Figure 1.--Here is the entire Pitcalnie School in 1957. Pitcalnie is a small community in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. At the time there were many small schools like this in isolated rural areas. |
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Here we a photograph of the entire staff and pupils of a small rural primary school (ages 5-11+) in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. It was taken in 1957, at Pitcalnie School. There are 20 boys and fifteen girls: an unusual ratio but some girls may have been absent. There was no school uniform although many children wear school uniform items. All the children have a spruced-up air, presumably for the school photograph. At least eight boys are wearing kilts, perhaps more as it is not possible to tell about all of them. Even eight boys wearing kilts seems a high proportion. It is unlikely that all these boys wore their kilts to school every day, but very likely that all did some of the time, and some did all the time.
Here we a photograph of the entire staff and pupils of a small rural primary school (ages 5-11+). These small schools were needed because transporting the children long distances to school was not feasible. At a school like this, the teachers would have known the children very well, both inside and outside the school. The teachers would have also known the parents and the parents the teachers. This would have made it a little easier to encourage the boys to dress up for the school portrait and more likely the parents. There were many small schools like this in rural areas of the Highlands. Most have sence been closed for economy reasons.
Pitcalnie is located in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. Pitcalnie was and is typical of many other Highland communities, a district of small farms and agricultural hamlets: not a well-off place and with no social pretensions.
The school portrait here was taken in 1957, at Pitcalnie School.
There are 20 boys and fifteen girls: an unusual ratio but some girls may have been absent. There was no school uniform although many children wear school uniform items. All the children have a spruced-up air, presumably for the school photograph. At least eight boys are wearing kilts, perhaps more as it is not possible to tell about all of them. A Scottish reader tells us, "Even eight boys wearing kilts seems a high proportion. It could be that they were dressed specially as members of a choir or recital group, but improbable as (a) none of the girls are wearing kilts, (b) the school photograph would not be arranged for the same day as a music competition which could only be held in a distant town; and (c) entry into the school choir would be dependent on having a voice rather than on owning a kilt. It would also be unusual for children to wear clothes for a school photograph which they did not wear to school
on normal days, though they might, as here, be rather more smartly turned-out than usual. Not many primary schools, even in the Highlands, and the 1950s, would have had so high a proportion of boys in kilts." HBC does not have a extensive archive of Scottish schools, but the Pitcalnie School portrait does indeed show more boys wearing kilts than we have noted at other schools. We would tend to think that perhaps the teachers decided that it would be a good idea for the children to dress up for the portait and encouraged the children and perhaps the parents to dress up by wearing kilts.
The 1957 portrait is interesting for several resons. The girls all wear dresses, but not school uniform dresses. The boys, however, do seem to wear many school uniform garments, despite the fact that the school did not have a uniform. We see see shirts, sweaters, shorts, and kneesocks, many of which look grey, seem rather like standard British school uniform garments. Another interesting question is how commonly Scottish boys wore kilts. We do not note many boys wearing kilts during the 1950s. We suspect that it may have been more common in the Highlands than in the large urban centers like Edinburgh and Glasgow. We do not know, however, how common kilts were at the Pitcalnie School on a normal school day. Nor do we know how commonly boys wore kilts when not going to school. A Scottish reader writes, "It is unlikely that all these boys wore their kilts to school every day, but very likely that some did all of the time and that many did some of the the time." It is likely that many boys in the Northern Highlands had kilts which is confirmed by the photograph here. The number of boys wearing kilts here may be a good reflection of the number of boys that actually had kilts to wear. It is likely that if the boys in the front row owned kilts, they'd probably have been wearing them on this occasion. Hopefully our Scottish readers can tell us more. A Scottish reader tells us, "I am sure that the children were asked to come dressed nicely for the photograph. The girls' dresses reflect
this, and boy on the right-hand side, front row, seems to be wearing a navy-blue Sunday suit. Almost all the boys are wearing ties, which probably would not be the case on ordinary days. The response suggests a happy and enthusiastic school."
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