This is a right royal storm in a teacup.
To the best of my recollection this bag has been known to me as a bum bag since mid-1970’s. Still is. The Perth summer weather was only interrupted briefly by 3 cool months to transition from one summer to the next. As the max temperature for at around 8 months, was normally above 30C, the preferred clothing for my contemporaries and I was bikinis for the girls and budgie smugglers for the boys. Nowhere for keys, monies, sunglasses etc. Spent lots of time at the beach. Paying the piper now, we have the highest skin cancer rates in the world. Who knew? Not us. The girls did not want to have to carry a bag around. The bumbag was right for these items, sat nicely on one’s bum and looked great on the girls as they moved. Running, jogging, walking, cycling and at the beach storing items whilst one enjoyed surfing.
Probably because of our warm weather and not having to hide under thick and heavy clothing, most of us were not prudish about our bodies. (We are now, as gravity and bad diets have sent things pear shaped). The girls referred to our speedos as budgie smugglers rather than speedos. Is the accepted description for speedos today. Among my male peer group, bikini bottoms were known as fanny packs as a compliment to the girl’s form. I cannot remember any of the girls objecting, rather they thought it as funny. Referred to the same part of the girl’s anatomy but did not carry the crude or vulgar connotation as in the UK. Cannot remember clearly, but we may have had John Cleland’s novel Fanny Hill, with its euphemisms, as suggested reading for English Lit. Checked with my wife, and she broke up laughing.
Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
(Gene Raskin and Boris Fomin. Apple)
Perhaps we need to be thankful for having variations on Her Majesty’s Oxford English and the development of North American and Southern Antipodes dialects with an open mind. And accept them?
@A Viros, too late to acquiesce to your request, but many thanks for helping me reminisce.
Regards Ron
