Figure 1.--Here I am was learning to cope with collar studs prior to the new term a week or two ahead. The jacket is grey flannel so I must have been wearing my school suit, although it was about that time I had my first sports jacket. .
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Figure 1.--Here I am was learning to cope with collar studs prior to the new term a week or two ahead. The jacket is grey flannel so I must have been wearing my school suit, although it was about that time I had my first sports jacket. . |
Derek has provided a fascinating account of his school experiences with very useful details about the school uniforms that he wore at his school, a public school with an attached preparatory school. He also provides some interesting insights on the still rather traditiional operation of the school in the 1950s.
My first memories, backed up by photos found amongst my mother’s effects, are of aertex shirts and shorts of a kind of jersey-knit. These, with a rather shapeless jumper, were worn at home but also to infants’ school. In my last year (from about age 6 or 6 1/2), a grey flannel shirt and grey flannel shorts anticipated school uniform at preparatory school from 7+ and a tie was also worn — part of the necessary learning to tie one’s own tie. However there was not a formal uniform at infants’ school.
The school was (and is) one of the public schools (ie fee-paying), now more commonly known as independent schools. That meant entrance at 13+ and leaving at 18+. Within the same foundation was a preparatory school (7+ to 13+) and there was an obvious link between the two, with some sharing of facilities. Initially the prep school split at 10+ but, the very year I myself reached 10 years of age, that was altered to 11+ in order to be in line with other schools — both state and independent. Today the prep school includes pre-preparatory and nursery education, accepting children from age 3 onwards.
In the 1950s and 1960s the main school was, generally speaking, run on traditional lines. The senior boys ran the domestic routine and kept order within the houses and very senior boys did much the same at school level. Hence senior boys imposed punishments as necessary. This could lead to corporal punishment (of which the housemaster would be aware before it was carried out), which those senior boys administered. I recall being alarmed at clean-cut and officious 17 to 18-year-olds assuming the rôle of the kindly if firm prep school masters but, in reality, prep school was probably stricter and now petty embarrassments were dealt with away from the housemaster’s direct involvement (he became more like a tutor and advisor). Fagging was still in operation, whereby boys in their first year or so were assigned to a particular senior boy to do whatever he demanded (within bounds of decency and legality) and also were on call as a group for tasks requiring and group or gang of hands (eg moving a stack of chairs or clearing up a room).
Although the above involved a certain amount of hand-me-down items, I do recall that my uniform for prep school in 1952 was purchased for me at the school outfitters. That consisted of a grey flannel shirt with plain navy blue tie, a grey flannel shorts suit, grey socks and black shoes. The jacket of the suit was single-breasted, three-button with the hem slightly tapered outwards but not as long as jackets were to become later; however this was no ‘bum-freezer’. The shorts were a good length and pleated, in the old-fashioned way with the opening of the pleat facing forwards, and they had a button fly; they had two side pockets but no back pocket; the waist was quite high and a snake belt incorporating the school colours (navy and white) was worn with them. Underwear, vest and trunks, was of different thicknesses for summer and winter. Aertex underpants were purchased for me on one occasion and I had to wear them for their natural duration but I successfully pleaded against repeat purchases and was very glad to see the back of them.
Pyjamas were striped, a colour or perhaps a combination of colours on a white background, and the wool dressing gown was of an individual pattern with a plaited piped edging and a tie-cord of the same design.
There was no school cap as such, for caps varied according to houses etc. All day-boys up to age 11 had a royal blue cap with sky blue stripes (from centre to rim), while equivalent boarders had the same colour in three rings. At 11, still on royal blue day-boys had stripes indicating their house (one was a composite of white and sky, the other green) and boarders rings (navy, yellow and red respectively for each of the three houses). From 13 onwards the caps were black, with house colours forming rings for day-boys and stripes for boarders. In 1959 caps were abolished in favour of ties depicting house colours in stripes, which were quite close together. These were not available for some weeks (wonderful organisation on someone’s part) so there was an interim period during which the plain navy-blue tie was still worn but no school cap was available. My own house’s colour was light blue, so that the house tie resembled a poor imitation of an Old Etonian tie. None of this affected 7 to 13-year-olds. I recall the changeover well because, just three weeks before the abolition of caps, I had been beaten (English terminology for being caned on the backside) for not having my cap when I had left the school precincts.
