Letters to the Editor

Socks, Stockings, and All That Magazine

Sirs:
My hearty congratulations for the excellent series, "Argyle - The Untold Story". As a collector of vintage foot garments, I envy your success in shedding new light on a well-worn subject.
J. P. WARD
Foxton, Cambs.

Sirs:
Pearl Chandler is considered the first of the hosiery bad girls of the early twentieth century. Inspired by newspaper accounts of her daring prison escape, H. Dannenberg wrote Knee Highs at Noon, one of the best penny dreadfuls of the undergarment genre.
R. WOODS
Wanborough, Wilts.

Sirs:
Is it not true that Molly Crane travelled 6,000 miles to put on a pair of socks she'd only ever seen in print? In his diary, J. Leigh, owner of said socks, wrote: "I had met her years before, but was not favourably impressed by her personal appearance. She wore woolen anklets in late spring." Some time after this encounter, Molly became a missionary and left her hometown. Later, upon reading a magazine feature about Leigh's socks, she summarily renounced Jesus and made a "pilgrimage" back home. She was intent on finding the socks and when Leigh caught wind of this, he secreted them in a safety deposit box. Molly never did locate them. In old age, she took to wearing a miniature, sock-shaped pendant, which in times of need she would embrace piously.
B. MONTGOMERY
Uckington, Gloucs.

Sirs:
The puff piece on our leather brothers and sisters was most welcome. However, your portrait of the great crakows of the fifteenth century were, in fact, not crakows, but their less-pointy predecessors. Respectfully, your magazine must issue a retraction at once.
E. SIDNEY
Horsey, Norf.

Sirs:
Many forward-thinking people consider the argyle sock one of the greatest designs in history. Greatest, not in terms of its pattern, but in terms of its morality, objectivity, and elasticity.
G. CROSS
Pityme, Corn.

The argyle sock: why we do what we do.