Night Memoir Blast — Den and the Bottom Drawer
1. Den and the Bottom Drawer
I remember Den — living a few doors down, drifting into our house and becoming “Dad” for a short, surreal stretch. He was twenty‑odd years older than my mum, a man who’d only ever lived with his own mother, and then suddenly he was in our family home like it was the most normal thing in the world. Even now it blows my mind.
It had been his mum’s house. I don’t remember her, but she was there when I was born in that Caversham house — and she’d died before all this. (Turned in her grave, no doubt.) I remember Den as the neighbour I chatted to, two doors down, before he became Dad. That shift still feels bizarre. One minute he was the man who gave me sweets and small talk, and the next he was living with us, part of the household.
He had a bottom drawer full of his mum’s things, because she’d lived in that house before he moved in with us. I remember him opening it with this strange reverence, like he was showing me relics. He gave me a Victorian nightdress — long, white, old‑world — and he showed me his christening gown. He said it “lived in natural body.” I didn’t understand the phrase, but I remember the fabric, the delicacy, the way he held it like it was a piece of himself — something that had touched his baby skin, something that still carried his mother’s presence.
And tonight it hit me: that’s where my obsession with christening gowns started. That drawer. That moment. That man. I never realized it until now.
2. The Negligee and the Fall
My first fashion purchase came from a jumble sale. A negligee — lacy, floaty, a dressing‑down that felt glamorous — and gloves. My first dress‑up outfit. I loved it.
I think I fell down the stairs wearing it. But I also think Derek threw it away because he thought it was a “floozy outfit.” He was very proper, very traditional. I wasn’t allowed to wear trousers until my parents divorced — only skirts and dresses. Everything controlled, everything modest, everything old‑fashioned.
That negligee was the first Tulle , Tutu type thing I chose for myself. And it didn’t survive the house.
🌒 3. Miss Selfridge, Reading — The Afro and the Kisses
An early teenage memory, separate from the others. Miss Selfridge on the High Street in Reading. I was eleven, maybe twelve — 1984. The first teased, huge female Afro I ever saw, almost a mushroom‑shape of greatness, a disco‑ball of hair. She was beautiful, and she looked like she owned the whole shop. I remember staring, not out of rudeness, but because I’d never seen anything like it in real life. It was a moment.
I bought a dressing gown there. £25, which in the 80s was ridiculous — basically my whole Christmas present. Cotton, covered in lipstick kisses, pinky‑red lips all over it. Tied at the waist. Short. Inappropriate for my age, probably inappropriate full stop, but I wanted it and I got it.
That dressing gown was a love‑of‑fashion awakening. A shard of glamour in a life that didn’t have much. Miss Selfridge, Reading, 1980s — the moment I realised clothes could be rebellion, desire, identity, escape. And in true me‑style, I didn’t want to wear it as a dressing gown at all — I wanted to wear it as a jacket, as an outfit, as a statement. Of course I did. (LOL moment) before rules and pier pressure.
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