Figure 1.-.

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 ran 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 least while I was in primary school got a little complicated.

Kneesocks

Our primary school required grey kneesocks with colored loops as part of school uniform. I am not sure just why, but I developed a strong preference for kbeesocks. 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. The whole hosiery situation, at least while I was in primary school got a little complicated.One thing I should say is that kneesocks were always considered as most suitable for "best" wear and not just for school. I think that this was the case for most boys - older boys anyway - and not just with my Mum.

Ankle Socks

I think that I have told you before that when it came to Springtime Mum liked us to wear short socks and short-sleeved shirts in order to get the sun on our legs and arms as she thought that it was good for us after the long Winter. I hated wearing short socks and was glad that they were not allowed (for boys) at school. Mum normally put us in short socks for shopping trips and so on though.

Sunday School

However when it came to going visiting or Sunday school she had us in long socks - which pleased me even if getting dressed up outside of school didn't! This normally meant "school socks" though not always our particular school socks. For instance for Sunday school I often wore a pair of our best school shorts with a white shirt and tie. Mum did not think short socks suitable for Sunday school so I wore long socks. Because we had a variety of ties (often bought as birthday presents) other than our school ties - which we only wore for school - the kneesocks we wore depended on the tie that we were wearing. Often for Sunday school I wore a plain blue tie that we had. With that I wore "school socks" but they had blue hoops around the tops rather than our usual green ones. I don't know if Mum bought the socks especially to go with the ties but, as I say, all sorts of colours were available in BHS catering to all of the schools various colours. I was only too gald that we didn't have any brightly coloured ties like some boys did for "party wear" as we might have had school socks with red or yellow hoops and I would have hated that as I didn't like bright colours. Luckily Mum thought similarly .We also had a solid green tie (two in fact - I had one with a "Red Indian" chief on it which *was* "party wear" and I hated it once I got to be older!). With the green tie our own school socks matched so that suited Mum.

Visiting Leeds

When we went up to Leeds I had to wear my horrible check shorts. Because these were of a green/black/white check pattern I also wore the green tie and green-hooped socks with them. My Grandmother had also bought a similar pair of shorts for my cousin and no doubt had posted one pair off down to London. Mum wisely kept them out of my sight until we were due to travel but even she could not have forseen the fuss that I made over them. My cousins shorts though were of a blue/black/white check so if my Gran had sent those down for me I probably would have worn the blue tie and blue-hooped socks with them. That might have been better for me because I always hated wearing my favourite green-hooped school socks along with my least favourite shorts.

Khaki Shorts

My Gran also had an indirect say in what kneesocks I sometimes wore for "best" down in London. When I was about 10 years old Gran took me and my cousin on a shopping trip to a department store in Leeds. She claimed that she wanted to buy my cousin some clothes but really it was over my wearing the lightweight coloured briefs that my Mum had bought me to take to Germany and which she was determined to replace with with some more "sensible" ones. Anyway I'll tell you about that shopping trip some other time but she did also buy us each a pair of khaki shorts on that trip. These were of a much better quality and cut than our normal khaki casual shorts and playshorts and back in London Mum thought them suitable for me to wear for "best" - not for Sunday School but for going out visiting and as a change from grey school shorts (which she liked to keep in good condition for school as far as possible).

Fawn Kneesocks

When I wore Gran's khaki shorts for visiting Mum had me wear a pair of fawn coloured kneesocks. We had fawn short socks (or "ankle socks" as my Gran called them!) and in fact short socks of all colours - green, blue even white when we were little but funnily enough we never had grey ankle socks until my brother had some for secondary school because he went into long trousers then. By contrast except for these fawn kneesocks all of our kneesocks were "school" socks with various coloured hoops on the tops. I didn't mind Gran's khaki shorts but I didn't like the kneesocks and tie Mum had me wear with them. The socks did have turnover tops but they had no hoops at the top. This was a problem for me because I had devised a method of putting on my school socks and had become quite "finickity" (as my Mum put it!) about this. I would roll up the socks and then pull them on from the toe right up over my knees.Then I would put on my garters just below the knee and at an exact distance (as far as I could judge!) from the bottom hoop as the first hoop was from the top of the sock. Then when I turned down the sock the hoops were always straight and in a central postion. I was always most careful about this and because the socks were ribbed I also could make sure that they were nice and straight. Mum sometimes lost patience with me trying to get my socks just right on a school morning especially as I didn't take half as much trouble over my tie or snakebelt (when I wore shorts that needed one) and she had to retie the tie and adjust the belt for me which she said I could have done properly if I hadn't spent so much time fiddling about with my socks but they was important to me---the tie and belt weren't! Anyway the fawn socks didn't have the hoops or ribs for guidance and I got frustrated over that. They were also thinner than our school socks and the garters hurt more as the day wore on (and when we went visiting my Mum was just as insistent on us keeping our socks pulled up as the school was so I did have a cause for complaint!).

Footwear

The other thing was that for best my Mum didn't think sandals were suitable (the school was the same for school trips or speech days) and I thought that our black school shoes (the only colour shoes we had) didn't "go" with the fawn socks like they did with the grey ones.

