J.R. wrote:Hmmmm !
It is a strange and wonderful thing to have caused JR to blush. Sorry, dear heart.
Although today's advertising of such products does seem a bit hilarious at times (see above) we must welcome the frank and open approach of modern girls (see above). I could never have voluntarily initiated a discussion about menstruation with my mother. Never! She did sort of explain the process to me before I left for school. We could barely look at each other for embarassment. At least I did vaguely begin to understand those ads for "Tampax - for all-day freshness and freedom!" that had begun to appear in Readers' Digest. The ad showed a female in a pull on rubber-flowered swimming hat rejoicing waist-deep in a pool, and I had supposed it to be promoting some sort of cologne or deodorant.
My mother had bought for me a packet of hideous bulky pads in a plain brown wrapper, and a horrid elastic belt thing. She admitted that when she was young, they had made their own out of rags which had to be washed and reused. This made the whole business seem even more repulsive - oh how disgusting! - and, after a couple of pad-free years had gone by at CH and my friends had started, the prospect of the incinerator, the bin and the brown paper bags down the end hung over me like some hideous gynaecological guillotine.
This is where I was so grateful to Jasmin Ansar, my brainy Pakistani friend, who described for me what to expect one rainy afternoon in Wardrobe Room. We were hunkered up on top of those huge drawers in which the sets of vests were kept. Jasmin had started early, and kindly clarified many issues for me. I appreciated her frankness.
However, I wasn't to begin periods until I was fifteen. My system always reacted to stress and anxiety with amenorrhoea, so I was troubled very little during my schooldays!
So, no chance of leaking blue fluids whilst listening to soft rock in tight white shorts as my daughters were to do!
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""