Christopher Wagner
Growing up in Scotland as a schoolboy throughout the 1950s, I wore short trousers until I was about 14 years old. It was never a matter of any dispute between my parents and myself as virtually every boy of my age dressed in the same way. The fashion for boys' shorts at this time was for fairly long and baggy ones although as I progressed through school they did become somewhat shorter and neater fitting.
Most of the shorts I wore were of flannel but in later years I acquired shorts in a gabardine material and these held their shape better and were much smarter. All the grey school shorts I wore were lined with a linen type material but cheaper unlined versions were available.
The 1950s were rather austere years and we had little in the way of specialised casual clothes. When an item of our school uniform was considered to be no longer fit for wear to school it was relegated to the role of "play wear". Consequently, we wore much the same kind of clothes all the time although in summer we would probably have unlined khaki drill shorts and perhaps a summer shirt or two. As I grew older I was allowed jeans but strictly for wear outside school hours.
When I progressed to Secondary School my uniform changed hardly at all apart from a different school tie and blazer badge. Although I don't think there was any hard and fast rule concerning the types of trousers to be worn, every boy in the various classes of the first year was in shorts and remained so for the duration of that year. At the start of the second year perhaps 25% returned to school in long trousers and during the course of the year this number rose gradually as more boys made the transition. By the start of the third year (age approximately 15) there were only a handful of boys still in shorts and there were even one or two in the fourth year (aged 16) still so dressed who may have been subjected to some teasing.
I myself made the transition to long trousers half way through my second year at age 14. Until then I can honestly say that I had never had any concerns about still being in shorts. In fact, I can remember going shopping with my mother about a year previously and being given the option of long or short trousers and choosing the shorts. My Dad took me for my first pair of longs and I can remember the first day when I put them on to wear to school that I felt somewhat self conscious and almost chickened out and put my shorts on. It didn't take long to get used to them though and after a few weeks I wouldn't have considered voluntarily wearing shorts again.
I did have to go back to wearing shorts for a brief period and it was a difficult time for me. I had a pre-school milk round and one morning when jumping out of the van I caught my trousers on a wire milk crate and tore them quite badly. They were the only pair of longs I had other than my jeans and my mother would never countenance me going to school in jeans. The trousers were too badly damaged to be repaired so there was no alternative - I would have to revert to shorts until such time as my parents could afford to replace them. I don't suppose it was that long before I had another pair of trousers but it felt like an eternity and I was on the wrong end of some mickey-taking [HBC note: "taking the mickey" is Brit-speak for being teased. I'm not sure of the derivation.] from my classmates who wrongly assumed that I had been put back into shorts as some form of parental punishment.
Wearing short trousers throughout the year was seen as normal but it is true to say that we did suffer some discomfort in the winter months. While "stockinged" legs did not get unpleasantly wet the bare areas did and when icy winter winds got to them they became inflamed and sore. I can vividly remember how the insides of my thighs used to sting like hell when I lowered myself into a hot bath. Similarly, if one was wearing wellington boots one had to be careful to make sure that socks were pulled up higher than the height of the boot, or the top of the boot, folded down and inch or two. Failure to do so would result in the wellingtons rubbing on the back of the calf and producing painful red weals.
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