Observance of the short trousers religion

[Ravenser]

Different hemisphere and climate but here (South Africa)in Summer year 12 boys still wear shorts. In some schools (good private and Government) short khaki trouisers are still a Summer uniform standard.

 

 

I remember that from teenage years in Sydney. It didn't affect me , but some of the private schools did it - Knox College on the upper North Shore sticks in my mind - summer uniform kharki shorts and shorts plus straw boater. This on some strapping Aussie 17 yr old was not a pretty sight (though maybe girls felt differently)

[trisonic]

It's 96f here in New Jersey as I write; anyone wearing long pants in this weather is either crazy or they have to!

 

The point about all this is that in Britain we were forced to wear shorts even when it was snowing or brutally cold (i.e. 1962/63 Winter) up to age 12.

 

Best, Pete.

[jeff alvey]

 

The point about all this is that in Britain we were forced to wear shorts even when it was snowing or brutally cold (i.e. 1962/63 Winter) up to age 12.

 

Best, Pete.

I remember that winter (and several before it!) walking to school in wellies slapping the backs of me legs all the way.

(Middlesex by the way - for those who might remember that county.)

[Guest Natalie Graham]

My Dad bought his first pair of long trousers in 1930 with his first week's wages as a 14 year old apprentice.

[Horsetan]

I remember that winter (and several before it!) walking to school in wellies slapping the backs of me legs all the way.

(Middlesex by the way - for those who might remember that county.)

 

I still live in the Middlesex area.

[highpeak]

Short trousers were compulsory for the first three years at grammar school (Buxton College) or until the onset of puberty, since hairy legs and short trousers looked a bit odd. That was a bit rough in winter, especially as going outside for breaks was also mandatory unless it was howling with rain or snowing. I think they were practicing some sort of Darwinian experiment.

 

Here on the CT shore it only got into the upper 80s today, still 80F at 10:30pm, shorts and a t-shirt are about all I need from now till the fall when I am not at work.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Indeed so regarding the Darwinian experiments. The girls were grudgingly allowed indoors if there was significant precipitation at break times. Boys were only allowed in if there was a risk of drowning, and in relatively temperate Hertfordshire that meant we were out in all weathers. On particularly unpleasant days I remember drying my clothes by body heat three times, and having got to a tolerable level of dampness, then facing the walk home for a final bout of sogginess. The rule was only relaxed from the commencement of the final term of the fifth form in secondary education. Clearly it would not have done to make our O level papers wet. Thereafter we were prefects, charged with enforcing the rule that boys stayed outside during break times. Which we did with a certain pleasure as I recall.

 

Hertfordshire had a further trick to weed out the unfit: Cuffley camp. At age seven the entire class was taken to this site for a week to sleep on (self filled) straw palliases wrapped in one old army blanket. Fortunately the master in charge gave us the riot act about the quality our sleep being determined by how well we stuffed our palliases with straw. Single skin tents, self-burnt sausages and beans to eat, very good cocoa around the camp fire in the evenings. My class went in non-stop rain in February, and what I mostly remember is the sticky clay. A lot of time was spent retrieving wellington boots from the sticky morass which exerted a fierce enough suction that your foot came straight out. I also saw something that I have never seen since, a Swallow hole (aka Swallet, Sinkhole) in action. It filled from below pretty rapidly, and then drained incredibly quickly, with a most satisfactory sucking noise as the last of the water went.

 

The results speak for themselves; four decades of robust health, no problem being out day and night in any weather since. The wife and I bivvy annually in St Albans park in December (for a fund raising event) and even in heavy rain enjoy a good nights sleep.

[Bernard Lamb]

I can remember my short trouser school days in Hertfordshire.

However cricket whites were always long trousers at any age. At least in the context of school or club games.

Bernard

[45156]

In Scotland, when I was at school, a couple of lifetimes ago, I was compelled to wear short trousers when at Primary School, and when attending the cubs. I suspect we must have been made of stern stuff, as I remember numerous cold legs, chapped knees, and all the usual cuts and grazes.

 

When I got to Secondary school, I was allowed long trousers, but when I got to my third year and went to the grammar, there was a lad there in our year who was still wearing short trousers, and also a schoolcap, at the insistence of his very strict parents - he only caught up with his peers when he got into his fourth year - although he was the subject of a bit of ribbing, he took it all in good part, and to be honest, we didn't wind him up the way that might happen in a similar case nowadays.

[John_Hughes]

My father-in-law recalled that in the 1930s he was still in short trousers when he started work in a railway foundry at the age of 14.

[beast66606]

Shorts at primary school on the Wirral during the 1960s, plenty of chapped legs, then long trousers and caps, with house colours, for the first year of secondary, mine was Green (Highfield), others were red, blue and white.

[JZ]

Shorts in Wiltshire too, and all through the winter of 62/3. Finally got long trousers in my last term at junior school. Only two boys wore short to senior school, one for just one week and one for the whole first term. My father insisted I had a school cap and wear it. He dropped me off at the school gates on his way to work in the morning and I only wore it until he was out of sight. I was bought one for senior school as well, but that was never worn.