I was born in 1939. I don't know whether it was the austerity of the War
period and the time after the war when materials were still not available
or whether it was simply that boys were still boys and not 'young men'.
Today we seem to go out of our way to make boys them seem older--in my
view, todays' modern fashions are simply a way to get
them to spend more on clothes and other fashion accessories. The market
rules not parents.
As a little boy I always wore short trousers all year round. Including
the cold winter months. I attended an all boys primary. At primary
school I wore both flannel and
corderoy shorts. I don't
remember any boys in longies at primary school but that might be my memory
playing a trick. I can remember wearing corderoy shorts, one pair
brown and another green. But I mostly rember my grey flannel shorts.
They started a couple of inches above the knee and as I grew they looked
shorter and shorter. I always wore knee socks with my school shorts.
I never had play shorts as such. The shorts I wore
after school for play were always the last pair of school
shorts so they were always very short. I liked then and still prefer the
shorter ones.
As a younger boy I sometimes wore sandals for play.
I never wore them to school and didn't like them very much. For school
I wore black leather school and "pumps" (gym shoes)after school. I
always had to change out of my uniform and good leather shoes as soon as
I got home.
I wore short trousers full time until I was very nearly 14 years old
in 1953 and
after that I was allowed long trousers at school, but had to change back
into my shorts when I got home until I left school at 16. This was quite
a normal routine to change into your last pair of trousers for play in order
to keep your school clothes 'decent'.
I attended an all boys grammar school (academically selective state
secondary school). All the short trousers I wore in
secondary school were always grey flannel. My grammar school, like
virtually all grammar schools, had a ubiform requiring a blazer and tie.
Short trousers were not required, we could wear "longies"--as they were
known. A lot of the bigger boys wore them that first year. Most of us
that first years, however, wore shorts. The number progressively
reduced as we got older. I was about third or fourth last to switch in my
class. The last boy, who was the son of a headteacher, at another school
was 15 when he switched. Nobody ever commented on what we wore tht I know
of. It was so common for boys to wear shorts at the time. Our uniform
included caps. Our school required caps until the third year of secondary
school, 13-14 year-olds.
I was a Boy Scout, indeed I was a patrol leader. The uniform was a light brown
shirt, brown shorts. Everybody including the scoutleader and the venture
scouters (who were older teenagers) wore shorts--though the term hadn't
been coined yet, wore shorts as Baden powell had instructed. We wore a
striped neckerchief (each troop had its own colours) fastened with a
woggle, a little leather ring.
As an older boy I wore shorts after school until I was 16. This was not
unusual. A lot of my friends also wore shorts after school. Some did
switch completely, both for school and after school, to longies when they
were about 12 or 13.
I had some suits but not many. Money was tight and so I usually wore my
uniform for church.
I never asked my mummy for long
trousers. She bought them for me as a surprise and a 'treat'. (The next
bit is vanity but true). I was a very nice looking boy with a good singing
voice. The local rep theatre company auditioned for boys to sing and act
in their Christmas production and I was one of the boys chosen. Mummy was
so proud that she bought the trousers as a 'well done' present. Actually,
I was horrified if the truth were known. I hated the longies, not least
because
they were not lined like my shorts and I had a sore rash on my inside legs.
Anyway I wore them to school but, as I said, I couldn't wait to get home
and change. That lasted until I was about 16.
I was a slow developer and it was about 16 when I changed. After that
shorts went out of the window and I
wanted fashionable clothes.
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