Figure 1.--This photo was taken about 1971. It was just before I rebelled and started to want to buy my own clothes with my paper round money. It looks quite different than my earlier photographs, the smile has gone as I'm playing the sulky teenager.

I like many boys at my school became very interested in the trendy clothes popular at the time. There were quite a number of fads and different attitudes toward fashion. I find it quite surprising that even today I can remember a lot about about the clothes and the hair styles that were popular at the time. I guess that goes to show how important fashion was to us. Perhaps he fact that we had to wea unifoms at school made fashion even more important to us after school. In our area most of the boys wanted to wear "skinhead" fashions out of school and I was no exception. These fashions spilled over into the schools and those who followed them could not be faulted as the smart parallel levi "staprest" trousers, button down Ben Sherman shirts and highly polished black shoes fulfilled the dress dress requirements. The other fashion at my school was the "hairy" look , i.e. boys wanting to wear flares, round collar shirts and grow their hair long. These fashions led to numerous "announcements" at the morning assemblies and letters home to parents--the operative word being "sensible". Hair was either too short ( skinhead "crops") or too long (over the collar), flared trousers were not "appropriate" - and boys (a skinhead fashion) should not wear braces [suspenders]. Boots ( "Doctor Martin" "bovver boots" for "skins" and platform-sole high boots for the "hairies") were banned.

My Photograph

This photo was taken about 1971. It was just before I rebelled and started to want to buy my own clothes with my paper round money. The pullover looks suspiciously like one that the old woman I told you about had knitted although I don't recall visiting her after we moved when I was 11. Maybe it was my grandmothers work. Finding the photo reminded me of another hated item of clothing I'd forgotten about--the polo neck shirt seen here - my mum had a thing about keeping the neck warm. So in the Winter it was scarves for school - which at least you could take off once out of her sight - or these shirts which I always felt uncomfortable in. The hairstyle is basically the same but the smile has gone as I'm playing the sulky teenager.

Skinhead Fashions

In our area most of the boys wanted to wear "skinhead" fashions out of school and I was no exception. Skinheads started to appear in the late 1960s--it is claimed in the East End of London. They were a working class reaction to the (mainly middle-class) "hippy"/"flower power"/"let it all hang out" fashions of the time. They were not entirely new as they reprised many of the ideas of the "Mods" of the early 60s--themselves a reaction to the "Rockers". By the time I became aware of the skinhead fashion (the early 70's) younger boys still at school wanted to copy their older brothers in this fashion. At first this was difficult as jeans and other skinhead fashions were not allowed at school. Very few schools (or parents) would tolerate these fashions initially for the younger boys. However as the older boys developed their style the younger boys could start to ape them. There were quite a variety of garments associated with skinhead fashions. The basic classic skinhead style was to wear Levi "straight" (i.e. parallel leg ), jeans with braces, a white t-shirt, heavy working men's boots and, of course, their distinctive very short hair - knows as "crops". Gradually the classic skinhead look evolved into more fashionable clothes. I think the older boys adopted new clothes because they couldn't get into discos and such in boots and jeans, and most still had a "no tie, no entry" policy! Gradually this evolved and the older boys started to wear expensive clothes when going out in the evening.

Part-time Jobs

To finance my interest in trendy clothes I got a job--a paper round (illegally as it turned out as by law you were meant to be 13 years old and have a "work permit" from the local council). By the time I'd caught up with this fashion - both in and out of school - when I was about 13 years old - I'd been doing THREE paper rounds and so could keep up. My mum would never have bought even the cheapest imatations as she went for the cheapest stuff of necessity. However as long as it was my money she didn't say much - giving me up as a lost cause I suppose. My elder brother didn't bother too much with these fashions - he was more into his schoolwork as he'd set his heart on being an engineer and didn't hang about on the streets round our way. And my younger brother also had no choice (when he did go to secondary school - he went to the local comprehensive by the way - his primary school not even bothering putting their boys in for grammar schools. These initial desires to wear exactly the right stuff had died down and I don't think he ever had any hassle). By the time I was 14 I was also working weekends in the newsagents. It wasn't that I was money-mad. I liked to work there, especially as my fellow workers were girls and we always had a laugh. However I spent nearly all of my money on clothes. Around this time (1973) skinheads started to grow their hair and wear the generally wild clothes that were coming out - massively flared "loon" trousers, variously patterned round-collar shirts, "tank-top" pullovers and "stack-heeled" shoes. The difference seemed to be that ex-skins still had certain codes, depending on which area of London you came from. I still followed all this but I was really wearing them only in the shop and what I could get away with at school. I didn't even go to football matches as I worked Saturday. I even wanted to work there in the evenings after school, but my mum put a stop to that idea by telling the shop manager that she would report him for employing me for too money hours - there was a legal limit - so I just used to hang around there anyway in a back room and knock off the minimum ammount of homework that I could get away with, in between chatting to the staff.

