Figure 1.-.

There are solme garments I rember in particular. Some I have discussed in other sections. I talk about my school clothes in the school section. I also have distinct memories of knitted sweaters. I particularly recall a paor of checked shorts I had. I hated them. On the trips to my grandparents, grandmother always helped my mum out by buying us new socks and underwear. The latter of which we found "old-fashioned" being white cotton briefs and singlets while we were used to wearing coloured briefs and t-shirts for vests. She also ALWAYS gave us gloves and "bobble-hats" for Christmas! I also remember the pajamas I wore. Mine had cats.

Our Schools

My brothers and I attended several different schools as a boy. These schools had different outlooks on both education and school uniform. As a resiult we boys had somewhat different educational expderiences. We attended regular state primarie and Church of England (C of E) primaries and regular and direct grant grammar schools. This was i part because we moved and our parents choice of schools. Of course we had to do well academically to get into the grmmar schools. School uniforms were adopted by each individual schools so there were differentsin how we dressed for school. Changing fashion trend were also a factor here. My primary school was a traditional Church of England school in West London. I started there in September 1964. We had a strict uniform: cap, blazer, shirt and tie, shorts (grey), gartered socks with green rings around the tops, black shoes even from the earliest years (age 5). My friend who I used to play with started at the school on the same day as me, but his parents took him out of the school after a few weeks and sent him to a more relaxed school up the road (a low-level post war school - ours was an old Victorian building). His school had no uniform and I remember noticing that at an early age. I had also done well on my 11+ and had been accepted at a grammar school, but a different one to my brother. We had moved in the Summer of 1970 to another district of London and I was due to start at my secondary school. This was what was known as a "Direct Grant Grammar School" My new items of school uniform were the school blazer, tie and long kneesocks in the school colours. Shorts were not compulsory in the main school but some of those who were moving up from the "prep" department wore them to start with along with those of us who were still had our primary school shorts in reasonable condition to wear out. I lived a sort of double life after beginning grammar school. One in school and one with my mates out of school whoh were not the same people because no other boy at my school lived in my area, most travelling in from the suburbs. My younger brother had meanwhile been enrolled at a new primary school in the area that we had moved to which did not require a uniform so he started the new school year in jeans!

Hand Knitting

I've just remembered some more stuff about people hand-kniting us stuff. I think it's historically important as this was becoming rarer as the 1970s approached and ready made "woolens" - in fact synthetic jumpers became cheaper. This hand knitting business was a special concern for me as a boy and my brothers as well. One thing that my brothers and I objected to was the pullovers knitted for us by a neighbour. Not that they were that bad but we didn't like the woman for some reason. She was just old I guess and they tended to have elaborate "cable stitching" or some such. We had to go to her dingy house - normally in the run up to Christmas. She would hold two halfs of the jumper up to us to check the fit. What was bad about this was that then we'd have to sit there quietly for HOURS while the two women talked. Mum must have been friendly with lady for many years. There are family photographs of us as very little boys wearing knit outfits. I have no memory of these outfits or early visits. Only the photographs. Looking at them, they must have been items knitted by this lady. The photograph here shows me at the seaside. One Christmas she gave my younger brother a toy elephant she'd made. When it split apart we discovered it was stuffed with her old stockings which caused us no end of merriment and I for once joined in with my older brother in tormenting the younger one with lurid tales of what was in his elephant--cruel reallly as he'd been quite attached to it.

Short Trousers

I mostly wore short trousers as a boy. Most boys I knew did so also. Mum never explained why and it was so common that we never really questioned this, even in the Winter. Most of my shorts were grey school shorts. Our school required grey shorts as part of the school uniform. Not all schools had this requirement, but many did. Mum almost always had us wear shorts after school as well. I wore new ones to school and then as they wore out I wore them for play. I also had cord shorts for play and casual wear. They weren't allowed at school even grey ones. Not all boys had cord shorts. As far as I can recall you either liked cords or hated them when I was a kid. I think I liked them precisely because my older brother didn't!I didn't mind wearing shorts, except for a horrid pair of checked shorts my grandmother bought for best wear. Mum also bought Summer shorts for us. I noticed substantial differences in how boys viewed short trousers in the 1970s and 80s.

Hosiery

As a boy I wore both kneesocks and short (ankle) socks. Our primary school required grey kneesocks with colored loops as part of school uniform. I guess I got used to these as I never cared much for short socks, even during the summer. Left to my own I always put on kneesoks, especially my grey school socks. I also had fawn kneesocks, but I didn't like them as much. Here I ean into trouble with mum as she thought it was healty to get as much sun as possible and thus brought short-sleeve shirts and short socks for summer wear. Curiously mum also ran into trouble as gran didn't approve of short socks. So the whole hosiery situation, at leasr while I was in primary school got a little complicated.

