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While I do not recall wear strap shorts myself. I do recall that a few very young boys did wear strap shorts to school. I was thinking more of two boys who wore them when I was in class 2 (8 and 9 year olds). One boy wore them occaisionally and one most of the time. It was probably because they were seen as being for younger boys by then - or "girly" as a lot of the girls - even the older ones - did wear strap skirts in the Winter and it didn't seem to be a problem for them.(I think that in some ways boys could be more fashion consious than girls at that age - not so much in wanting to wear something that was "in" but in NOT wanting to wear something that was "out" or "babyish" but maybe women would disagree.To me it seemed that girls were mostly concerned with how their hair was styled rather
than clothing whereas boys didn't have so much choice in hairstyles when I was at primary school).
As I say - a few boys did wear strapshorts when I was in the infants but I didn't really notice that especially then.It was just one more thing that they needed the teacher's help with after P.E. and I recall noticing that sometimes. They were never teased about that and the teachers just got on with that without making a fuss.(In the infants and first couple of years of juniors we did P.E. in out underwear and would take our shorts, shoes and shirts off in the classroom and leave them on our desks. I always remember that first we'd go off to the cloakroom to get our plimpsoll bag but then we'd go back to the classroom to change.After P.E. when we were very young (first year infants) normally quite a few boys would need help in getting dressed again - especially shoelaces and ties - and the ones in strapshorts also needed help with the straps if they'd got them twisted or something.
By the time we were in second year infants the teacher there was less tolerant if a boy hadn't learnt to tie his shoelaces or tie properly or to do up shirt buttons and such yet and I was glad that my Mum had taken a lot of time showing me how to do my tie and shoelaces properly before I started school as I remember boys who hadn't tied their laces properly being called out to the front and smacked across the legs with a ruler and then the teacher showing them how to do it while they were stood on a chair. She always said that it was dangerous to have untied laces - which was true I suppose but I used to feel sorry for those boys as I'd watched them trying to tie their laces properly and could tell that they were doing their best.I always tied my laces in a double knot when I got older as undone shoelaces were always a big deal all through the school).
Anyway it was only the one or two boys who still wore strapshorts when they were older who sometimes got teased.Not in words so much but boys would pull on the straps and things - a favourite thing to do when we were lining up to go into school after playtime like used to happen to boys with keychains too as I've already mentioned but snakebelts could be grabbed too then which is why the plain elasticated backs were our favourite shorts. (A favourite with boys who wore snakebelts was to try and thread a ruler between their belts and the short's waistband when they were sitting in the desk in front of you without them noticing and then fixing the ruler between the desk seat and the back so they were pulled back when they tried to stand up. Because we were supposed to stand up whenever the headmisstress came into the classroom this could be funny for a while but it was not the boy who couldn't get up that normally got into trouble but the boys who had played the trick after investigations took place.But sometimes they'd all get caned which was unfair.If I was wearing a snakebelt I used to untuck my shirt from out of my shorts and wrap it into the belt to stop the boys behind getting at the belt and playing this trick but then I'd normally get into trouble for being "untidy" when we were going out to play so you couldn't win really). I do recall the one boy who wore strapshorts most of the time being called "Pinnochio" but I don't know if that was because of the strapshorts or for some other reason.I don't recall this boy still wearing them the next year but he went up into the younger section of class one whereas I went into class 1c as I'd been ill (and also probably to keep me seperate from my brother as the two sections of class one shared the same classroom). I don't recall them in the playground on older boys after that though so he was probably one of the last to wear them at that age and they had probably come down from an older brother.As I say I never noticed them on sale for older boys when the back to school range came out.I think,in England,they were more a 50s thing than 60s both in school and out,
Bill.
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