I'm quite lucky in that I'm only just outside the bounds of normality as perceived by clothing manufacturers. Which is to say that most of what is on offer is no use to me, but I can still find clothes to fit in at least some mainstream stores.

My most awkward feature is the length of my legs. I'll almost certainly come back to this another time, but in this context it makes it hard for me to find trousers that are long enough. This was a huge problem when I was growing up in the 1980's, but I was saved by the sudden popularity of turned up trousers. I could get the turn-ups turned down and sometimes even unpick the seams and drop them down further still, giving me generally a couple of extra inches or so. This wasn't always easy to achieve and I am no kind of a seamster, but I had a mother with a sewing machine.

Jeans were always easier to get hold of at decent length; at least they were quite difficult to get hold of, but not as difficult as any other kind of trouser. Fortunately, for a while I was a student and had little cause to wear anything else.

Then in the 90's things started to get less tricky. It seemed like the retailers had cottoned on that there was a market for the taller person which was ill served (I may discuss the experience of using shops like High and Mighty another time). New retailers like Gap came to the UK with their existing range of bigger sizes, and there were mail order outlets too. Even Marks and Spencer started stocking longer trousers . For a short while I felt fairly normal.

Subsequently I ran into a couple of problems. First I got a bit fatter in my 30s and could not so easily find a good fit. It seemed like you could get a good fit if you were thin and tall or short and fat, but not tall and a bit overweight. It never became impossible, but it was harder to find what I wanted.

More significantly, the financial pressures of the last few years seem to have led retailers to cut back on their stockholding. Clothes for tall people must be pretty hard to shift compared with those for a more average size and so it has become almost impossible again to wander in off the street and find something to fit. Fortunately it's not so bad on line, though clothes shopping on line isn't the best.

This entry is starting to get epic in size, so I'll pause for now and come back on this topic shortly.