canny granny

Have you ever wondered who invented socks?

Socks are something that you don’t think about until they go missing in action in the laundry. (Why doesn’t someone make socks in threes? One always gets lost in the wilds of the washing machine) But when you stop to consider, what would we do without them?

I once thought they were a modern invention, another of those comforts of the affluent age. But I was quite wrong ……….

“Clodius Super to his Cerialis, greetings. I ask that you send the things which I need … which you well know I cannot properly get hold of here...”

So writes a Roman soldier stationed in Vindolanda, on the wild northern frontier of England, around the year 100 of the Common Era. He asked for, among other things, socks.

Over 300 letters and documents were discovered at Vindolanda, and one was a letter for a common soldier from his mother. And she promised him a parcel of warm socks.

Mums are the same, everywhere and everywhen. Always thinking of the practical, the socks and jocks