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Figure 1.-- |
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Several accounts about Australian boys are available on HBC. These include both historical acoounts and individual experiences reported by HBC readers. Such expeiences are an important section of HBC as they help to shded light on the fashions seen in historical photographs, books, and fashion magazines.
Alec William Campbell was the son of a commercial traveller (salesman) and had a Scottish grandfather who had migrated to Australia. Alec was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1899. He did his schooling at Scotch Oakburn College in Launceston from 1910-1915 where he was good at Aussie rules footy and cricket. He was a boyish looking 16 year old child when he lied about his age to join the Australian Infantry in June 1915. His mother farewelled the boy soldier at the dock but his dad was too upset to go and see his soldier boy off to a probable early death. Mrs. Campbell had lost a nephew in the same war. Alec was trained up and left with the 15th Battalion for the dreaded Gallipoli campaign.
George Lambert (1873-1930) was the famboyant and often hard-hearted son of a
Baltimore railway engineer and an English mother. Raised in the outback of New
South Wales, he eventually established himself as Australia's leading painter. I don't
have a much information about how the children were raised. Their mother appears
to havev preferred long, but not shoulder length hair. The boys were dressed in the
increasingly popular style of short pants and knee socks during the 1910s.
I was born in Maffra (South eastern Victoria) in 1955 and spent my first five years there. My dad worked for the Victorian Railways (and hated it) and my mum was a house wife and stayed home to look after us lot. I had an older sister (b.1954) and a brother, 8 years younger.
I have found HBC to be rather interesting. I thought you might be interested in another Australian account. I am now 40 years old and am going to tell you my personal account of my boyhood memories in and out of school. I grew up in part from an era of change in boys clothes during the 1960s-70s through 1980 when I was a 19-year old teenager. I was thus part of this historical process. We actually even here in South Australia shared many similar experiences with Americans. I was born in Port Pirie, South Australia in 1961 to a mechanic father and housewife mother of limited finances. Port Pirie is known as the port city/town for being the world's second largest lead smelters in the world. I attended a catholic primary school from 1967-75. It was in the northern wheatbelt area. The next school I was perceived to go to was a catholic boys school called 'Salesian College'. I feared for the worst (no girls), a blazer (what the heck was a blazer), hightly polished shoes, short hair policy (oh no), blue tie, grey vee neck jumper, boring English schoolboy style dark grey poliester/cotton trousers.
I have found HBC to be rather interesting. I thought you might be interested in another Australian account. I am now 40 years old and am going to tell you my personal account of my boyhood memories in and out of school. I grew up in part from an era of change in boys clothes during the 1960s-70s through 1980 when I was a 19-year old teenager. I was thus part of this historical process. We actually even here in South Australia shared
many similar experiences with Americans. I was born in Port Pirie, South Australia in 1961 to a mechanic father and housewife mother of limited finances. Port Pirie is known as the port city/town for being the world's second largest lead smelters in the world. I attended a catholic primary school from 1967-75. It was in the northern wheatbelt area. The next school I was perceived to go to was a catholic boys school called 'Salesian College'. I feared for the worst (no girls), a blazer (what the heck was a blazer), hightly polished shoes, short hair policy (oh no), blue tie, grey vee neck jumper, boring English schoolboy style dark grey poliester/cotton trousers.
I come from a very large family with five brothers and two sisters. As I was the youngest my parents were approaching their fifties when I was attending primary
school. My mum was old fashion and very keen for me to wear a grey school uniform with shorts and long grey knee high socks, even though the Primary school I
attended did not have a dress code. I didn't like it. I didn't mind wearing shorts. The other boys wore the latest style "stubbies" which were shorter and also more
casual. I hated just being dressed more formal than the other boys.
I live in South Australia and have done all my life. I started school in 1970 and my last year of secondary School was in 1982. I remember being mostly dressed in shorts and knee socks from a very young age until I turned 16. My Mum and Dad always reminded me that I should be in no hurry to grow up and being their only child I guess they wanted my childhood to last as long as possible. I never had any say in the clothing I wore and I just excepted what my parents brought for me to
wear.
As a boy, I wore kilts to lots of Highland clan meetings here in Australia. I commonly did this from about age 6 to 16 years of age. I remember hating the kilts when I first had to wear them. None of my friends were Scottish and I had never seem boys wearing them. My mum insisted and said that I was being silly and rediculous. The kilt seemed to much like a girl's skirt for my 6-year old tastes. I clearly remember my first kilt.
A HBC Australian contributor provides the following fetails on the clothes that he wore as a boy in the 1980s and 90s. He also gives us some valauable information about beachwear.
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