THE first lady to emerge from an Accrington superstore as I waited for my wife wore a dress that plunged and gaped.

Okay, I shouldn’t have been looking, but it was hard not to notice that there were more than daffodils bursting out all over in the first April sun.

She was among a significant minority that bright spring morn this week.

The next lady emerged in pavement-length robes topped off with black niqab, revealing only eyes and hands, typical of another East Lancashire minority.

We’ve had our aberrations and exaggerations over our attire ever since prototype nude sunbathers Adam and Eve first covered up.

The neck-plunge lady reminded me of my toothless gummy granny grunting, “If it’s not for sale, don’t put it in t’ shop window.”

Church-going, God-fearing gran thought her gender should dress decently and with dignity. It was in her Bible.

Today’s plunging ladies range, I’m told, from liberated ladettes to lasses who ‘flaunt it ‘cos they’ve got it’.

Ladies beneath burkas and niqabs also have varying motives.

Some, as in France this week, revolt against western censorship to the point of being fined.

For others it’s beliefs. For some it’s the sheer liberation of being free to observe the world without being ogled in return.

This week has turned morals and modesty upside down.

Once we arrested women for baring all on nudist beaches.

Now we arrest them for covering everything up.

Perhaps my God-fearing Granny and her bible had it just about right.