Figure 1.-.

It never really occurred to me before,but on reflection our underwear was of some significance in my boyhood and my experiences also reflect the changing fashions and attitudes of the time in England ( the late 60s/early 70s). I've already told you how my Grandmother in Leeds always used to buy us boys three or four sets of underwear every Christmas – not as a present, she'd buy us other clothes for them – but just as a way of helping my mum out. This changed as we grew older – we then wore standard white pants and vests from BHS and I didn't really give the matter much thought – although my little brother still had ladybird underwear and I sometimes got a bit jealous when mum was dressing him in them but it was soon forgotten as I went off to school or out to play. Things really changed in this regard for me – and maybe for other boys – around the late 60s. I've told you how in 1969 I went on a trip to Germany and mum took me on a special shopping trip to buy me some new clothes. We went to the local BHS and, as I've mentioned, they seemed to have a completely new range of Summer clothing that year. All of this changed when Mum decided it was time to get out Gran's Winter underwear – around bonfire night and just after my 11th birthday. As I said this was always an abrupt change but it was even more so that year as I could no longer start school on Monday in my favourite colour – my Summer briefs were packed away. Tuesday came around – we'd started back at school on the previous Wednesday because of how Christmas fell and so had endured almost a week of mornings with Miss Sharpe. Tuesday was P.E. Day and was one of my favourites. Anyway – this was different – it was P.E. Miss Sharpe style. She even called it P.T. which said something about her. We boys usually just took our shoes, socks,jumpers and ties off in the cloakroom and then went into the hall. Some put on there plimpsoles – but most of us stayed in barefeet. It was fun – usually. When we got into the hall this time Miss Sharpe seemed surprised. She ordered us boys to take our shirts and shorts off. We were stunned.

Early Years

It never really occurred to me before,but on reflection our underwear was of some significance in my boyhood and my experiences also reflect the changing fashions and attitudes of the time in England ( the late 60s/early 70s). I've already told you how my Grandmother in Leeds always used to buy us boys three or four sets of underwear every Christmas – not as a present, she'd buy us other clothes for them – but just as a way of helping my mum out. We didn't like these tightly knitted briefs and vests as they were not what we were used to wearing at home – I found them itchy. I recall these were too manufactured by a Yorkshire firm – I forget which – but they carried the brand name “Cherub” - which I found embarrassing as I grew older. Our “normal” underwear had been “Ladybird” when we were younger which mum bought at Woolworth's and sometimes came with pictures on them – animals or something which I liked. I used to share a lot of my clothes with my older brother, which I didn't really mind, but I used to get really upset if mum dressed him in a set of “my” underwear – pictures I'd picked out as liking. The same was true of our ladybird pyjamas – and mum did always keep these setperate – i.e. I had my own – so at least I went to bed happy.

Older Underwear

This changed as we grew older – we then wore standard white pants and vests from BHS and I didn't really give the matter much thought – although my little brother still had ladybird underwear and I sometimes got a bit jealous when mum was dressing him in them but it was soon forgotten as I went off to school or out to play.

Winter

When Winter started to come on though there was a major change. Mum used to dig out Gran's underwear from the Christmas before and insist that we wear it. She used to pack away our Summer underwear,along with t-shirts and short socks,in big plastic bags and dress us up warmly to go to school or out to play. We used to complain at first – my elder brother more than me for a change – but once we'd got used to the changeover nothing more was said.

The Late 1960s

Things really changed in this regard for me – and maybe for other boys – around the late sixties.I've told you how in 1969 I went on a trip to Germany and mum took me on a special shopping trip to buy me some new clothes. We went to the local BHS and, as I've mentioned, they seemed to have a completely new range of Summer clothing that year. As well as shorts, shirts and socks they also had a completely new range of underwear which was of interest to me.As well as the standard white briefs they had a comletely new, to me, range of lightweight ones in various bright colours. These were not displayed in packs but all laid out seperately in the various colours and age/sizes. They took up quite a bit of space in the store and I was immediately attracted to them – the white ones, which I'd always had before, were tucked on at the end and looked very sad in comparison. To my delight – after a bit of consideration – my mum went along the row and picked out a pair of briefs in each of the colours in my size. I was delighted – it wasn't like my mum who was normally quite conservative in dressing us once we'd started at school – and my mum could tell I was pleased and was smiling herself. Although I hardly wore any of my new holiday clothes in Germany – preferring my school clothes – I did like to wear a different coloured pair of briefs every day and was glad when my favourite colour - green – came around again after they'd been washed. (Incidently I had occaision to borrow some briefs from my German friends cousin – after the river incident I told you about – and these were different again being patterned – a style I didn't see in England until a couple of years later).

