When I wrote a piece for my Friday column last month, about getting new clothes at Easter when I was a small boy, I couldn’t have predicted the kerfuffle it would cause.

Although I’m advancing in years now and my memory of some things is getting rather dim, I am still pretty sure that it was Easter when children were expected to wear new clobber, for fear of the birds “doing their business” on you.

I have yet to verify this with my mother, but I think I shall be forced to bow down to public pressure anyway, as many of you have written in to inform me that it wasn’t Easter but Whitsuntide – at least in the Bradford area.

This topic has now moved to Remember When? because so many of you have been sharing your wonderful memories of getting new kit at the Whit bank holiday.

Thanks to Mrs Anne Lockwood, of Bradford Moor, who has sent in this wonderful photograph of her family, taken on Whit Sunday in May 1970.

She writes: “I have very fond memories as a child of Whitsuntide Sunday.

“My late father (Mr J W McNulty) would take my siblings and I in our new Whit clothes to our grandad’s house, where all the family would gather, and each child was given several half-a-crowns each by different family members. It would have been in the 1950s. Then, on Whit Monday, with our half crowns we were all taken to the Tide (which was the fairground in Peel Park).

“I also recall the Whit Walkers who would walk from town to the Peel Park pub. People would line Otley Road clapping and cheering them on as they passed by.

“This tradition was passed down for many a generation.”

Mr Brian Pickford, of Eccleshill, says: “I was brought up on Tennyson Place in Bradford in the 1940s and 1950s. I have fond memories of my mother buying new clothes for Whitsuntide. These were usually a white shirt, dark short trousers, a red tie, white socks and brown sandals that had white, ridged crepe soles.

“I would then visit some relatives who lived close to us to show off my new clothes, when I would receive a few coppers. Later I would go to Peel Park to visit the Whitsuntide fair and watch the Whit Walkers.”

Mrs C Liddemore says: “David, I do like to read your column. Many a time you make me laugh. But you have got it wrong – new clothes were certainly for Whitsuntide. We always set off in our new clothes to visit friends and relatives and we always got some sweets.”

Mrs M Shackleton remembers growing up in the 1930s: “Children at school often asked each other what new clothes they were getting for Whit. Neighbours’ children came around to show off their new clothes, drawing attention to pockets.”

And a stern upbraiding from Gordon Wood, of Clayton: “Unless Lancastrians are different to Bradfordians, you are wrong. Whit Sunday was always the time to show off new clothes.”

Could it be a cross-Pennine divide?

Not according to Mrs J Hutchinson, who writes: “It was definitely Whitsuntide for new clothes and parades – and I was being brought up in Lancashire at that time!

“How thrilled we were to don our new clothes on Whit Sunday morning, and call round to our aunties or neighbours who gave us pennies. Then the afternoon was the Sunday school procession. Whit Monday brought the excitement of watching the Sunday school parades into the centre of town.”

So there we have it – I shall admit defeat and draw a line under correspondence on Whit clothes. Thank you for all your lovely memories.