The Science Museum

The other occaisions on which I wore my gear was Sunday afternooons at the Science Museum. This was suggested by a couple of the boys at my school - who claimed that it was a good place to meet girls. It was a good place to go in the Winter as it was free, open on a Sunday and had three levels of galleries so you could hang around and watch the world go by below. The only real alternative was the cinema - which never appealed to me much (nor TV) - I preferred "real life". Loads of kids our age and older would go there from all over London and as well as eyeing up the girls you'd also be comparing the latest fashions - which could be very different in different areas. However, as with those boys at my school and my brothers who either didn't want to or weren't allowed to wear these increasingly "outrageous" fashions (as some of our schoolmasters would put it), these trips showed that the 70s was not altogether a period of freedom for all children. As well as those of us who were just hanging about and showing off our gear to each other there would be kids who'd been brought there by their parents for educational reasons - which was after all their purpose!, as well a some tourists. I think we used to like dressing up in the most over-the-top way as possible to make a show, and it was a good place to do this as we were in that grand old Victorian building, dedicated to Science where we'd only ever been to before on a school trip and had had to behave and dress soberly. They've brightened these places up a lot now - but then they were more or less like they were when they were opened - at least on the ground floors. We used to laugh at the old-fashioned clothes some these kids were wearing - which was mean really because we didn't get on to the kids in our school so much - we just ignored them. It was normally the parents of these kids who got us riled because they'd give you a look like "how dare you come in here dressed like that...." as we swaggered around ignoring the exhibits. One afternoon I remember we were sitting around on these benches on the second floor - from where you could look down into the main enterance hall and spot any potential future girlfriends coming in. We were near to some new exhibit - I think it was a full-scale model of a space capsule or something - for which there was a long queque - when one of my mates started laughing and pointing out a kid of about our age in the queuque with his Dad and laughing. The man was in a really smart looking sharp suit,but the kid was wearing a sports jacket and grey shorts. The kid noticed us staring and so did the man - who said something to him. My mate kept trying to attract the kids attention (callling him "Algernon") but the kid didn't look again. I wanted to head off but my mate just sat there going on and on - about how the kid wanted to be "the first Algernon on the moon" and stuff. Finally when they got to the steps up to the exhibit we persauded him to move off, but he was still going on. Later on that afternoon he spotted the kid again - this time with a woman and a girl (probably his mum and sister) too - and my mate started up again. That's when the man came over - grabbed my mate and told him a a real cockney accent that if he didn't shut his mouth he'd break his legs (with some choice words in there too). I was shocked - as I'd assumed like the others that these were "posh" people - and it was a very violent moment all of a sudden. We headed off - we decided to go back to that same bench near the space-capsule as we thought they wouldn't come back that way. My mate was pretty subdued - he wanted to leave - but we three did discuss that kid then, and how he was dressed and things in general about our families, which was unusual amongst boys at my school. So that's the only other occaision I can recall discussing short trousers with boys from my school.

Hairy Look

The other fashion at my school was the "hairy" look , i.e. boys wanting to wear flares, round collar shirts and grow their hair long. As for the hairies and what they were up to - I'm not so familiar with their gear as I didn't follow that fashion - but I'll write what I can remember some other time, as well as stuff I've remembered about Bay City Rollers ( a boy band in the 70's) who had a fashion following ( boys and girls alike) that put a lot of tartan onto the London scene ....

School Reaction

These fashions led to numerous "announcements" at the morning assemblies and letters home to parents--the operative word being "sensible". Hair was either too short ( skinhead "crops") or too long (over the collar), flared trousers were not "appropriate" - and boys (a skinhead fashion) should not wear braces [suspenders]. Boots ( "Doctor Martin" "bovver boots" for "skins" and platform-sole high boots for the "hairies") were banned. I think schools like mine indulged this to some extent as long as the boys were progressing academically--which suited the parents too. Other schools - like the C. of E. school I mentioned had stricter standards on dress, seeing education as more than just coaching for exams. Outside of school these latter boys were constained by available money or, still, parental wishes or both.

Social Class

This competetiveness - which caused a headache for the authorities - was paradoxically more prevalent at my school - where most boys were from wealthier families and whose parents indulged them than at other schools in my area. For instance the local Church of England secondary school still required the boys to wear short trousers and no "fashionable" shirts or shoes would offset that and boys at other secondary schools tended to wear standard white shirts and grey trousers to school--saving any "in" gear for wearing out of school. Looking back it seemed paticularly odd that the "skinheads" at my school had the "correct" brands for what was really a working class culture. There parents being were able to afford them as well as expesive haircuts. The boys around my area made do with cheaper imitations that various manufacturers, including the chain stores, brought out.

Rapid Changes

These trendy fashions also changed rapidly. For instance narrow trousers gave way to wide "Oxford Bags", slight flares to "Bell-bottoms" and back again, button-down collars on shirts to round collars and different materials (such as "cheesecloth" or "moleskin"). The wealthier boys (via their parents) would always come up with a version that were suitable for schoolwear. Often these were led by the boys (even the youngest) and the manufacturers would just be catching up when things would change again and a boy who had finaaly persauded his parents to buy the latest style would suddenly find himself back "out of fashion".

Local Variations

There would also be local fashions within a particular area or even individual schools. This would account for boys in the same cub pack wearing different styles of shorts and kneesocks. Each wearing those that were currently "in" at their (different) primary schools. This was particularly true in the late 80's/early 90's when length of shorts was a hot topic of debate between primary school boys and their peers and parents.

School Leavers

Many boys made up for wearing school uniforms when they left school and had their own money--which many did as soon as they were able (aged 16). Even some of the boys who did paper rounds like I did could not spend their money on clothes as I did as some things were "not allowed" or they still had to pay in to the family financies.

The 1980s

I think these extreme 1970s fashions calmed down a bit in the 1980s, but manufacturers still gave parents a headache by bringing out various styles for the new school year.

Bill