Figure 1.--

I hated any "dress up" occasions that forced me into something different or unfamiliar. One such instance was school occasions (prize days, carol concerts, trips out to museums) when a white shirt was stipulated for boys. Even in Summer I found these white shirts cold and comfortless. A minor change was not in the clothes but how we wore them. This occurred when for some reason my mother had got off work early and came to meet us from school to go on a shopping trip. This always involved her trying to restore us to the smartly dressed boys she'd sent out that morning and involved retying ties, tucking in shirts and pulling up socks followed by a hair combing. All very embarrassing for an 11-year-old in front of his mates. The major "dress up" occaisions were the thrice yearly visits to our grandparents in Yorkshire. For these my Mum always dressed me in a pair of "Prince of Wales check" shorts which I HATED.

At Home

I hated any "dress up" occasions that forced me into something different or unfamiliar. One such instance was school occasions (prize days, carol concerts, trips out to museums) when a white shirt was stipulated for boys. Even in Summer I found these white shirts cold and comfortless. The white shirts were nylon and although the rest of my uniform was the same I felt a comletely different person. A minor change was not in the clothes but how we wore them. This occurred when for some reason my mother had got off work early and came to meet us from school to go on a shopping trip. This always involved her trying to restore us to the smartly dressed boys she'd sent out that morning and involved retying ties, tucking in shirts and pulling up socks followed by a hair combing. All very embarrassing for an 11-year-old in front of his mates. Thankfully this was rare and they too would get "the treatment" from their Mum's on another day when it would be our turn to smirk. These trips were usually to buy new shoes - always plain black lace-ups or to go to the barbers so she was probably letting us know who was in charge to cut short any arguments about the type of shoes or haircut!. The limits here were financial. The more fashionable shoes (brogues or slip on type "moccaisons") were too expensive and not many boys at primary school had them. Wwe allways came to some sort of compromise. Haircuts were not "severe" but she allways had the barber cut round the ears and you allways felt different afterwards even if the hair was still quite long on top. If going out with her on a Saturday shopping trip she always made us change out of jeans.

Grandparents

The major "dress up" occaisions were the thrice yearly visits to our grandparents in Yorkshire. For these my Mum always dressed me in a pair of "Prince of Wales check" shorts which I HATED. The term was derived from the check pattern--a sort of grey/white/black/green. A very distictive pattrn which made me stand out. This check pattern was made popular by the Prince of Wales (future Edward VII) in the late 19th century. As HBC point out, Bertie as he was called in the family had a major impact on both both boys' and mens' clothing. It became a standard for hunting and outings in the country by the Victorian elite. Sherlock Holmes was often portrayed in a cape and deerstalker hat in this pattern. The shorts thmselves were the normal style for the time. I think some wealthier men wore Prince of Wales check suits. It may have been an expensive cloth. I only had the shorts. - I think my Grandparents must have bought them. They were from Leeds where a lot of cloth was woven so maybe they got them from a local firm. They were odd in London which is why I hated them. My cousin, who lived in Richmond, Yorkshire, did wear more this type of clothing - so maybe it was cheaper up there. It was just unusual for a boy to wear patterned ones like these for best rather than his plain school ones, especially around my area. As mom absolutely insisted I wear them during our trips to visit our granparents, it must have been grandmother who purchased them for me. My elder brother had a much more acceptable blue suit with long, slightly flared trousers at this time and my younger brother wore his grey school shorts and they started ribbing me before we even left the house. We travelled by train or coach and this involved a walk to the local station to catch the tube to Kings cross main line station or Victoria coach station. Every step of the way I was acutely consious of those damned shorts and felt relief only when my grandfather met us in his car at Leeds station and whisked me out of the sight of other boys. On these visits we always wore fairly smart clothes - no jeans - so after making the initial impression on my grandmother I was allowed to wear my school shorts for visiting other relatives in the area or cotton/corduroy shorts to play in if it was Summer. One Christmas my grandparents gave me a sheepskin coat - which added to my woes the following year as it didn't cover up the "princies" as my brother had taken to calling my shorts as my school duffle coat would have.

