IMAGINE going roller-skating or ice skating or playing tennis in a crinoline. It was said in the 1860s that the only sport crinolined ladies played was croquet where their crinolines were extremely useful for moving the ball about unseen.

By the 1890s though, women's dress had been radically altered. The crinoline with its cage of whalebone hoops had gone. So had the bustle - and the advent of the bicycle - brought about a revolution in women's clothes. Skirts for everyday were straightish but had a reasonable fullness and no longer trailed on the ground. Waists were naturally defined and blouses were simple.

All this meant that women could cycle, play tennis and skate and in Bournemouth they went roller-skating.

In 1898 Bournemouth Pier had a special deck constructed on it by the Corporation for roller-skating. It was opened by the Lord Mayor of London, Geoffrey Truscott, and reflected a national craze for the sport.

Jim Cattle, of Winton, who retired in 1945 after 50 years as a toll collector (42 of them on the main pier) recalled how thousands of children used to come to the pier to roller skate.

The skates were supplied without charge, though they had to pay 2d. (later 3d.) to gain admission to the Pier.

This happy situation changed and by 1909 a charge of 1/- was made for the hire of skates. However, you could skate there from 2.30-10pm and from 2.30-4pm a band played. Bournemouth Pier did not have a monopoly. You could skate every day on Boscombe Pier, though without a band, and at the Winter Gardens you could rollerskate on Thursday evening and all day Friday (band as usual).

Photographs of the Bournemouth Pier roller skaters taken in the early years of the 20th century show crowds of happy skaters. They are mostly women but there are some men wearing the large flat caps with big peaks typical of the period.

By now, the women's clothes are eminently sensible. They all seem to be wearing "costumes" of a stout, plain, dark material. The jackets are fitted, with sensible sleeves (leg of mutton sleeves having gone out of fashion by now). The skirts are plain, their A-line shape giving enough fullness for the most energetic roller skating and the skirts are ankle length.

This is not nearly as daring for the 1900s as you might think because they are all wearing laced up leather boots above their skates.

The jolliest, and to us the most amusing, item of their attire is their hats. They all seem to be wearing large, firm, head-covering hats, some trimmed with feathers or artificial flowers - a lot of flowers. Could such headgear stay in place during an energetic bout of roller-skating on Bournemouth Pier?

Ah yes, remember, this was the era of the hatpin. So if these skaters of Bournemouth Pier went on to become suffragettes, the chances are that the hatpins would have been put to another use, as many a city policeman was to find out to his cost.