Knitted Tie

The tie I had for this outfit was a horrible brown one. It wasn't knitted but it *looked* knitted - woven looking and bobbly rather than our smooth school and other ties - and what was worse it was square-cut at the bottom rather than pointed like our other ties which gave me great trouble in feeding it into the loop in order to tie the knot!. As usual Mum had to come to my rescue and as usual she thought that I was just being awkward because we were having to go visiting on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon rather than me being let out to play but I wasn't really but I usually did resent the fact that we were being dressed up outside of the normal times - school, Sunday School, visits to Gran and so on.Now I realise that Mum just wanted us to look smart for her friends in other parts London who she didn't see that often and whose children were also normally dressed up when they came to visit us.

Mum and Gran

The other time that kneesocks were a bone of contention was with Gran - but that wasn't just over looks but (in her opinion) over "health". Gran thought that we should wear kneesocks rather than "ankle socks" as she called them *all* of the time. In this I agreed with her but not for the reasons that she gave - that we needed "support" for our calves while growing. Mum told her that that was nonsense but Gran insisted. When we went up to Leeds we boys always shared a bed in my uncle's old bedroom and Mum would sleep in her old room. Gran always insisted that Mum had a rest while we were up there and she often told her to lie in bed while she got us up and bathed and dressed. Mum kept our clothes in her room and Gran had already had a good look at them after they had gone up to unpack after we had arrived. Sometimes they were still arguing about certain items hours later. Anyway in the mornings Gran would try to have us in what she thought the most suitable clothes while Mum was still in bed drinking the cup of tea that Gran had brought her up. Sometimes Mum just let it go but sometimes she got up too. Gran always insisted that we wore singlets even in the Summer and if Mum had not packed enough she went out and bought some. She also put us in the kneesocks that Mum had packed for visiting up there. Sometimes Mum came in during this and insisted that we wear short socks as the weather was nice and they would argue.If my Gran won over the sock issue I was pleased as I didn't like the short socks but if she also won over the singlets I wasn't so pleased as I didn't like wearing them even in Winter let alone Summer! Sometimes they compromised - Mum winning out over the short socks so we could get the sun on our legs and Gran winning out over the singlets so that we didn't "catch our death of cold". In that case I was not happy at all but it was always best not to say anything because one thing that Mum and Gran did agree on was that when it came to clothing they may have disagreed on what was best for us as regards health and appearance but that we should have very little say in the matter. In the end I just went along with things and waited until I could have breakfast and escape onto the street.

Cubs

The other place where kneesocks were required were of course the cubs but that didn't effect me directly although it did via my brother who was in the cubs. He wore a pair of our school kneesocks for cubs and,as the hoops were green, that looked alright as the tabs on the cub garters were green too. Some boys who wore their school socks to cubs looked odd (to me) as their hoops were red or yellow or whatever (the cub pack was made up of boys from various schools). I think that cub shops did start selling plain grey kneesocks without hoops later on so that they would all look the same especially for parades but I don't think that my brother had any. I can say some more about the cubs and their kneesocks from what I observed later if you want and I have an interesting photo that illustrates some of the points but I have probably said enough for now!

My Cousin's Kneesocks

I can also tell you about my cousin's kneesocks some of which were different to ours but then so were many of his clothes because Gran took a hand in buying many of his clothes and anyway Yorkshire fashions still were behind those in London in some ways. >br>

White Christmas Kneesocls

I can also tell you of the time Gran bought me some white kneesocks to look "Christmassy" but that is quite a memory and maybe I'll write of it when the time is more seasonal because,despite starting off badly,it is not a bad Christmas memory at all in the way it turned out.

School Socks

We boys wore grey kneesocks. Ours had green-colored bands at the top. The girls wore white kneesocks. It is true that "school socks" were by far the most commonly worn kneesocks when I was growing up and that goes for out-of-school wear as well as (obviously!) for school. Our Church of Ebgland primary school require boys wear grey kneesocks with olored loops. These school socks were bought at BHS and were grey with two green hoops around the turnover tops (our school colours being green and yellow). Very few state primary schools had more than one colour around the tops of the socks (unlike secondary schools and prep schools which might have two or three colours and were more expensive). Mum bought a lot of our basic school clothes at BHS. They had reasonable prices. At BHS the school socks were laid out in trays and the boys ones were all grey with all of the various coloured hoops around the tops. When we got home we peeled off these labels and then Mum would sew our name labels onto the very top so that they would be hidden when we turned over the top when wearing them.You could tell if a boy had put his socks on inside out in the rush to change after swimming or P.E. because the name label would be showing on the outside!.

Garters

The school was strict about keeping the socks pulled up and the tops turned over neatly so the bands were straight. For this we had garters which Mum made. Before each school term she'd go to a wool shop near us and buy two yards of white garter elastic. The old woman would measure it out between two brass markers on the counters glass top. Then back at home Mum would measure it around our calves - mark it off and sew us several pairs each. I hated wearing the new garters as they seemed to pinch your legs - and it was true becaus ehwen you took your socks off you'd have a red mark on your skin. Gradually they wore looser though and were easier but then they'd get too loose and Mum would get a new pair out. There was an ideal state where the garters were just tight enough to keep your socks up but not uncomfortable that never lasted long but me and my older brother could usually recognise the ideal garters and it was something else we'd fight over. For some reason the girls white socks did not have turn-over-tops and they always seemed to stay up withour garters! They could wear ankle-socks in Summer too which we couldn't.

Bill