I was popping out to get a paper this morning, when I saw my near neighbour lining up her eldest daughter on the front porch in her new secondary school uniform, ready for a first day photo. Her daughter had a somewhat pained look on her face, probably not because she did not want to go to the new school, which a very good one, but because she realised that, in years to come, that photo will come back to haunt her!
I remember my parents doing much the same thing on my first day at grammar school. I looked ridiculous, because the first form uniform (or year 9 or whatever it is now) included a stupid school cap and SHORT TROUSERS, and by then I was already 5′ 7″ and built like the prop forward I rapidly became! I managed to put on as stupid an expression as my parents would let me get away with, but that photo is still the source of much family amusement.
“Oh, poor kid!!”, I thought 🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hah! School cap and shorts are a doddle compared with having to wear a boater in the summer term. Luckily for posterity no photograph survives (although the boater still does). 😦
OZ
Yep, school cap, shorts and a raincoat that was bought with ‘growth’ in mind – and i could still wear when I joined the army nine years later…
Tee hee, Bravo. The raincoat, if anything like mine, was a gaberdine – a double-breasted jobbie with a belt. “…bought with ‘growth’ in mind” brings back horrible memories too.
Correct OZ 😀
The official school photographs as taken by professionals are brought out on occasion by my doting mother. The individual portraits are a bit of a cringe as I wasn’t the handsome coyote I am of today but I like looking back at the whole class grouping photographs. A cornucopia of freckles, skint knees, awry ties with the odd runny nose on show. It also is amazing how easy it is to forget so many contemporaries.
That horrendous phrase ‘bought with growth in mind’… Thank heavens my Mum always bought me clothes to fit, on the principle that if she bought clothes too large they’d be shabby by the time I grew into them. It almost amounts to ‘cruelty to children’ in my book to put them in clothes that they look ridiculous in!
Consequently I have no problems with photos of me in school uniform – admittedly I didn’t have to wear shorts and I never reached 5’7″ or had the physique of a ‘prop forward’… 🙂
The only thing I really objected to was wearing a tie – and, thus, I never did.
Boa, if your second master had been ‘Piggy’ Shore, you’d have worn a tie, done somersaults and eaten worms when he directed his gaze in your direction! 😮
FEEG: All of that and more, juniors had to wear short trousers and a knitted tie that looked like a badly made but colorful sock.
Caps HAD to be worn in town and onto the school grounds ( when breaking this rule one was ALWAYS discovered, the cap police must have been on every street corner). Black leather shoes were required and NO TRAINERS (not sure they had been invented). For P.T. we were issued with smelly canvas “Daps” of uncertain provenance (the larger sizes were also used to beat you in a form of sadistic corporal punishment practised by some of the more unusual staff members)
What fun times they were.
LW: We too had the cap Stasi. I spent many an hour in detention being caught without it. However, during my time at the school, the rules were changed so that sixth formers were no longer required to wear them. At the end of our fifth form year, , we all threw our caps onto a very large bonfire! Mind you, when I was a prefect, I got my revenge by taking it out on the next generation of young whippersnappers 🙂
Translation service- Daps=plimsolls
Growth in mind reminds me of the rugby shirts I was inveigled into buying for the boy, he’ll grow into them they said.
He was still wearing them until the time of his demise at 31!
We had a horrible little skullcap that wouldn’t stay on unless nailed down with a ton of Kirby grips. I too know all about the hat police!
LW, the shoe nightmares! They had to shine, even on snowy mornings after a trudge along slushy pavements (trans. sidewalks) when the bus had been cancelled. Victims could be seen using ties to clean them before assembly where Piggy ruled.
FEEG: I was “prefected” for a short period but was broken to the ranks for taking days off to go fishing with my uncle Jack. They finally made me a laboratory assistant in the Chem. Lab. (unpaid bottle washer) because I lived locally and would stay after hours, There were two of us and we could always liven up the drudgery by taking in some orange juice and making up a few strong drinks from the Ethanol supply. Cleaning out the “Kipps” (Google is always available) was a monthly task and we stank like skunks for days afterwards.
Janus: Given sufficient time one could always nip in the cloakroom and use the hem of somebody’s nice Burberry to clean one’s shoes (sorry OZ).
I wish I’d had a Burberry rather than a gaberdine.
Sob!
OZ
One’s hems never got soiled when one wore a gabardine.
The alternative spellings of gaberdine/gabardiine are both acceptable, according to dictionary.com, although I did have to check, so let nobody go down that route. 🙂
OZ
OZ: However, Burberry should always have a capital.
The solution to wet, muddy shoes was to change into house-shoes which we had to have for school. Ghastly looking things they were too.
Sheona, that would have spoiled Piggy’s daily fun!