School Colours

When I got back to England I found mum had also bought my elder brother some pairs of these new-style briefs but I tried to get her keep mine seperate. When the time came to start back at school and we were getting our clothes ready the night before I made sure my favourite green briefs were put out. Nobody would see them of course – unlike my new shorts and jumper – but it felt right to me to start in them – our school colours were green and yellow and I was in the “green team” so it seemed right to me. My mum found this amusing – but she went along with it and my older brother wasn't there to laugh at me as he had started at secondary school and used to leave earlier as he had a long tube trip now. I've got to admit that this became a bit of an obssession as I always wanted to start the school week with my green briefs on a Monday and used to pester my mum to make sure that they were washed – she did her best but sometimes I had to make do with the yellow ones – the “second best” - but would never wear red – my brother's old school team colours on a Monday!.Weired ,eh? - but it was just something I was going through and, as I say, my mum found it amusing and used to indulge me as far as she could.

Seasonal Change--11th Birthday

All of this changed when Mum decided it was time to get out Gran's Winter underwear – around bonfire night and just after my 11th birthday. As I said this was always an abrupt change but it was even more so that year as I could no longer start school on Monday in my favourite colour – my Summer briefs were packed away. I tried to argue with mum but she was insistent on us being well wrapped up for the Winter – and she pointed out that I'd wear out all of my Summer briefs if I kept wearing them and she wouldn't be able to afford new ones – which wasn't much of a consolation. Anyway – after the initial uncomfortableness I soon forgot all about it as I was having to work hard at school towards my 11-plus exam. Forgot that is until an incident that happened at school. Christmas came and went – including the trip up to Leeds and, yes, Gran did supply us with new sets of her famous Yorkshire underwear – and I went back to school after the holidays.

Miss Sharpe

On the first day back our teacher introduced us to Miss Sharpe. She was a trainee teacher who was going to take over some of our classes. We took an instant dislike to her – and her to us. Given that we were the top class and working towards our exams our normal teacher let us have some leeway in class – she kept us at it but would allow us to talk to each other quietly – as long as we were talking about the work and helping each other out. Miss Sharpe was completely different and on the very first lesson with her she called two of my mates out to the front and slippered them for talking – a slipper that she had brought in specially as our teacher never used one and only reluctantly ever sent anyone to the headmisstress. Anyway her lessons were useless and we used to hang around in the playground complaining about her. No-one liked her – not even the girls – and her name didn't help either. Luckily we only had her for the mornings and then we'd get our normal teacher back for the afternoon. I'd even complained to my mum about her – something I never did usually about school things as I didn't want to worry her - as she'd called me stupid and ignorant for telling her that German boys drank beer for breakfast during a Geography lesson – something I knew was true as I'd seen it myself! My mum told me that you had to put up with all types of people and that she wouldn't be there long anyway. She also told me to answer politely back that I wasn't stupid if she did it again – but I wouldn't have dared.

Miss Sharpe's P.T.

