Getting a whole family of children up, washed and dressed could be a major daily chore. There were no zip fastenings and no Velcro (invented in 1948) to ease or speed the operation. Buttons had to be fastened and tapes tied into bows; all tasks that were much too fiddly for small fingers to manage by themselves. A two-year-old boy faced with a twenty-first-century wardrobe of elastic, pull-on clothes would probably make a reasonable attempt at dressing himself without too much assistance and be fully dressed in five minutes. A two-year-old of today faced with a Victorian wardrobe would be
...more