The blazer was flannel, of a lighter grey even than the suit. It was unlined but trimmed with navy ribbon and bore the simplified crest which the school used on occasion, depicting one symbol (a trefoil) from the main coat of arms. When this came into everyday use (with open-neck shirt and spare trousers or shorts at younger ages) for the summer rig, the lack of an inside pocket was a real problem; for instance a fountain pen in a trouser pocket is very likely to tip and leak. [HBC note: Ball points did not become widely used until the 1960s.] About the buttons. We have to keeo our blazer butonned. The minimum requirement was one button.
A few boys of 14 still did up all three buttons, as we used to in the prep school, but to walk around with an unbuttoned jacket was an
upper-sixth-form privilege and those who usurped that were liable to
punishments of 50 or 100 lines.
All boys longed to appear grown-up, imagining perhaps that they would be treated with more consideration and enjoy greater freedom. Graduating from shorts to long trousers was a symbol of that but depended upon height, as if being short for one’s age was not indignity enough; only in the September after his 13th birthday could a boy be sure to get into longs. So it was that I had long trousers, with my best suit from four months before I was 13 and for daily use two weeks before that birthday; however when we went into hot-weather rig half-way through the summer term, an old pair of shorts was issued to me and the new suit was put away by the matron beyond my access. Other boys of course enjoyed my discomfort in this respect. A boy, who ended up considerably shorter than myself, stated at the time that I was not tall enough to justify long trousers.
The long trousers in the 1950s and early 1960s had a fitted waistband, so that braces were not essential even though the trousers would have probably looked much better for them. The fly was still button-type, although zips were coming in for larger boys’ sizes as for adults. The big advance was the acquisition of a back pocket, even if we did not quite know how best to use it! They were deep enough in those days to take a man’s wallet, although the habit of keeping such an item in a jacket’s inside pocket tended to persist. In those days all denominations of paper money were of significant value and went in a wallet without question; I used my back pocket for coin, since this prevented the chinking that the side pockets allowed.
The flannel material was hot and sticky in summer and, at any time of the year, the trousers lost their creases in no time. Hence wool worsted was much favoured and even before I got into longs, this had been accepted grudgingly by the school as an alternative. Worsted suits came up darker and always looked smarter. Only when, after much badgering of my parents and the eventual putting aside of a hand-me-down flannel suit of my elder brother, I got a worsted suit for myself did I realise that the material was rather thinner. That meant it was colder in winter and occasional punishments with the cane seemed a little more direct as well!
Long grey socks (without any contrasting colour) were worn with shorts and that usually continued for a term or two underneath newly-acquired long trousers. Replacement socks were then of the shorter style, almost as much a right of passage as getting into longs itself. For games, thicker long grey socks were worn and these had a navy top section. For PE and other activities such as fives or tennis for which gym attire was worn, short white socks were the order.
Sandals, of the T-bar type, were on the clothes list for the prep school (7 to 13) but not for the main school. However these were for summer rig, when officially invoked in response to exceptionally hot weather. Hence they were mostly worn in school holiday time! T-bar sandals would have appeared rather childish to us as teenagers and, while some boys would have already had grown-up sandals at home, they were not permitted in school. You must remember that boarders could not even access their own casual (non-uniform) clothes from arrival at the beginning of term until the morning of departure for the holidays. For the prep school, the journey to and from school had to be made in uniform and other clothes just remained at home.
The necessity of war-time gave rise to habits associated with ‘make-do-and-mend’, which lasted well beyond the restrictions of clothes rationing and the shortage of funds. Holiday clothes tended to be old items of uniform no longer fit for school. The exception was khaki cotton shorts, almost a uniform for boys right up into their teens, fulfilling the same rôle as jeans for later generations. Mine were definitely handed down, my first pair seeing me nearly to age 10 and the next pair to about 14. They happened to be a bit more up-to-date than official Scout Shop issue and were therefore the envy of some of my contemporaries in the school scout troop, whose shorts were very high-waisted, almost knee-length and so tailored that there was plenty of room for a cushion in the seat.
