Attention to Uniform

Scouts were pretty strict about uniforms and "parades". I remember him spending ages getting his uniform "just right" - especially on Sunday when they had "church parade" and he had the "honour" of carrying the troop flag. His Cub gear was bought at a small shop that we normally did not frequent.

Trousers

Mum used to let my brother wear a pair of our grey school shorts for his Cubs church parade on Sunday.When my older brother was in the cubs - the late 60s - my mum allowed him to wear his school shorts to church parade on Sunday but had him wear a pair of our playshorts to the actual weekly meetings as she didn't want our school shorts spoiled. He used to complain that he didn't look "right" and would be different to the other boys. As it turned out this was the same with a lot of the other boys then. Other mums obviously had the same idea. Mum made him wear a pair of casual off-white shorts for the normal meetings as she used to say she didn't want our best shorts spoiled when they played games. He used to complain that he was different to the other boys but she still always made him change for Cubs. As it turned out he was not alone in this - some cubs wore khaki shorts like their older brothers in the scouts for meetings. By the time my brother was in the scouts they wore long trousers.

Kneesocks

Cubs of course still did wear long grey socks with turnover tops as they needed them for the garters with tabs that they wore. These cub garters,to my mind,are part of the uniform and not just for practical purposes of holding up the socks which our plain garters were since they didn't show once we put then on and turned the tops over them to cover them up. My brother only had one pair of cub garters at a time as my Mum said that they were too expensive to buy. She said that she could have made a dozen pairs for the same cost and said that she would but my brother persauded her to buy the proper ones from the scout shop. She marked them in indelible ink and told him that if he lost them he wasn't getting new ones.

Scout Master

My brother's scoutmaster used to come round to our flat sometimes. He had an old battered van – or it might have belonged to the scout troop – and he used to drive round picking up scouts from there houses when they were going away on camp or something. He always seemed to come to our place first and my mum would invite him up for a cup of tea while my brother made last minute checks that he hadn't forgotten anything. I used to hate it if I was there as he would always be going on about how I should join the cubs and then I could follow my brother into the scouts and how much fun it would be. My brother wasn't too impresssed with this either as he didn't want me in the scouts any more than I wanted to be in them so I suppose we were both united in wishing that he'd drink up his tea and they could be off. When he started up like this about me joining the cubs my mum always said “We'll ! see ...” which wasn't the “We'll see ...” that she said to us when we'd asked for something – and normally meant that at some point we got it as long as it wasn't something outrageous – but the “We'll see ...” meaning that there was no way in a million years that he'd ever get me into a cub uniform. She knew that much about me. Anyway one time he turned up and HE was wearing cord shorts with his scout uniform. This seemed absolutely ridiculous to me as adult men just didn't wear shorts then – well not in the city – some did when we went to holiday camps in the Summer – but even then not many as far as I can remember. His were brown too and long and baggy and I nearly burst out laughing and I think my mum was a bit embarrassed. That was when I lost all respect for scouts and scouting (and I'd had very little in the first place). You musn't forget that at that time the boy scouts had just started wearing long trousers and my brother had them on – they travelled in their uniform – it seemed like the world was turned upside-down to me!

My Lot

I wasn't in the cubs but me and my mates used to come across them sometimes when they came over to the park from their hall to play rounders or something (we used to make fun of them until they chased us away). I remember a lot of them were wearing a variety of play shorts in various colours/styles and only a few grey school shorts. It was only on Sunday when I used to see them going in for church parade as I was coming out of Sunday school that I noticed they were all dressed up in their best school shorts - which was the official uniform.

Changing Usage

I think a lot of boys then might have only one or two pairs of school shorts which were also worn as "best". Their mums wouldn't want these worn at Cubs where they played pretty rough games. It was only later when school shorts were relatively cheaper - the 70s when the high street stores sold them en masse - that more boys wore them all of the time to Cubs. Also by the 1980s boys had fewer pairs of casual shorts. They might only wear shorts for school and in the Summer - so their school shorts did for Cubs too. In the Winter boys would only wear shorts for school or if they were in the Cubs and some for "best" - wearing jeans otherwise. This was a big change from the 60s and early 70s as both schoolwear and casual wear were mainly short trousers for this age group - although even then many had jeans but some mums wouldn't let them wear them all of the time. My mum would never let us wear jeans to go out shopping with her and, for some reason, never on Sunday even though we were going out to play (she wasn't that religious or anything). Our only alternative then were our shorts - we had a few pairs other than our best or school ones. I normally wore khaki or cream cotton ones in Summer and grey or green cordouroy ones in Winter that I shared with my brother. He normally wore the cotton ones to weekly Cubs - he didn't like cordoury like I did so they were more or less "mine" unless mum wanted us dressed similarly (she did that sometimes - even just for a shopping trip) then we would argue about which we were to wear. Mum then would intervene and try to have us take turns - cotton and my brother would be happy, cordouroy and I would. I still remember some of those arguments - sometimes my brother would try to force the issue by getting on his choice first - but mum always made him change out of them if it was "my turn".

Bill