A letter from a reader

I have never got on with a polo neck, and I have finally stopped trying

I am 66 and every autumn for about thirty years I have bought a polo neck, worn it twice, and put it at the back of the drawer. They are warm, I will give them that. But there is a point in the afternoon where I become aware of the thing round my throat and after that I cannot think about anything else.

The trouble is that the alternative is a round neck, and from about October a round neck leaves you with a cold gap and a scarf you have to keep rearranging. So it has been a choice between being strangled and being draughty, and I have spent three decades picking one or the other.

What I did not know, because nobody had ever put one in front of me, is that there is a third thing. It is called a mock neck, and it is a band that stands about two fingers high and stops. It covers the bit that gets cold and it does not touch the bit that objects.

Mine is from The Winslow Sisters, the small shop in Richmond that Emma and Alison have had for eleven years, and it is called the Gwendolen. I have had it on more or less continuously since it arrived.

Covered at the throat, and I have not once been aware of it. I did not know that was on offer.

It is a fine knit rather than a chunky one, which matters more than I expected. It goes under a coat without turning me into a parcel, and it is not so warm that I have to take it off the moment I walk into a shop. The ribbing at the neck and the cuffs has kept its shape through four washes, which is where my cheaper jumpers usually give up.

It was £62.95, down from £180, because they are clearing the run. There are eleven colours, which sounds excessive until you realise that means you can have the one that goes with your coat rather than the one that happens to be in this year. I have the brown. I have been eyeing the grey.

The sizes run from a UK 8/10 through to a UK 18/20, and the measurements are on the size chart in centimetres so you can hold it against something you already own before you decide.

Emma has written her own piece about the six things she insisted on when they had it made, including how high the neck was allowed to be. It is here if you like knowing where a thing came from.

If you have a drawer with a polo neck in it that you have worn twice, this is the one I would look at before the run goes.