sold it was decided that the word had entered the American lexicon as a synonym for ‘stockings’, and therefore, he was unable to copyright it. So if it ain’t Lycra and it ain’t Nylon what were they made out of? And they must have been seamless to have been manufactured by ‘Notaseme Hosiery’ If any reader could help us out with the answer we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below please. Olga came up with an interesting fact for Friends of Dorothy: Nylon was used to create the tornado in the film "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).

So in 1919 men were being encouraged to wear tights as normal day wear. So what went wrong? Why are they not today? Or was it just a ‘golfing thing’ then? Do you know any golfers who wear tights whilst playing? Drop us a comment with your experiences.

I used to caddy for my Grandfather in Ireland when I was about 15 for extra pocket money to spend on tights. I was wearing under jeans to keep warm. I remember we were driving back for Sunday lunch when he stopped at a garage to fill up with petrol. The attendant at the pump greeted me in a typical Irish manner, "Top of the morning to you young fella!" I was holding two tees in my hand at the time. “What are dey son?" asks the attendant.
"They're called tees" I replied
"And what would dey be for then?" enquires the Irish man.
"They're for resting my Grandfathers balls on while he’s driving"
"Jaysus", says the Irish man, "Dem boys at Volvo just tink of everyting!"

Anyway, the new carpet did get laid eventually and all the furniture replaced in the new look bedroom. Just before Olga went to bed that night she knelt down on the new carpet by the bed and said a prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep.
One who's handsome, smart and strong,
One whose w*lly is thick and long.

One who thinks before he speaks,
When he promises to call, he won't wait weeks.
I pray that he is gainfully employed,
And when I spend his cash he won't be annoyed.

One who pulls out my chair & opens my door,
massages my back & begs to do more.

Oh! Send me a man who will make love to my mind.
Knows just what to say when I ask, "How big is my behind?

One who'll make love till my body's a twitchin',
in the hall, the pool, the garden and kitchen!

I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And never attempts to shag my best friend.
And as I kneel and pray by my bed,
I look at the Shit Head you sent me instead!!!
Amen

Keep your laddered and holed stockings and tights to roll up in a ball. Use it to shine the taps in your bathroom..

.....reprinted with kind permission by Olga Sheerhose from her first volume '1001 Things to do with Tights' available at all good bookshops

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