Garters

As well as having to wear those horrendous shorts with a white shirt and tie with I visited my grandparents, my one normal item of clothing were my grey school socks with their green hoops. But even this was made "strange" as my mother always sowed us new garters for these trips to keep our socks up and this felt different. "Normal" elastic garters would wear out and so be more comfortable, but not do the job of keeping the socks up. So the periodical sewing of a new pair - especially before a new school term. Cubs wore garters with green flashes on them. Some prep schools did too but in their school colours, but this changed with the wearing of non-turnover-top kneesocks. I noticed this on the HBC "national descriptions" page where the Cub on the left has the new style of kneesocks and no garters and the one third from left seems to have created a turn-over-top in order to accommadate the garters shortening his socks to well below the knee. I recall new garters being a pain in my early life! I also wonder if all mothers made them for their sons. The Cub ones were obviously commercially manufactured. I also wonder if schools actually REQUIRED them as part of the uniform or they were just worn by boys as a way of avoiding any possible admonition for not "keeping their socks up". These (except the ones with flashes) not being an item of uniform open to obvious inspection. Maybe it was just the boys' mothers' choice - but all boys I knew wore them and they had their name written on them.

Long Trousers

My older brother and I normally wore short trousers while we were still in primary school. It was different for my little brother who began attending a primary school without a uniform restriction. He wore long trousers a lot more than my older brother and I did. Ny older brother was the firsrt to get proper long trousers. He got long trousers when he began his secondary school at age 11 and I did as well when I began. He also had long trousers for Scouts which chnged the uniform by the time he moved on from Cubs. He also had a suit with flared trouswrs asthe time that I was still wearing those checked shorts I mentioned. Our first long trousers thoufgj were jeans, although mum did n't really approve of them. As far as denim out of school goes - it was still frowned on by some parents in the 60s/70s. We had them, both long and short versions. My little brother even wore them to school. My mum wouldn't let us wear them, however, when out with her - even shopping - or on a Sunday for some reason.

Footwear

I commonly wore sandals as a boy. I also had shoes. What I objected to were Wellington boots. We had to make sure our sandals and shoes were polished. Having unpolished shoes was punishable at both my primary and secondary schools and my mum (and I know other mums) put great emphasis on keeping shoes clean. We had a "shoebox" with all the brushes and polish in and mum made us polish our shoes every morning (sandals too - with the "brown brush". We had different ones for the black and brown polish with the colour written on. If you accidently used the black brush on brown sandals it would look bad - smeary. My mum would go mad then - especially as the black brush would also contaminate the brown polish). A lot of polishing was also to do with preserving and waterproofing the leather - another reason why it was more common in Europe perhaps?--the weather. I've told you before,I think,that I even used to polish my satchel - but with a cheaper brand of polish than the shoe polish mum bought. Later - at secondary school we had a liquid white cleaner to clean our gym shoes - the primary school plimpsoles were black so we never cleaned them. My uncle - who had been in the Army said he always judged a person by the state of their shoes. That's why I never used to complain about shoe polishing too much. A lot of English schools were run along semi-military lines then - I mean as far as attention to detail and wearing the uniform properly were concerned. Another recollection about footwear. I particularly recall one boy showing up in boots and short trousers being ridiculed. He was allowed the boots out of school by his mother - and most of what else he wanted, but he had to wear out his old primary school shorts before he could get long trousers.

Underwear

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.

Pajamas

When we were young our pyjamas - like our underwear - were always "Ladybird" brand bought from Woolworths. They were very warm and had pictures of animals on them - mine had cats I remember and my older brother something different. Although we used to share a lot of our clothes I always wanted to wear "my pyjamas" and used to get really upset if mum put them on my brother by mistake.When we got older we had "proper" pyjamas - with a button-up jacket and drawcord on the trousers - these were stripey. I didn't like them at first - especially as my little brother still had ladybird ones - but mum said they were "grown-up" - and I don't think ladybird did them in bigger sizes anyway. Sometimes we wore a jumper over them before bed and sometimes I'd keep this on to sleep in in the Winter. After we moved to the new flat I never used to bother with pyjamas sleeping in a pair of briefs. The flat wasn't centrally heated but was a lot warmer.This was becoming common amongst a lot of boys then.My brother though did still have pyjamas - horrible blue nylon ones that I'd never have worn ( the old ones were sort of flannel).When we went up to Leeds my grandmother was horrified that I didn't have pyjamas!. My aunt - also in Yorkshire thought it odd too and always lent me a pair of my cousins if I stayed with him - but the bedtime set-up was different up there anyway. It might also be of interest to know that when I went to Germany in 1969 I did take my pyjamas but the German boy I stayed with wore a sort of nightshirt which I found very strange as I'd only ever seen anything like that in old TV adaptations of Dickens books - like "A Christmas Carol". I've no idea if this was comon over there - now I think of it I would like to know. I never saw nightshirts in England back then.

Bill