IT'S too late now for my very late grandmother to be able to say 'I told you so', but she would no doubt have been triumphantly cheered by the recent revelations of medical research which equivocally stated that people who wrapped up warm in bad weather didn't get as many colds as those who left off their woolies. It seems fairly logical when you come to think of it, but these days we need somebody with lots of qualifications and initials after their given names to tell us what we've known for years. It was my grandmother's firm belief, and the firm belief of all other grandmothers down the generations, that the more items of clothing you wore the more likely you were to fend off germs and hence not get ill. First and foremost was the head. Heat was lost through a bare head, it was thought, and the head needed some form of covering. Pixie bonnets were much in vogue, a garment made to make even the most attractive child look ridiculous, and I wasn't the most attractive child. Why anyone would think that a pointy-topped knitted headcover named after a mythical creature was remotely cute, I don't know, but I had them hand-knitted in many colours and rarely managed to get out the house without one. Equally hideous was the balaclava, only worn nowadays by Polar explorers and bank robbers, but then on every mother's 'must do' knitting list for winter. After headcovers, feet and hands had to be attended to and if you were the child of an active knitting household, as I was, you had socks and mittens knitted for you to match the pixie bonnet or the balaclava. The mitten pattern usually included a knitted string which was attached to the mittens and round the neck of the unfortunate wearer, and through their coat sleeves. If they were unusually tall the string wasn't always long enough and arms had to be kept slightly bent so the wearer looked a bit like a chimp. Very few mischiefs could be accomplished when wearing chunky-wool knitted mittens, which was probably the whole idea. In between, clothing consisted of many layers, starting with sensible underwear which was considered essential for both modesty and warmth, so it was usually knitted. When you went out you always had to wear a coat (fortunately not knitted) and a scarf, knitted of course, and matching your other knitted garments. I was a walking mascot for the wool trade and it's a wonder sheep didn't follow me home. If you tried to get out without a coat the cry went up 'put your coat on or you won't feel the benefit', meaning that you wouldn't feel warm when you came back indoors after being out in the cold. An odd saying but entirely understandable when you remember the house was only marginally warmer than the outside except next to the coal fire and adults always got in front of that first. The biggest crime of all, and the most dangerous, was to get your feet wet, a sure fire way to bring double pneumonia into the household. My grandmother's first question when I re-entered the house was always 'are your feet wet?', and usually they were in winter, but she asked it all through summer, too, even in droughts, and she would probably have asked it in the Sahara desert. All this went on until you escaped into your teenage years and started wearing unsuitable underwear (but not as unsuitable as people wear today, a sure fire way to attract foreign varieties of influenza, my grandmother would have said). If you didn't 'wrap up' you were not only in danger of germs attaching themselves to you, but that other consequence, especially of wet feet, chilblains. I'm still not entirely sure what chilblains are, you don't hear the word now, but it haunted my childhood and I used to regularly check my feet to see if they looked at all unusual. The theory behind the latest study is that when you don't wrap up warm your body gets cold and consequently your immune system takes a dive because the rest of you is trying to warm up. Heavily wrapped in hand-knitting, the occasional layer of brown paper, pixie bonnets and attached mittens, your immune system will, it seems, stay on an even course and deal with those wandering germs. Just as granny said. Mind you, my theory on my immunity to cold in those days was that the threat of the cure was far worse than the actual ailment. I'm sure the threat of an old fashioned granny, armed with cod liver oil, brewer's malt, Friar's Balsam, Fisherman's Friends, an onion to tie round the neck, a good smear of Vicks to shove none too gently up the nostrils and a handy jar of goose grease for the chest, would be sure to clear any doctor's waiting room within minutes of all those sniffing patients.

So I see that the idiot banners are out and about. Not decorations, but people who are intent on banning Christmassy things. One head teacher has banned pupils from sending Christmas cards to classmates on the grounds that they are endangering rain forests – a connection which probably needs explaining carefully to primary school children. Various nativity plays have been put on hold in case they offend other religions (have you ever heard of any other major religion not celebrating its various feast days and national holidays in case it offends Christians?). Bosses in some firms are banning Christmas parties for the same reason and not just because last year someone broke the photocopier by trying to get a clearer picture of their naked backside. What next? I'm sure elves will soon be on the list on the grounds that they are an ethnic minority (after all, you only see them for a few weeks of the year and as they are always male they are obviously an endangered species). Reindeer will have to have a 'save the reindeer' support group to stop nasty people making them do cruel and unusual things, such as flying and being required to drag over heavy sleighs packed with Gameboys (no, not the elves), Nintendo sets and hundreds of Barbie dolls in snowy conditions. Carol singers are already having problems because new live music legislation may mean they need a licence to sing, although presumably those entrepreneurial children who sneak up to your door, sing one line of out of tune 'Oh come all ye faithful' and then demand cash will escape. Santa Claus is sure to be on the list. Already, official Santas have to have police checks done, and quite right too. Somewhere in Germany Santas have been banned from shops and stores in towns on the grounds that they over-commercialise the festive period. And then there's the fact that most grottos don't have planning permission. The sleigh itself probably hasn't got an MOT and is parking on double yellows. Wassailing is going to have to go as more and more towns get a drinking-in-a-public-place ban. Putting silver coins in Christmas puddings is fraught. Not only are there now no silver coins, and a 50 pence piece might be a trifle indigestible, but householders will have to carry public liability insurance in case someone chokes. Ditto crackers, which might explode or, more likely, the contents upset the cracker puller so much that he needs counselling to get over the fact that he's got the plastic frog again and the motto was missing. Holly, dangerous evergreen. Mistletoe, dangerous parasitic plant which encourages unacceptable behaviour, especially if nobody wants to kiss you under it. As for mince pies, could they not be deemed to offend confused vegetarians? I'm sure there's more, and if not we can always move on to New Year's Eve where the singing of off-key Auld Lang Syne in the dead of night must surely soon become an offence punishable by at least a heavy police caution.