I am a British male in my forties. I have a Polish surname because my father came from Poland during WWII. My mother is English. Looking at your site about British boys' clothing brought back memories for me; not all of them happy because of the very traditional atitude of my parents.

My Parents

My parents were (and still are) quite strict, religious and very traditional. My father came from Poland, my mother is English. I was an only child.

Father

My father's memory is not good. Because of the war, the family has very few photos from his childhood. He only has one of himself as a young man--aged about 16. He is wearing conventional dress. Dark baggy long trousered suit with tie and pale shirt. He thinks he wore shorts in the short hot summers and trousers in the long cold winters. He thinks his shorts were usually made from some woollen type of material. If it was very hot he wore no socks at all; usually he wore short socks. Soemtimes he wore tights with his shorts. This would be in the 1920s and early 1930s. That's about all he remembers at the moment.

Mother

Attitude On Clothing

My parents were strict and traditional. They thought that boys should be treated as boys until their mid-teens. Among other things this meant that I was dressed as a young child at all times until my mid-teens. I had to remain in short trousers (pants as Americans know them) until I reached 16 years of age.

Many years later my parents told me they found that keeping me in short trousers was also a useful adjunct to their disciplinary armoury. In shorts as a teenager my development was inevitably held back. Dressed as I was, it was more difficult for me to assert a teenage boys rights. The fact that I tended to have friends younger than myself, did not form unsuitable attachments (in my parents' eyes) with older boys or girls and spent rather more time with homework and hobbies were all deeply reassuring to my mother and father. This was reinforced by, for example, my parents insisting that I call them 'mummy' and 'daddy' rather than the more grown-up 'mum' and 'dad'.

I cannot recall my mother or father ever saying that boys looked better or more attractive in shorts although relatives occasionally said that I looked 'neat', 'smart' and so on. For my parents, shorts were simply more practical and because of their juvenile associations an important part of their child-rearing 'philosophy'. The shorts I wore tended to be shorter than those worn by other boys (although not as short as those apparently worn by some Japanese boys at the time!!). When a teenager most of mine had an inside leg of 2-3 in inseams, although they were often shorter when I was younger and some, such as those I wore in the summer or on holiday, would be very short indeed. I remember the length very clearly because my mother would either alter them herself or have them altered professionally. Of course, being in short shorts only added to the picture that I was a tall but immature lad.

My Clothes

My memory is also unfortunately rather vague. I think you have come up against the problem that I was a boy during the 1950s and 1960s. Boys were not fashion conscious, as they are today. We wore anything that Mum wanted without argument as long as it was not uncomfortable. I have absolutely no memory of precisely what I and others wore until I was about 11. I have checked some things with my mother whose memory is better than mine.

I am sute that I and most other boys wore shorts rather than long trousers most of the time until we were about 11/12. Unfortunately as a soirce of information, I have no clear memory of exactly what we wore. I feel sure, however, that if a boy had come to school in trousers it would have been remarkable enough to have seeped into my memory. In my case I wore shorts for rather longer. I was not allowed trousers until I was 16.

School Uniform

I wore shore pants both in elementary school and secodary school.

Primary schools

Because my father had the sort of job which involved frequent moves, I went to about 7 different primary schools in differnet parts of the country. At all of these, most boys wore shorts. A few older boys may have come to school in trousers, particualrly if they were close to leaving and it was winter. But it would have been unusual. I estimate that about 85-90% of primary boys wore shorts at school all the time, close to 95% -100% some of the time. There may have been a few boys who because of their health, size or physique never wore shorts but I honestly cannot remember any. Almost all boys who wore shorts to primary school always wore them winter and summer. I can only recall a very few wearing 'longs' in winter and it would have to be very cold with lots of snow and ice about. I cannot remember suffering in the cold so it could not have been all that bad.

At primary school there was no formal uniform but most of us boys wore grey shorts. I should emphasize something about school uniform at state primary schools. None of these schools had an official uniform. I have checked this with my mother. But parents bought English school clothes for their children whose primary colour was usually the traditional grey.

From 5 to 11 my usual school outfit was:

• 1. grey shorts
• 2. long grey socks with garters Mum did not like my socks to fall down my legs
• 3. pullover sometimes grey sometimes other colours
• 4. grey shirt
• 5. a cap, sometimes but I never liked wearing a cap. The cap would not be official uniform of the school but could be bought 'off the peg' at school outfitters. They were plain blue or black in colour as I recall.
• 6. white underwear - pants and vest
• 7. black lace-up shoes
• 8. leather satchel

There were seasonal differences. In winter, I would wear a coat, balaclava (if very cold), gloves and sometimes a scarf. In summer, the shoes would be replaced with sandals and in very hot weather short socks (also grey but sometimes white). Most other boys wore similar clothes as I did at school but I do recall some who wore corduroy shorts and cotton shorts--mainly on warmer days--inside of the grey woollen or terylene shorts I did.

I cannot remember any of my teachers ever saying anything about clothes.

Secondary school

Secondary schoolsm unlike the primary schools at the time, always had an official uniform. I was at school in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I wore the traditional grey shorts to school and for two years was the only boy in my class not in long trousers. This was not easy. I learned to handle it by pretending that I was not bothered about the way I was dressed and did not care about being teased.

At secondary school there was a formal uniform and this I wore with shorts. The uniform was traditional - blue blazer with school badge, blue cap, grey shirt, tie in school colours and long grey (knee) socks sometimes with the school colours in bands around the top and sometimes plain grey. Boys could wear short or long trousers. Two uniform rules I can remember was that boys in shorts always had to wear long socks even on hot summer days (we simply allowed them to slip down to our ankles) and boys in long trousers did not have to wear the school cap. When I started at the school about two thirds of the boys in my class were in shorts but by the end of the third year (13/14 years old) I was the only boy who remained in them.

Play Clothes

After school and at weekends I wore a variety of 'play' shorts some of which had been made by my mother.

Sandals

Sandals were great to wear in the summer months and I never had any problems wearing them. They kept your feet much cooler although they were not as sturdy as shoes and so never lasted as long because we would be constantly kicking a football about. I definitely liked wearing sandals as a young boy.

Dress Clothes

For formal wear I had a series of suits; all with shorts, of course. I was emphatically not allowed jeans even though more and more of my boyhood friends were beginning to wear them. I think my parents considered long trousers of all types unsuitable for boys. Jeans also, I imagine, had for them some unwelcome associations with out-of-control American teenagers.

Terminology

Long socks for boys were never to my knowledge called 'knee socks' but simply socks to most of us although some older people often called them 'stockings'. Incidentally I can confirm that boys' shorts were sometimes called 'knickers' in England but only by older people and some of the staff one came across in boys wear shops. I can remember the elderly man in the shop where my mother bought a lot of my school wear, etc calling shorts 'knickers'. Because, of course, this word was also and still is used to describe girls and womens underwear, I used to find it quite embarassing. I cannot explain where this usage came from or when it died out.