Jim Jams and their place in history

It's nice to get into your pyjamas.

It evokes a feeling of comfort and safety that originates from my childhood.

I was privileged to come from a stable and loving home and that has been a strong influence in my adult life and in my own attempts at being a parent.

I am grateful for this and have come to realise that the freedom to wear my pyjamas whenever I felt like it, although perhaps seeming a bit superficial, was indicative of an overwhelming sense of well being.

An opportunity to do this on a working day can be few and far between nowadays as there is pressure on those in employment to maintain their status if only to stand still in terms of meeting the basic costs of a normal lifestyle.

It can be a real treat when everything falls into place to allow pyjamas to be adopted as the outfit of choice. The sensation is increased if it is still daylight outside.

This can take some forward planning to ensure that there is food in the house especially as many of the large Supermarkets have for some time imposed a ban on shoppers turning up in their nightwear to do their shopping.

There is a photograph posted up in the office, taken by a member of staff on her way in to work of two women stood on a the forecourt of a petrol station and convenience store at about half past eight in the morning in their dressing gowns, each clutching a loaf of bread and half a pint of steri-milk.

It was a vision of a past age and culture. This will have been a commonplace sight in the urban areas of the UK some fifty years ago in the good old days of the corner shop and therefore only a short dash for early risers to acquire their cigs and consumables straight from their beds.

It is also necessary for full enjoyment of pyjamas that there is a low likelihood of people calling to the house as greeting visitors on the doorstep can be a bit embarassing. I have paid the window cleaner whilst so attired and he has not let me forget it with a tirade of tiresome jokes about my habit which has persisted for a good few years now.

With the necessary safeguards in place it is possible to relax and enjoy the evening without fear of ridicule or intrusion.

In my pyjamas the reminiscences of childhood flood back.

I remember running around in the back garden in my Captain Scarlet jim-jams on those balmy and sultry summer evenings.

Then of course there were the long night time car journeys back home from grandparents when my siblings and I travelled in pyjamas under our clothes so that after falling asleep with the motion of the vehicle we could be just lifted out and tucked up in our bed.

I was a right one for feigning a tummy ache to avoid having to go to school and if successful in convincing my parents I could look forward to a full day in pyjamas on the settee watching television and dining on chicken noodle soup and lucozade. Happy days indeed.

As a student I also spent a good proportion of my time in pyjamas but did feel a bit of a fraud if invited to a pyjama party.

As a parent I am proud to say that my own family have jealously guarded reserving a precious day between Christmas and New Year as an exclusive pyjama day when we just laze around, catch up an DVD's and feast on the contents of the fridge.

We are not by any means complacent and indeed just this year two of the family introduced the Onesie to the occasion but to tell the truth I am not entirely convinced of its role in the proceedings.

(reproduced from 2012)