Some HBC readers have provided us brief accounts of their school uniforms and boyhood clothes. These interesting accounts have useful information for HBC, but is not sufficent for an entire new page. Often readers who provide us brief smmaries latter send along more detailed information. We will then provide links to the expanded pages.
My experiences in British boarding schools (I went to 3 different ones) were typical, I believe. In some we wore a brown uniform with a multicoloured shirt: brown
square on your left shoulder, purple square on the left and then the opposite further down and reversed on the back. Brown mid-thigh shorts, brown blazer with the school crest, brown knee stockings with a purple stripe, brown shoes and brown cap. The shirt was
scratchy and itched. It was the same uniform in summer or winter, although some boys had short-sleeved cotton shirts which looked much more comfortable. In another it was similar, but in light grey. The shorts were lined and we wore no underpants. The third school had no uniform, but boys wore white shirts and some kind of short trousers. I was a sort
of "charity case" and usually got to wear some other boys' clothes (either discarded or left behind when they left).
I did not pass my 11 plus and went to Anfield Road School in Liverpool. Anfield was an all-boy Secondry Modern School. Even the staff was virtually all male. The only female at school was the head master's secretary. I wore to wear short trousers untill I left school at Christmas 1957. I had just tirned 15 years old at the time. Quite a number of boys at other Liverpool secondary school at the time wore short trousers, both secondary moderns and grammar schools. I am not sure what the school rules were at those other schools. A friend from junior school, Colin, went to Alsop High School where short trousers were the norm for most boys until leaving at 16.
I have perused your amazing web site and thought I'd inform you, briefly, of the following. 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 was sent to a very strict boarding school from the age of 8 to 17. I was the last boy in my year still wearing grey school shorts. This was partly my fault. When I was taken shopping for a new school grey suit, mother asked me if I would like long trousers now. As I new that my mother did not have much money then, I thought that I would be saving her money by having another pair of shorts. I suppose that it did save her a bit of money, but I was forgetting that it condemned me to another year at school wearing shorts! I must
have been about 13 years old at that time which was 1963. In the junior school there was a very strict rule that all boys should wear a navy blue gaberdine mackintosh as well as black rubber wellington boots when it was wet.
I didn't wear short trousers much at home. My mum let me wear jeans. I went, however, to a very traditional preparatory school. We all wore short trousers and turn-over-top socks with school sandals. I think I disliked the sandals more than the shorts. I was one of the few day boys and got teased quite a bit by my mates at hime when they saw me in my uniform. I remember being rather cold at times during thw winter, especially when the wind was blowing.
My parents lived in Nigeria. Father had a job with an oil compamy there. They thought it important that I get a proper English education. So I went to a preparatory boarding school. One of my most vivid memories is that at 13 years old during our last year, we were allowed to wear long trousers instead of the grey shorts. My birthday was in January. I wrote to my parents about this hoping they would send the money for my long awaited long trousers. Apparently my mom didn't see the urgency that I felt. Actually she coudn't see the need to buy trousers that I would only wear for a few months. The outcome was that I spent that whole winter in shorts as most of my mates moved into long trousers. Finally I got mu longs in May--after quite a number of letters on the subject. By that time the weather had turned warm, but at least I finally had my longs.
Some other personal experiences include:
Austrlalia
The 1960s
The 1970s
England:
The 1940s
The 1950s
The 1970s
Ireland:
The 1980s
New Zealand:
Various
The 1990s
Norway:
The 1950s
Scotland:
The 1960s
The 1980s (An American boy)
United States:
The 1940s
The 1940s
The 1940s
The 1940s-50s
The 1950s
The 1960s