Sunday School

When we were young my mum used to send us to Sunday School at the local church. I think she wanted to get a connection with the church as she wanted to get us into the local Church of England primary school. It had a good reputation. um wasn't particularly religious. Later, when we were already at the school, she probably also wanted to get me and my older brother out of the house for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning while she looked after my little brother and did the cooking. My older brother stopped going to Sunday School when he was 8 years old because he joined the cubs then and they used to meet up in their hall on Sunday morning before attending the main church service. I still had to go until I was about 10 though. As far as I can rememeber our clothes for Sunday School were not a lot differently to a normal schoolday for us. We never had suits or anything like that like some other boys. My best mate Michael (the one who's mum was Irish) didn't go to our Sunday School as he was a Catholic and went to mass at another church. I know he did have a suit for that completely different to his school uniform. The Sunday school was split into two - the vicar's wife would take the younger children in a corner and it was just a sort of glorified creche. My mum would leave me and my older brother and then pick us up later - we never used to go on to the main church service then. Anyway the child with the most stamps got an “attendance prize” every so often – and this was one of the Biblical Ladybird books with a church sticker in the front with your name on it. I didn't like it as the other kids there were not my kind of people but my mum always made me go – but then she'd let me out to play in the afternoon with my other mates.

Weddings and Funerals

For me - no weddings, no funerals as a kid. Other than school - prize days etc. and Sunday school the only big dress up was travelling up to Leeds and Christmas day up there which is why I hated it because my mum went completely over the top because she wanted to show her mum we weren't running wild down in London - that my gran seemed to think was another planet to Leeds and kept wanting my mum to move back up there so she could help her out with us.

Robert

Like I say I had a cousin Robert up there who was about my age, I was 1 month older - and my Grandmother would buy him clothes fairly regularly and then did the same for us to be fair. That's how we ended up with similar clothes as if my Grandmother bought him something she'd buy me something at the same time as we were similar in size. He was worse off as he had two sisters so he got all of her attention, but I ended up getting the spin off from this where my brothers didn't. My grandfather used to call us "the terrible twins" even though we didn't look alike - but that's because we acted alike and my grandmother was always giving our mums advice about us. My uncle, her son, used to laugh about it with us but his mum always dressed Robert up too at Christmas to please my Grandmother and my uncle told us we'd have to put up with it as he'd had to. The best times were when I got to escape from Leeds and stay in Richmond with my cousin as I could borrow some of his clothes and get away from the mainly formal stuff my mum had packed for me. My uncle would tell us how lucky we were to have a choice of clothes - even though we hated some of them. He told us that he wore shorts up until he was 14 years old. This was when Robert was complaining that his school made the first and second years wear shorts and his mum made him wear them to my grandparents at Christmas even though by that time I'd got long trousers. My uncle claimed that the cutodd poinr for wearing shorts was 14 in his day. Before World War II that was the age that most boys, unles their family had money, left school and started work. After the war the Education Act that set up Grammar and Secondary Modern schools changed all that. My uncle told Robert that he was lucky to be able to get such a good education and shouldn't be complaining about his clothes,

Birthday Parties

There were birthday parties when I was smaller - but again that was just school clothes with a different tie or jumper.

School Christmas Parties

The other dress up was the school Christmas party. That was only weired as it was odd seeing your mates in school not in uniform. This was the the usual mix - some kids getting really dressed up and some hardly wearing much different. Some boys did have smart long trousers - which did look odd to us. The only long trousers most of us had were jeans. My mum did once get out my check shorts when I was getting ready for the school Christmas party but I managed to persaude her out of it and she put them away for me to travel up to Yorkshire a week later. I'd have died. It's little things that got on my nerves at these parties - like a tie with a "Red Indian" chief on it - I think my uncle bought me that one Christmas knowing I liked that sort of thing. I found it childish but my mum thought it was just the thing for parties. Also there was a tiepin that I hated as it would sometimes come undone and stick into you and having to wear a belt with my check shorts. I even hated wearing Christmas paper hats. Like I say I accepted wearing school uniform - and did it all up properly as the school would be down on you otherwise but resented anything outside of school. I think most of my mates were the same but others – like my brother – liked looking smart and spent ages getting his cubs stuff ready,

Bill