Letitcia's Blog

Apparently they would make afternoon tea, settle down with a plate of chocolate hob-nobs and get a ‘ringside’ (!!!) view.
It seems they would indulge in the childish practise of taking bets as to whether I would be wearing coloured knickers (never), the usual black or none at all.
My desk was situated in ‘Correspondence’, and their ‘Export office’ was in fact a dog leg round a corner, way the other side of a very large room. But they shifted all of the furniture the requisite ten feet so that they could spy with their little eye—necessity being the mother of invention indeed.
My ‘uniform’ in those days was cutting edge ‘Young Jaeger’ knitted dresses with approximately 10 yards cut off and re-hemmed to make the ‘mini dress’ that was all the rage back in the late sixties.
Of course I got the usual: ‘you’re not going out dressed like that’ from Mother, while Dad peered silently over his spectacles and tutted.
It is important when one is young, to enjoy people telling you the things you cannot or should not do, for the days of wine and roses, dear readers, they are not long. In fact they are about as short as my frocks in the swinging sixties
Over the years my girth got bigger and the length of apparel got longer and more sedate. My legs went from Madonna to Maradonna, and the hour glass frame went way into double digits. I had completely forgotten about the ‘short skirt syndrome’ until I recently reacquainted myself with a male friend from Australia. Back in the late eighties, he would buy for me (or have especially made) extremely short pleated skirts, with silk underwear and sometimes white socks, so that I could reprise the glorious days when he would sometimes catch one of his female school chums bending over to pick up the chalk or pencil from under her desk. Men are very visually led (as we know) but his thrill was actually being CAUGHT LOOKING.
Whilst in Brighton, he spent most of his time walking along the seafront wishing and hoping that a rogue gust of wind (and we have had PLENTY of that lately) would send flowing skirts into the stratosphere to reveal various types of underwear (relax ladies, he has now gone back to Oz, with happy memories).
Now, my friend is no pervert, he merely appreciates ladies of all ages, shapes and sizes for their femininity. I therefore positively encouraged him with nudges of: ‘Short skirt at six o’clock Bruce’ and he would fall down a man hole or bump into lamp posts while his mind was on his lifelong passion.
I made the mistake of pointing out a couple of lovelies to him as we were partaking of a fine bottle of Champagne (or three) in Browns on the eve of his departure. He put down his knife and fork and glass of Verve Cliquot’s finest, and went rushing out of the door to try and catch a glimpse of two young fillies out on the raz wearing what looked like a thick belt to hide their giblets and very little else. Well, I sat, and I sat, and…er, I sat, for TWENTY FIVE MINUTES. I muttered to the waiter: ‘Hope he chuffing well comes back, because he’s paying’ He returned positively beaming full of naughty school boy(ness) cheer, and described the journey he had taken all the way down West St to the Odeon, and we all know how windy it is on that corner don’t we people? In short (oh, no pun) he was in his element, so much so, I was left for dead. A while later, I espied yet another vision of pulchritude, and bugger me, off he shot again like a rat up the proverbial drain pipe.
This got me thinking about how common the phenomenon of the ‘syndrome’ was for the men folk.
I started a thread on the ‘Punting Bible’: Punternet, to see what responses I received on the question of short skirts. It seems Bruce is not alone with his predilection. Comments ranged from: ‘It’s the "forbidden fruit" thing. It just drives me wild when I walk past a cafe and a young lady in a miniskirt sits down and you get that split second flash of panty’ to ‘a glimpse of what you are not supposed to see is always nice tho’ I suspect is it often done on purpose’. After twenty or so comments, it was neatly summed up with: ‘Yes, this is absolutely one of those little things that adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of life - that momentary frisson of excitement and arousal is priceless. The game-play part also is good - the different reactions with those who deliberately give a little peek and those with whom it is inadvertent.......’

I delved deeper, and found there were forums/chat rooms which dealt specifically with this subject matter, I will spare you the glorious gory details, save to comment: ‘Everybody’s doing it’. By that I mean, Bruce is not alone in getting up at 4.30 in the morning to position himself at a Sydney railway station to seek out the odd sighting of the unsuspecting, skirt wearing siren.
I suggested he salve his desires (whilst in Brighton) with a visit to local shops to purchase magazines devoted to this very theme.
Alas, the cupboard was bare, save for the glamour of Betty Page, and some dreadful publications showing very young lasses being spanked rather harshly by much older (sadistic) men.

This was not what the short skirt doctor ordered.
Instead, Bruce bought a: ‘grow a toy boy’ figure encased in plastic packaging. It claimed that if immersed in water the figure
would/could grow to 600 times its size.
I nixed the idea on the grounds that I would wake up and find myself imprisoned by a rampant man shaped bouncy castle of room sized proportions.
It got me thinking that, if this is a pleasing innocent pastime of the lesser spotted rampant British Male, why is this not being catered for?
Answers on a post card please.
I personally think the time is ripe for coming full circle, less of the crass and more of the auto suggestion.
Over to Cole Porter: “Good authors, too, who once knew better words Now use only four-letter words Writing prose - Anything goes”
I will take that under advisement!!

L