Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
A Brishish contributor has provided his experiences at Cathays High School in Cardiff. I would think that things must have been very much the same at many other English schools in the 1960s.
Caps were compulsory in forms 1 to 5. The rule was not generally enforced and caps were rarely worn after form 1. Most of us carried caps in our bags ready for the occasional clamp-down.
A British contributor was a new Form 1 boy in 1954. He reports that virtually all of the form 1 boys wore short panys. He says only 3, out of about 100 boys, did not wear shorts at the beginning of the school year. The numbers dropped until about 20-25 percent of boys wore shorts at the end of Form 3. There were 5 or 6 boys who still wore shorts at the beginning of form 4 and none at the end.
He reports that in his last year of school in 1961 that about half of the Form 1 boys still began the school year wearing short trousers.
Yes, about half.
Despite the fact that there were boys wearing both short and long pants that boys wearing shorts didn't get teased. He reports, "I
never got teased and I am not aware that anyone else did. I think it was just regarded as a perfectly normal way to dress.
All of the boys in shorts wore kneesocks. The only stipulation our British source reports is that socks had to be grey. In
practice most, if not all, would have had the school colours in the
turn-overs. I think it may have been a matter of parental pride in the
grammar school uniform. I cannot remember anyone wearing plain socks, but I am not sure that I would have taken any notice if that had happened.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
Related Style Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[Long pants suits]
[Short pants suits]
[Socks]
[Eton suits]
[Jacket and trousers]
[Blazer]
[School sandals]