Figure 1.--Here is the headmistress getting the portrait of the pupils in the school uniform on the school's centenary in 1959. Click on the image to see the portrait in greater detail. |
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I have another interesting photo showing a picture I remember hanging in the headmisstresses study. It's shows a boy and a girl in our school uniform and I have a photo of it being presented to the headmisstress on the occaision of the school's centenary - 1959 - before my time but I remember the picture well. It hung in the headmisstress's study behind her desk (we had a new younger headmisstress by then). I recall that as when I was in the headmisstresses study it was normally because I was in trouble and I would be looking at the picture above her head rather than face her and "explain myself"! Anyway the painting shows our school uniform as it still was when I was at the school. The girl is in Summer uniform and as you see they didn't have to wear blazers in Summer - just a cardigan.In Winter they wore gymslips mainly rather than frocks and they didn't always wear ties except for photos and not at all with frocks in the Summer. I used to think it quite natural and didn't see it as unfair even though I hated wearing a tie and could never do it up properly. The boy is more or less as I would be - except as I say they did away with caps when I was about eight.He has his in his hand as it was a major offence at my school for a boy to wear a cap indoors!I sometimes forgot when I was rushing in to school and there would be some teachers who would spot you and then smack your legs and send you out to come in again "properly" - with your cap off! I was glad when they did away with caps!.The other thing is,as I've said,later on all of our socks had to have the green rings on them - they probably weren't mass-produced when this picture was taken.
The girl also has a little purse on a strap as they didn't have pockets like us boys.That's where they would keep their dinner money which was collected every Monday for the week - six shillings!
A reader writes, "There are some excellent images on HBC, but the one showong the portrait of a boy and girl in their schol unioform is one of the best I've seen on the site. It reall does encapsulate the time period when the portrait was painted. I don't know whether you can put this on Bill's page where the portrait is, as I would like to say, "Thank you Bill for sharing this with us." Anthony
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