I was born in Earls Court, right in the middle of the Polish corridor as it was known in the fifties and sixties,but I’ve written about that before. When I was small my father and I would frequently wait on Platform 1 for a train to Victoria – he would often take me to the news theatre for the cartoons – and we would look at the enormous posters on the back wall.   This was an advert  that has stuck in my mind for the last sixty years.

Except that I remembered the slogan slightly differently -“it would look even better on a man!”.  is what I based my search on.  Maybe that’s because my father probably had to explain to me that Adam was a symbol of Everyman And also on the wrong brand name.  I thought it was van Heusen! Not that good an advert, then! So, it took me quite a while to find this image, which is now of course quite unacceptable. At the time, though, it fascinated me, a woman in a man’s shirt.  Cross dressing was totally out of my ken at the time.  I wasn’t as a child allowed to wear trousers to nursery school as they offended God, apparently.  My mother didn’t wear them as she found them uncomfortable and unflattering, and so that was that.

This poster was also the background to our listening for the announcements on the platform.  There was a guard who always warned us of a train going through  Saloon Square on its way to Victoria.  I remember listening out for him specially, and feeling very superior as I knew the correct pronunciation!

Just a snippet of my life, but I catch myself looking for the poster even today.  they’ve build t a walkway where the advertising used to be.  Not nearly as interesting!