Cubs and scouts organised within the school was a mixed blessing. It was convenient but school rules and discipline seemed to encroach on scouting activity and the opportunity for a fresh, alternative circle of friends and associates was lost.
A big landmark was getting a sports jacket, worn at first with separate collar and tie of choice but still with grey flannels. Boys from well-off families might have casual trousers, cavalry twills were coming in then and corduroys were popular with country people. Although a blazer would have been a novelty to me, for most boys the blazer was part of their school uniform and therefore not sought after.
Sports gear was drab in those days and, with so much emphasis on sport at school, very few sought extra opportunities to play (apart from a kick-around in ordinary clothes). Snob value and petty privilege were rife in my time at school; for example, wearing a track suit was an upper-sixth-form privilege and any other boy had to cover it up with a blazer (an unlined type for proceeding to and returning from sports activities). In the same way trousers with zip fly were a reserved privilege and boys could get themselves soaked rather than carry an umbrella, unless they were part of the elite at the top end of the school.
In 1959, a boy of 14 would very likely attend such a function in school uniform unless particularly wealthy parents had bought an extensive wardrobe of non-school attire.
I do not really recall much discussion, just odd comments from time to time. I became aware of a few boys having worsted instead of flannel suits at about 11 and, of course, I wanted that as well. As I indicated, it was three years before I got my way and, as so often with youth, I had not thought through every last detail. Apart from the matter I mentioned before, the worsted material was more susceptible to shine (particularly on the seat of the trousers); after all a schoolboy in those days seldom if ever sat or leaned on anything upholstered, from one end of the term to the other. Casual shoes were forbidden and the sense or otherwise of that regulation may have provoked some comment occasionally. The foregoing notwithstanding, I really do not think uniform was a hot topic of conversation nor a running sore. Strangely, although all kinds of things come up at reunions (at the first I attended, in my early twenties, they actually had the house punishment book on display) I do not recall the uniform being mentioned.
It is worth mentioning jeans because they were something of a forbidden fruit. Anti-American sentiment tended to colour some adults’ judgement; others were just out of touch, confusing them with overalls and other workwear. A friend’s parents (we were about 15 at the time) thought them too tight and, by implication, less than dignified. My own parents declared them to be for children whose parents could not afford trousers (by 1970 trousers were for people who could not afford jeans!). Jeans certainly had no place at school and in, say, 1960 were even regarded as unsuitable for travelling back for the new term. All that changed very rapidly and students in the top universities soon adopted jeans almost as a uniform. The abolition of national service may well have helped to break down some prejudices or prevent them ever taking hold. By the 1970s jeans were regarded as being a ‘classless’ form of attire. However I recall noticing, as late as 1980, how those in the pub whose jobs were done in jeans tended to dress up while those spending the day in suits tended to dress down after work. Since I was 21 I have worn jeans around the house, to a music rehearsal or just to go to the pub as a matter of course. Something of a reaction there, I suppose, although my elder brother had fought for jeans as a teenager in much the same way as I had fought for worsted!
School outfitters tended to be rather behind the times. For example, well after my own schooldays, they got round to introducing flared trousers but only about the time that flares were quickly going out of fashion. By 1960 most men’s trousers had a zip fly and a lot were single-pleated only or even ‘flat-front’; school trousers, however, still had a button fly and double pleats. It was certainly suggested that a zip fly would be an upper-sixth-form privilege. Another bone of contention was the separate collar for the shirt. Drip-dry shirts had come in by that time and, if washed overnight, appeared much cleaner and smarter than a semi-stiff collar in its third day of use. We had a clean shirt each Sunday, with an interim change of collar midweek. Deodorants were unknown to younger teenagers in those days but dormitories, studies and classrooms alike were much colder.
