13 AUGUST 1965, Page 12

Edwardian Life

SIR,—In the days of my childhood (the weather must have been sunnier in the gay 'twenties) straw hats were quite often worn by men in Lancashire and also by schoolgirls as a part of their uniform. Evelyn Waugh says the Prince of Wales wore a 'boater.' That may be so, but in Preston only the girls from the local convent school wore boaters. The men's straw hats were called straw cadies or kaydeys. I don't know how to spell this word as I never saw it written. They might be called 'skimmers,' though this less frequently than straw cadies. But a man never wore a boater—that would have been considered effeminate.