Can't type for laughing here....perhaps I should describe them....they were a bit like the things Sir Walter Raleigh wore. I was supposed to pull the legs half way down my thighs... you know, like those sort of things that antique ladies used to wear...but I used to pull them up to the top of my legs....bit like girls rolling their skirts over to make them mini's. They were aweful, the elastic cut into my legs. Even worse were my mum's, I had to help her iron them....kept getting told of cos I had to help stretch the elastic so she could iron them and I kept letting go before she burnt my fingers!!! Perhaps I should mention that I was adopted and my adopted (adoptive??) parents were just coming up to 50 so there was a big age gap. They were childless as well. I am told I was a typical war baby adoption...private. None of the proceedures they have to go through now...but I am not complaining. I did trace my mum but she had died in 1970 but I now have a half brother and sister....great. My dad?? Don't know as not on the birth certificate but my birth mother told my adopted mother that he came from 'up north' but I can't remember where, was a carpenter in civvy life and he was in the army and shipped out before she could tell him about me. My brother reckons she must have waited or either his dad is mine as he wasn't born till 1956. My brother and I look so much alike and I am a dead ringer for my mum...he said he was afraid my sister would turn tail and run when she looked at me. She was only 8 when our mum died. My dad would probably be around 70 now but if the name Bicker, combined with the ATS rings any bells with anyone's father I would be interested to know. Maggie Surname interests: BICKER, MILLER, SPRATT, MARSH mainly in Kent MATTHEWS, COAFFEE, SWEENEY, GRANT, BERESFORD, RICHARDS in Middx, Bucks, USA and elsewhere