When I was a teen in the 1950s the bathing suit was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn, as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job.

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent Barbies with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice. She can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippo in a garden show, or she can wander around every run-of-the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material! The Lycra used in bathing costumes was (I am pretty sure) developed by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you ever manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks because any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror - my boobs had disappeared!!!

Well after a mad scramble and a call to lost-and-found, I found one of them cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the 12-year old Twinkie sales girl popped her head through the curtain and exclaimed, 'Oh, there you are,' she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a crinkled cream one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane mattress tied in half. I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally!! I found a suit that fit...a two-piece affair with a shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got home, I found a label which read -- 'Material might become transparent in water.'

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut off jeans and a t-shirt ! I hope they'll let me get in the pool to take my water aerobics, for that's all I really want to do now!