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I wore short grey short trousers all through primary school. Looking back, however, the shorts I wore were surprisingly varied. While I do not recall ever wearing strap shorts to school, I do recall very clearly all the different methods that were devised to hold shorts up and make them look smart. Around the age of 9 years of age or so I did start to notice things and have my preferences and this led to arguments with my older brother. As I've said
Mum would get all of our school clothes ready on the Sunday night and then we'd put them in neat piles in the airing cupboard. Then she'd iron them fresh each morning for school and I remember getting into a race with my brother to finish our porridge first and brush our teeth so that we could get to Mum first and get the
"best" pair of shorts. We never knew which two pairs she'd have got out and ironed but there was usually one pair out of the two that one or other of us would prefer as they were all of different types.
I think mum "rotated" all of the shorts in a way so as to get even wear out of them keeping back the best ones - the newest - for Sunday school (me) / Cubs church parade (my brother) and also for school occaisions and trips).
Around the age of 9 years of age or so I did start to notice things and have my preferences and this led to arguments with my older brother. As I've said
Mum would get all of our school clothes ready on the Sunday night and then we'd put them in neat piles in the airing cupboard. Then she'd iron them fresh each morning for school and I remember getting into a race with my brother to finish our porridge first and brush our teeth so that we could get to Mum first and get the
"best" pair of shorts. We never knew which two pairs she'd have got out and ironed but there was usually one pair out of the two that one or other of us would prefer as they were all of different types.
It seems rather strange now, as short trousers seem a rather simple item of clothing, but there were actually quite a few different types. I think I really liked the new half-elasticted back shorts as they were so simple to get on and off and were then comfortable to wear and looked good both to us and to our Mums and teachers and that was probably true for most boys.
One method of trouser suspension was straps. The straps were made in the same material as the pants. In America these were called suspender shorts. They were not at all common, but I do recall a few of the younger boys wearing them.
There was one pair that still had buttons rather than a zip fly and neither of us would want to wear them. They did have belt loops so either of us could wear them - when they fitted my brother I could still wear them with a snake bel so Mum could have either of us in them I think these button-fly ones must have come down from my grandmother in Yorkshire as they did have older-type styles up there then. One last thing I've remembered on what I wrote about suspension - the shorts that had a button-fly (and also buttoned-up at the waist thus making them more hassle than the modern zips and metal clasps) also had buttons inside the front and back of the waistband so these were presumably for button-on braces/straps .We never had them with braces (which I never recall boys wearing - that is until skinhead fashions came in later!) as they also had belt-loops but I recall the buttons as they were uncomfortable if you were lying on the floor on your back. It seems that once shorts like these were made to give Mums' a choice of belts or braces/straps which you could probably buy seperately but as I say few Mum's did then - most boys at school had snakebelts,
Another pair had adjusters at the sides - two "tongues" (as I saw it!) which buttoned on to the sides so adjusting the elastic that they were attached to which went round the back. I remember these as it was a way of measuring how we were growing - my brother would have them adjusted to the first button but if I was to wear them they'd have to be on the second button to fit properly. When I needed them on the first button too my Mum would comment that I was growing.When my brother went on to secondary school and so I inherited all of our school shorts.
I also got a new pair of the latest type of school shorts which had a half ribbed-elastic back and were my favourites for several reasons - they were lightweight, comfortable to wear and - most important of all - they were what most of the other boys were wearing as they were the latest style that BHS had brought out and that was where most Mums shopped for school clothes by then.
I did have a bit of a run-in with Mum around that time as she also decided that I was to have a doorkey of my own as my brother would no longer be there to let me in. He had had a doorkey for a while but Mum didn't trust me as much and she put mine on a short chain that had the key on one end and would button on to the shorts at the other so I wouldn't lose it if it fell out of my pocket. Other boys had these too - although some wore their doorkeys on a string around their necks and tucked beneath their shirts which I wanted to do. Anyway the shorts with the side buttons were ideal for this so I had to wear those at first until Mum got round to sewing on a button to the others for that purpose. I soon got fed up of wearing the key like that and I took to unbuttoning it as soon as I was away from the house and just stuffing it into my pocket out of sight. Sure enough I lost it about three weeks into the new term and although I retraced my steps following the route home from school I couldn't find it. My Mum only found out the next morning and she went mad. The trouble with wearing it on a chain was that other boys would see it and then they'd grab it if they were behind you when we lined up to go into school after playtime and when you moved off that would stop you with a jerk and it would disrupt the line (another favourite here was to step on the heel of the boy in front's shoe so it would come off as he moved off. This was particularly effective with the the new "slip-on" shoes as they had elastic but then the school banned them and so everyone had lace-ups. We always lined up in our classes after playtime and then marched into school in turns and it was always fun to disrupt this as then we'd have to line up again and it would waste lesson time!). Anyway I tried to explain the key problem to my Mum and eventually she relented and did get me a new one cut and then would pin it inside of my blazer pocket wrapped in a hankerchief like she did with our dinner-money. I didn't even need a doorkey as I had a way of climbing into our flat up a drainpipe at the back but I couldn't tell Mum that. To be honest the key was more trouble than it was worth to me.
All of the old ways of supporting shorts - buttoning on straps, threading snake-belts into loops, fiddling about with side adjusters and so on just meant more hassle and timewasting - especially when Mums wanted the shorts to look "just right" and would complain if you had the belt twisted (or missing from a couple of the loops!) or the adjusters were set at different levels on each side and they didn't "hang" properly. My Mum was always grabbing me and readjusting these things when all I wanted to do was to get off to school and see my mates. I know that she wanted us to look smart to go into school but after all of the haircombing, sock-straightening, tie-re-knotting and so on this was too much. I was glad when these old types of school shorts gradually began to wear thin and Mum put them with my playshorts which meant that I hardly had to wear them as I had plenty of others.
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