Boys Costumes Depicted in Television Shows: And Mother Makes Three (England, 1971)


Figure 1.--The boys in "And Mother Makes Three" went to the same school. The unoform was essentially the same except that the younger boy wore a school cap and short trousers.

And Mother Makes Three was a popular family sitcom in the 1970s. The family has two sons who sometimes appear in their school uniforms. Simon wears a school uniform of grey trousers'school tie' grey shirt with a green blazer with red piping and red badge and black Oxford shoes. He has moppy hair. He always loosened his neck tie after school. David wears the same uniform as his big brother Simon, but with a school cap and a pair of Midford style grey short trousers with grey kneesocks with the school colour hoops. One Australian reader remembers watching the program with his parents and how they commented that the boys looked very smart in their school uniforms.

TV-ology

And Mother Makes Three was a popular family sitcom in the early 1970s. It was made in 1971.

The Cast

The lady playing the mum was Wendy Craig as Mrs Sally Harrison and Valerie Lush as Aunty. She has two boys. Simon who looks to be 13 or 14 years old. Simon is played by Robin Davies. The younger boy was Peter who is played nicely by 9 or ten year old David Parfitt. These boys have played in other shows. David also appeared in the "Railway Children".

Plot

"And Mother Makes Three" is about a single mum and her two sons with her and their Aunty. They live in a two-story cottage. We have not details at this time on the plots of the various episodes.

School

A British reader writes, "I do not think the boys were supposed to attend a prep school - the eldest is too old. Some selective secondary schools had "prep departments" - i.e. for boys aged 9-11 who then went on to attend the main school along with others joining from other primary schools.It was my experience in the 1970's that most boys from the "prep department" started the secondary school in shorts as they already had the uniform socks. Shorts were normally compulsory in the prep department although other boys wore them too."

Imagery

Very few images of the program exist. There is the original TV Times publicity still which is the one most oftenly used. It appears to be the only hard copy that has survived. There are, however, three episodes available on video. A HBC reader comments, "If you saw these episodeds, you might not think that the boys looked so smart in their uniforms.

Costuming

Simon wears a school uniform of grey trousers'school tie' grey shirt with a green blazer with red piping and red badge and black Oxford shoes. He has moppy hair. He always loosened his neck tie after school. David wears the same uniform as his big brother Simon, but with a school cap and a pair of Midford style grey short trousers with grey kneesocks with the school colour hoops. He wore the school blazer with his school uniform and with his full uniform including a "V" neck green sweater. David in one episode was told off for kicking his peaked school cap around with his elder brother. His mum lovingly puts it back on his head. His hair is cut in bangs. I'm not sure if they both are attending a prep school or state run system school. David often wore long trousers when not at school. A British reader writes, "Many British boys in the 1970's didn't wear shorts out of school--unless their mothers insisted." A red nylon raincoat with yellow trousers with a red and white beanie are featured in the end credits

The costuming in the series accurately shows how in the 1970s even the younger boys wanted to wear "modern" fashions out of school and many mothers allowed this. Peter the younger boy (David Parfitt) is constained by school regulations to cap, short trousers and regulationsocks. Compare his elder "brother" who only has the blazer, shirt and tie in common, yet out of school they are both in long "fashionable" trousers and t-shirts. TV shows in Britain did tend to reflect current trends in fashion rather than try to "lead" them--probably paying the same attention to detail that they did with their famous "costume dramas" (Dickens adaptations etc.) with the advantage of being able to simply look around them to see what boys were wearing. This also meant that th e young actors would happily wear the clothes that were similar to their own in "real life" for these "sit coms" set "in the present". Also notice that in the 70s some schools would allow boys to have long hairstyles whilst rigidly enforcing uniform requirements. This was a big change from the 19 60s where "short back and sides" was the order of the day.

Reader Comments

An Australian reader reports, "Our parents used to watch this show on ABC. I often watched it with mum and dad on ABC in the mid to late 1970s. My younger brother didn't much care for it, but I often watched it with my parnts. Mum and dad and dad always sometimes commented on how smart the boys looked in their school uniforms."






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Created: November 4, 2002
Last updated: December 8, 2003