Wearing a kilt where the lower edge hits the crease of your knee is the worst of all lengths if you are out in the weather we have around here - it is not severe most of the year, but it can be wet.

With the wind blowing on your back climbing a hill or going over rough ground the wet cloth is caught at every step and it takes only a little while for the affected skin to feel that it has ben sandpapered.

I was away on holiday at a folk festival at the beginning of August, and saw eight kilts. They were all worn long, so that with hose there was either no or hardly any visible skin. Even the Exeter pipes and drums.

All my kilts are worn shorter, and even on my rather dumpy shape I couldn't help but survey the effect in the many large plate glass windows in the town centre.

Maybe they are shy.

I went for a cup of tea at the Rugby Club one morning and a young man came out of the showers wearing only a black kilt - and as he noticed that I was wearing my own eight yards of darkness I winked at him.

He blushed pink all over.

Well - I assume that as it started at his ankles and appeared above the waistband and continued on up, that parts I did not check on were also involved.

Maybe it was a hot shower.

Anne the Pleater