Figure 1.--This boy wears an everyday uniform that became standard at many prep schools. Boys at most schools rarely wear their blazers during the school year. |
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An American reader writes, "Does the roll on the top of the knee socks mean that there are probably round garters holding them up?" Here we are not entirely sure.
Boys at English prep schools commonly wore knee-length socks with short trousers. Some schools had ankle socks during the summer or even sandals withouut socks. Most schools, however had knee-length socks. Primarily boys wore two types of knee-length hosiery. One was the longer more expensive turn-over-top socks. These were long enough to cuff and thus garters could be used. Often the kneesocks with colored bands at the top were this type. Other boys wore plain grey kneesocks which just came to the knee without an extra length to cuff or turn over. These were elasticized to some extent to help keep them up. These socks were popular with mothers because they were substantially cheaper than the turn-over-top socks. As there was no cuff at the top, garters could not be used. It is not real clear to us why this boy has rolled his socks slightly. It could be because he is using a garter, we are not sure. Notably is socks do not come to knee length. Several readers have provided comments here.
Here are some of the comments readers have sent in on this photograph.
It looks to me as if this boy is wearing the standard grey knee socks without a turnover that were originally elasticized to some extent to hold them up. But when I was a student in England in the 1950s I noticed that the elasticized tops soon gave out through repeated use and washings and that some boys wore round garters by rolling the tops around the garters when the original elasticity had given out. This of course made the socks look a bit like three-quarter length socks. Some schoolboys even wore ordinary rubber bands around their legs because they could get demerits for having sloppy socks that fell down. I think this is the situation in this photograph.
Garters were worn in the cub scouts in England and quite probably in some prep schools certainly upto about the 70s. I wore them and hated them in the cubs. I'm not sure how good they were for the circulation. Mind you as a small boy one was always being told to pull ones socks up in both a literal and a metaphorical sense! Socks at half mast were definitely seen as letting the side down
Here is my own opinion. Those stockings felt down very often because after many laundries, the eleastic inside the socks became less useful. So, if the teacher asked the boy to pull up his socks for the picture, the boy, exceeded, obeyed but in a casual manner. The result is what is seen. This feeling is clear on the boy's face!
I too wore garters when I wore knee-socks and I didn't mind wearing them in the slightest, my only objection to them being that they tended to leave a red mark just below the knee where the elastic had 'bitten' into the skin. During the summer months there was no need to wear garters as my Mum always insisted that I wore ankle socks, which I very much hated. As far as Cub and Scout uniforms are concerened, the garters had flashes attached to them which hung distinctively below the turnover (cuff) of the sock. Personally, I think the flashes made the wearer of the uniform look very
smart and I'm surprised schools didn't adopt them as part of the school uniform. Particularly in boarding and prep scools where a house system was in operation and where each house has a particular colour. By looking at the boy's garter flashes you would be
able to discern which house he belonged to. Looking at the image of the boy, it would appear he's wearing socks without turnovers.
I suspect that the school he attends has not addopted the practice of boys wearing banded turnover top socks with the school colours which I believe are still used at schools where pupils still wear shorts as part of their uniform. His pullover is also devoid of any colour bands around the V-neck or around the end of the sleeves.
It certainly does look as if this boy is wearing," elasticised top", socks. I usually wore turnover top socks and, upon reflection, they always looked smarter than the other type. The elasticised top socks did look a bit smarter if the tops were turned over, but during the day they tended to take on the appearance as in the photograph. All that the lad pictured would have to do to restore the smart appearance,would be to pull his socks up completely and then carefully turn the top over again. The elasticised tops did tend to become weak with use, and then the thing to do was either to buy another pair of socks or to buy garters, but this meant that so much of the sock had to be turned over to hide the garter, that the socks looked too short and a little bit ridiculous. With TOT type socks it was the garters themselves which tended to become slack with use, but a new set of garters could be had very cheaply, in fact it could be that the greater cost of TOT socks was offset by the cheapness of replacement garters, as against the cost of replacement elasticised top socks.
Yes indeed, we did wear garters with the socks which were free of
elastication themselves. Woe betide the boy whose socks were at half mast or even lower! For cubs and scouts [then known as wolf cubs and boy scouts respectively], the garters had coloured tabs (a pair of tabs on each leg, usually of one colour but multi-colour were not unknown) which appeared vertically from underneath the return of the top of the sock. Our cub/scout colour was green but seniors and rovers etc had other colours and, of course, sea scouts had navy blue.
I do not think this boy is wearing garters. I wore both styles of knee-socks when I was at school - turn over top and none turnover top - but in my case both styles were elasticated. Being an only child my parents were able to indulge me by buying new knee-socks when the elastic became weakened through use. Some of my co-pupils, having enough siblings to start their own soccer team, needed garters to help hold up their well-used knee-socks. The boy's knee-socks in this photo do not look like my friends when they had garters in place; the part of the sock below the area where it has been rolled-over does not look right. Two situations that I can recall where knee-socks were worn in the fashion his are are
(a) after a swimming lesson or a post-gym lesson shower, when your legs have not been dried properly and you have pulled up your knee-socks in a rush to get to the next lesson. You tended to roll the sock up, put it over your foot and unrolled it as far as it would go over the wet skin and then re-adjust later in the day when you have fully dried out. (b) towards the end of a school term and boarders are waiting to return home to their parents for a uniform refit when they have started to outgrow their clothing. Some boys in those circumstances did not fully pull up their none turnover socks, preferring to roll over the top slightly to hide the fact that their knee-socks no longer fitted them properly.
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