I started school in 1958 and left in 1968. During that time, apart from the final two years, my ordinary school
clothes and uniforms included the wearing of short trousers. My memories of this time are faded now, but the shorts tended to be either grey flannel, cords or cotton. The lengths varied as did the way they fit me; I only have a couple of worn photos of me in short pants and I see that I wore knee socks, shirt and tie etc. The photos are not in colour. This attire was common boys-wear for the time in the U.K. I was 13 before being allowed long trousers in school and my mother made me change in to shorts at home until, somewhere around my 14th birthday, I kicked up a fuss and out went all my shorts.
I lived with mother in a council owned house; father was at sea, in the merchant navy. We were not exactly well off and most of my clothes were not new. They also had to last. I'm told that Shorts and knee length socks were cheap and easily acquired in those days; the shorts could never tear at the knee, obviously. I was a lad, all right! I climbed trees at seven and fought other boys readily. Not a good fighter, I took more than I gave and would blubber and run off home! I had a weak bladder and was often uncomfortable in class with wet trousers. The teacher at the time was fond of using a slipper and I seemed to provide no end of reasons for him to use it on me! Us boys got punished a lot, then, including use of rulers, Tee-squares and the dreaded cane.
My school clothes, up until secondary school, were: Grey pullover, white shirt, grey flannel or green cord shorts, grey knee socks and black
shoes. This was age 7 to 11 years.
Father left the navy when I was 10. He disliked his young son being spoiled by mother and set about changing things. This involved lots of spankings, cuffs around the ears and slapped legs! We grew apart almost immediately, though while he was at sea I pined for his presence and wrote him 'soft - lad' letters. We moved house.
At 11 I pulled on a pair of new grey flannel shorts (grey shirt, school tie, knee socks, black leather shoes...) and a special school cap and went off to the local sea training school. This school over - looked the British Isles North Sea and was a prominent,
though small building with 100 boys taught there, set beneath the local ruined castle with a church near by. They toughened a boy up, those teachers. Regular beatings and all that stuff.
At 12 I asked mother for some blue jeans. I got these, eventually, two years later and promptly threw out my pairs of flannel, cotton and cord shorts.