Tuesday came around – we'd started back at school on the previous Wednesday because of how Christmas fell and so had endured almost a week of mornings with Miss Sharpe. Tuesday was P.E. Day and was one of my favourites. In the Winter we always did P.E. In the main school hall and our teacher used to let us play pirates – running round the hall on the benches we put out or jumping into hoops without touching the floor. It was great fun and our teacher always said it was good for us to let off some steam. That week we needed that more than ever as it had been snowing and we weren't allowed to run around in the playground as it was icy. Anyway – this was different – it was P.E. Miss Sharpe style. She even called it P.T. which said something about her. We boys usually just took our shoes, socks,jumpers and ties off in the cloakroom and then went into the hall. Some put on there plimpsoles – but most of us stayed in barefeet. It was fun – usually. When we got into the hall this time Miss Sharpe seemed surprised. She ordered us boys to take our shirts and shorts off. We were stunned. The girls used to take their skirts off for P.E. but that seemed different somehow. We boys had used to do P.E. in our underwear when we were little – even outside – but hadn't for the last couple of years. Anyway she started shouting at us to “get a move on” as she had her lesson to do – even that was odd – we never thought of P.E. as a “lesson” - more like play. We soon found out what she meant though. She wouldn't let us go back to the cloakroom but had us pile our shirts and shorts on the table in the front. It's then that I started to feel a little self-consious. Most of the boys were wearing standard white pants and vests and some had the coloured ones – some a mixture but none had the sort I was wearing. I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it though as Miss Sharpe got us all into position and started going through a routine that she was following from a book. We didn't get any of the equipment out of the cupboards. It was all sorts of stuff – stretching and running on the spot and things like that – nothing like we were used to – a bit like a speeded up version of the “Music and Movement” lessons I told you about but without the music and with Miss Sharpe bellowing at us. What was more she was determined to finish her programme and took the class right up until the bell. We normally finished the lesson five minutes early to give us time to put the equipment away. Then we would go to the cloakroom to get our shoes and socks back on while the caretaker came in to set up the tables for the school dinners. Four of us boys – one from each team in the top class - would help with this under his supervision before going out into the playground. Then four of the girls would go in to set out the cutlery on the tables. I was the boy from the green team. Anyway at the end of the lesson the caretaker was waiting to get started while us boys made a dash to retreive our shorts and shirts. This was the problem with the standard BHS shorts which most of us had - they all looked identical. Boys with the more old-fashioned shorts had an easier time picking theirs out from the pile – we had to go through them looking for our names on the labels inside.Miss Sharpe of course couldn't resist intervening – she started on us again saying that we were “like a lot of chattering monkeys” and made us line up while she went through our shirts looking for the name and giving them to the boy who owned it.Then she did the same for our shorts. One or two boys' mums hadn't labelled their clothing and they had to wait while it was sorted out. Finally Miss Sharpe dismissed us with the comment that she didn't know why we didn't have a proper P.E. kit at the school – though as far as I know hardly any primary schools did then. We got back into the cloakroom and dressed muttering at her. We four “helpers” then went back in to help! the caretaker who had already set up a lot of the tables on his own. I remember being a bit embarrassed with him – we “helpers” always looked on ourselves as “grown-up” and his equal and he treated us like that too. I felt embarrassed that he'd seen us in our underwear like that and being treated like little kids. He was great though – as we worked he said - “bit of a battleaxe that isn't she?” and “I thought she'd never let my men come and help me” which made us laugh and feel better at the same time – he was great like that – he was part of the school – but at the same time he always seemed to be on the side of the kids and always knew the right thing to say – even to the youngest kids. He'd been out that morning gritting the playground so it was safer for us – but the teachers on playground duty still wouldn't let us run around. When us four got out our classmates were already discussing the lesson and, what I'd been dreading, came up – one of my enemies from the red team started on about my underwear. He'd tried to do it before at the swimming baths – but I'd got dressed quickly before anyone could notice properly. Luckily no-one really took this up and we got back to thinking of ways of getting our revenge on Miss Sharpe or “The Battleaxe” as she was now known.

Rest of the Week

Anyway after lunch we got our own teacher back and I soon forgot the incident. The rest of the week passed on – Miss Sharpe in the mornings and our real teacher in the afternoons. There was a great moment when one of the boys in our class drew a picture of an axehead with a pretty good likeness of Miss S. on it. He passed it round the class and we all had a good laugh – especiaaly when she noticed and ordered one of the girls to bring it out to her. Her face was a picture when she saw it and she demanded to know who did it. No one told but she got our proper teacher and the headmisstress to interrogate the class in the afternoon and in the end the boy owned up and got the cane – but he still said it was worth it. Then on the Friday – instead of games we had a film in the school hall – a proper one not a boring old nature film so that was good. At the weekend I met up with my mate Michael again – he'd been over in Ireland for Christmas and New Year and I hadn't seen him.It was great as one of his uncles was over and he came out with us because he wanted us to show him what we got up to – Michael had been telling him in Ireland. We met Michaels brothers and some of their mates in the park and it ended up with me, Michael and his uncle in a snowball fight against the others and they came off worse for a change and ran home to complain to their mum but she had no sympathy as she knew they used to start on us – and the uncle – her brother was one of her favourites. So I kept busy and it was only when I went back to school on the Monday that the P.E. incident started to play on my mind again.

