Figure 1.--

HBC readers have commented on this reasons that short pants were commonly worn by boys during the early and mid-20th century. He tells us about his experiences in the 1960s. This was a period in which English boys were just beginning to wear long pants more commonly. He and his brother, however mostly wore shorts. He tells us that he can't add much to the HBC assessment. He writes, "As I've already mentioned,there were no particular reasons given as to why boys wore shorts when I was growing up.We just did and never questioned it and it was the same for most boys on the whole - around my way in London anyway." Bill does, however, have some interesting comments.

Long Trousers

As I mentioned the arguments I had with my Mum were more over the type of short trousers to be worn rather than actually wearing shorts. The only long trousers I had (besides our pyjamas) were jeans anyhow - and even then my Mum didn't really approve of them and certainly wouldn't let us wear them when out shopping with her or on a Sunday for some reason. I think that my brother persauded her to buy him a pair once when she was in a good mood - and because he had moved up into the scouts he had got a "feel" for long trousers as they had them as uniform then. She bought me a pair too just to be fair - but I wanted a grey pair rather than traditional blue just to be different again! My friend Michael's brothers and cousins did wear jeans more - but they were older than us. Michael too often wore jeans - handed down - for play whereas I normally wore shorts - but it was never a topic of conversation as far as I recall. I only say this as I remember the only time when I really did want to wear my jeans was when Michael's Uncle took us to a football match and I wanted to wear jeans to be like Michael and his cousins and brothers but my Mum wouldn't let me. Anyway that's something I could tell you about later if you want.

Health

Moth mum and my grandmother had definite ideas about clothing and health.

Mum

What I really was going to mention was the link you have to "health" as a reason for wearing shorts and that got me thinking. As I say this was never mentioned as far as I remember - but what we wore with our shorts was an issue. I have already told you this - in the Winter Mum always wrapped us up for school and made us wear coats and scarves and so on when going out to play even. We wore long socks to school all year round and I ! liked them.But in the Summer Mum would often make us wear short socks and short-sleeved shirts because she thought the sun was good for us.I think that I have told you that I hated ankle socks and it is why I never wore them in Germany although the German boys did mostly it being very hot in the Summer. I kept insisting on wearing the school socks that I had travelled in! For the same reason after we moved and my little brother went to a non-uniform primary school Mum still had him wear some type of shorts once the weather got warmer even though a lot of his friends there wore long trousers (jeans) until it got really hot.

Grandmother

Anyway - I was thinking about health reasons given more generally for clothing. My Grandmother had loads of them and she was always on at my Mum about it when we were up in Leeds. A lot were more to do with how we wore our clothes too! She insisted that not having our shirts tucked in would lead to back problems, going barefoot on the kitchen floor would bring chilblains and if we got our socks wet we would most likely go down with pneumonia! If we got even slightly wet in a Summer shower she stripped us off and put us to soak in a hot bath - and when we had had a bath we were not allowed out again but had to sit in the kitchen by the stove (which she kept going all day even in the Summer). But sometimes Mum or my Aunt would come and rescue us before we roasted alive and then the arguments would start but we'd quickly get dressed and escape into the garden. Fabrics were big too - I've told you about her Winter underwear and she was big on cotton or wool for socks and so on and couldn't stand manmade fibres at all. She was horrified when I went up there one year without pyjamas (which I'd stopped wearing by then as our new flat was not so cold as the old one) and made me wear a pair of my Grandfather's! She was also not happy about coloured clothes next to the skin as she claimed that the dye could run and poison you! Anyway - I can tell you more about that later if you want.

Created: 12:59 AM 11/21/2005
Last updated: 12:59 AM 11/21/2005