It's about Miss Delia's knickers.... She really hadn't a fit pair to wear, not if she goes away to stay anywhere. I really don't know what she does with them. So I thought if you didn't need those three yards of the double width pink crepe de chine you got in the sales, I could start at once. I'd just run down to the village on my bike before the shops shuts and see if Mrs. Thacher can match me up some pink sewing silk."
This passage from The Brandons by Angela Thirkell tells us a lot about the clothing in the lives of well-off English women. The person speaking is Nurse, the woman who raised the children and still lives in the house looking after their mother, the widowed Mrs. Brandon, and doing sewing. Nurse, who seems to have no other name, is talking about the underwear of Mrs. Brandon’s daughter Delia who probably wears them out playing tennis and running around as young women with plenty of free time will do.
Notice that the underwear is to be made of silk fabric, something not every family could afford, yet even the well-off Mrs. Brandon took advantage of a sale to buy some silk yardage for which she had no immediate plans. And notice Nurse wants to sew them up with silk thread, another luxurious touch.
Delia is supposed to go away for a weekend which is why Nurse is worried about her not have “a fit pair.” Although Delia herself seems completely and happily unconcerned, the choosing of appropriate clothing for the weekend house party is a source of worry for several women.
Thirkell wrote a set of novels with overlapping characters all taking place in a rural region of England starting in the 1930s and running through the 1950s. Their satisfaction lies in watching romances bloom between couples you would like to see get together, and the petering out of romances which are a very bad idea for one or both of the parties.
Virago Press has reprinted them: https://www.virago.co.uk/contributor/angela-thirkell/