My Plans

Going home that afternoon I started to really worry about the lesson the next day. Like I say – no-one had really made fun of my gran's underwear that much – we'd all been a bit embarrassed – but I'd felt really self-consious about it – I was starting to want to wear the sort of clothes I liked generally since I'd come back from Germany and had the confidence to stand up to my mum a bit more. Some things she'd go along with – some she wouldn't and I knew it was no good trying to peraude her to let me wear Summer underwear as the weather was still so cold. I went straight home after school and while I was getting out of my school clothes I had an idea. My brother wasn't home and I got into the suitcase where mum had packed away all of our Summer clothes and got out a set of our old white underwear – it wasn't as good as the new coloured briefs I'd liked so much but not as bad as Grans. I hid it under my matress and planned to put it on the next morning thinking mum wouldn't notice. I was fretting all evening that she would discover them or something and she noticed that something was up – I could never do anything without feeling a bit guilty – and when we were getting our clothes ready for the next day I thought of telling mum what I was doing and why but decided against it. As it turned out all my plans went wrong. My mum was late up the nexy day – rare for her – and when she came to get us up she was in a rush with us. I'd planned to get out the underwear from under the matress while mum was washing my little brother and sneak it into the bathroom hidden under my pyjamas – once I'd got in on I thought mum wouldn't notice. Anyway there was no time for any of this as mum hauled me and my little brother straight out of bed and got us into the bathroom in between seeing that my older brother had everything he needed – he was at secondary school then and left much earlier – and making our porridge ( she cooked “Ready-Brek” that morning as it was quicker to cook but nothing like real porridge). I never had a chance to retreive the underwear as mum had us dressed in gran's and at the table before we knew it. I was still trying to work out a “plan B” and was taking ages over eating my porridge even though mum was in a whirl of activity – in and out of the kitchen telling us to hurry up in between ironing our shirts and shorts in the other room. My mum always used to iron our school clothes fresh in the mornings before we went to school and I used to like that – especially in the Winter as they'd still be nice and warm. Finally she came to get us and I then told her I needed the toilet – another ploy to try to get changed. She knew something was going on then – but not what – as I'd already been and she gave me a whack with the wooden spoon that she used to stir the porridge and told me to stop messing about. I'd given up almost by then but I did manage to get away while she was dressing my little brother and got the underwear into my satchell. I'd decided I could change in the school toilets in the break before the P.E. lesson.

Undone

Things sometimes just conspire against you when you're a kid. The snow had more or less melted but it was a bit slushy. My mum decided that I still had to wear my wellington boots.She couldn't find my shoe bag and so put the shoes into a brown paper bag and told me to put them into my satchell. I was of course reluctant to open it in front of her and she grabbed it off me and told me she didn't know what I was playing at and we were all going to be late. Of course she found the underwear on the top. She was surprised more than angry and sat there waiting for an explaination. By then I'd had enough and told her everything about Miss Sharpe and her P.E. lesson. I exaggerated a bit (a lot) and told her everyone had been laughing at me all week. Normally mum went along with what happened at school – but she could tell I was really upset and told me she'd write a note but that I'd been wrong not to tell her before and to get out the Summer underwear. She also told me that I was silly not to appreciate the warm pants and vest gran had bought for me and should tell anyone who was making fun of me to mind their own business. Anyway – it was getting late and I knew mum wouldn't let me change – and it would be even worse if I took in a note – kids with notes from their mums always got stick. I set off for school resigned to my fate.

Back to Normal P.E.

As it turned out all of this was for nothing – as I should have realised.On the Monday things had swapped round – we had our teacher in the morning and Miss Sharpe in the afternoon.This meant we had our teacher again for P.E.!.I should have realised that – but it shows how I'd blown the whole incident up in my own mind.We played pirates that morning – with our shorts and shirts on!.

Seasonality

Anyway. That's my recolllections as far as underwear are concerned.It does show that seaonal underwear was still a thing in the 60s. Those coloured BHS briefs did cause a bit of a stir up at Grans the next Easter – and led to a shopping trip with her, which helped me out regarding the underwear “fashion” when I went on to secondary school – but I'll tell you about that some other time if you'd like.

Bill