Peter Kazmierczak Posted January 29, 2013 Author Share Posted January 29, 2013 (edited) Is there a correlation between attending grammar school and being on RMweb? (Me? Spondon Park Grammar from 1966) Edited January 29, 2013 by Western Sunset 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 One of the implications of having to wear school uniform outside school hours was still being seen to identify the school and represent its (ahem) reputation. Did heads ever get phone calls from shed foremen complaining about their premises being bunked all the time? We had fairly conventional black blazers with dark grey trousers and white shirts. I was one of two unfortunate oiks who had to endure short trousers for the first term. Caps were officially part of the uniform until (IIRC) fifth form. In the sixth you could wear black jackets instead of blazers. In summer there was an optional alternate blazer (claret with vertical black stripes) and with that you could wear a straw boater but nobody ever did that I remember. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
28XX Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Ironic, I often feel, how we were all compelled to wear the skool cap and hated it. The skools gave it up, only for the American baseball cap to become fashionable very soon after. Which is essentially the same garment. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruffalo Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 I think you may have hit the spike on the head Western Sunset. We grammar school boys were the last secondary scholars to have to wear school caps in Bath although the ubiquitous parka did manage to hide the rest of the standard attire and we all donned caps only when turning onto the final couple of roads leading to our school. Our colours - black blazers & grey trousers whilst our equivalent school for the opposite sex wore green blazers and navy skirts. My grammar school on the Isle of Wight was a more progressive place where hormones were allowed (almost) free rein - it was mixed and girls wore stockings / tights. No wonder boys' achievement levels were lower than girls - simply too many distractions for your average male teenager! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pobrien Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Bristol Spotters in 1963 (although the boy on the right was on holiday from Hull) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bristolsteam/8427947250/in/photostream 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Ha ha....It seems so unreal.... 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted January 29, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 29, 2013 Bristol Spotters in 1963 (although the boy on the right was on holiday from Hull) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bristolsteam/8427947250/in/photostream Would you buy a used notebook from these people? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Happy Hippo Posted January 29, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 29, 2013 Papa and I always got chauffeured down to the station: we always dressed in morning suits with tails and a waist coat. Top hats were of course, de rigueur. His Valet carried the gold leaf version of the combined volume, and the numbers were recorded with a dip pen. One of the footmen would carry the ink well. Once when we were a few ex Rhymney Railway locomotive numbers short, Papa hired Caerphilly Works for the day in order to capture the the little blighters. Those were the days! Regards Richard 15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 (edited) I know the feeling. While waiting in eager anticipation of a passing train we put a cap on the platform and begged. We met an old man one day and he told us he met Robert Stevenson when he offered him sixpence an acre for his farm, take it leave it. He said five years ago it was a simple scene where he toiled the land..... no station, no houses no now't....Then whoosh, a railway straight through his kitchen without so much as by your leave. The man with the red flag did it for us, for as soon as he appeared we knew the trains wasn't far behind him. Edited January 30, 2013 by coachmann 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Bristol Spotters in 1963 (although the boy on the right was on holiday from Hull) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bristolsteam/8427947250/in/photostream Oh sorry, train spotters in Bristol - not the other sort! (That's aeroplanes, before anyone gets carried away...) 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted January 29, 2013 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 29, 2013 Oh sorry, train spotters in Bristol - not the other sort! (That's aeroplanes, before anyone gets carried away...) Have a care Sir - Bristol also made very fine bespoke motor cars, what? 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Count yourselves lucky, I had to wear this lot in the early 80's! Never mind shed bunking, getting home alive was an achievement, and in true 50's style the shorts were itchy wool and had to be worn even in winter. 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Looks like duffle coats and turned up jeans on the platform end at Paddington in the late 60s: 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devonseasider Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Count yourselves lucky, I had to wear this lot in the early 80's! . . . . and you haven't changed one little bit . . . . (insert smiley thing here) 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Actually I quite liked my (two) school caps. The peak made a handy weapon once you had rolled up the cap part..... Best, Pete. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 . . . . and you haven't changed one little bit . . . . (insert smiley thing here) LOL, Not mentally anyway. Nowadays if I sport that get up people think I am in an AC/DC tribute band! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Gerbil-Fritters Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 A youthful Dr Gerbil-Fritters on parade. Rabbit skin hat with ear flaps, Helly Hansen waterproof ski jacket and trousers, Arctic fleece jacket, American army combat boots, dangerously pink scarf, more thermals than the Roman Empire and a grin from ear to ear. November 1992, surrounded by steam at the Changchun Roundhouse. Fine on the ground in temps of -10C, not so clever in the fully enclosed cab of a QJ doing some spade work - ended up knee deep in sweat to the merriment of the crew. Fortunately no earlier photographs of the young Dr are known to survive 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Gringo Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 As you can see from my avatar (taken at Speke in April 1968), some trainspotter's who followed the steam engine right to the end had gone from school uniform, short trousers and peaked caps, to double-breasted corduroy jackets and grease-top hats! The red jacket was similar to one Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones had and was only worn on special trips,. It was not usually employed for bunking sheds, when my fake leather jacket took the muck much better and blended into background easier. Only six years earlier, "here's Johnny" standing in front of 'Blink Bonny' at Darlington shed, during a school-organised "North East area shed-bash" in September 1963. School uniform code was strictly enforced on "Third formers" at King's Macc., in them far off days (yet another grammar skool kid!). Royal blue blazer, dark grey trousers, white shirt, blue and white striped tie, grey or fawn socks are being modelled, but luckily the cap was not required on shed visits. Just as well as mine went off the train upon which I travelled to school, on a fairly regular basis! Luckily it was often close to home that this happened and was retrieved from bushes and fields on more than one occasion. Dangling around my neck is the "trusty 127", from which a few negatives still survive, fifty years later on. Where did they go? Great thread, Lots of happy memories! All the best, John. Edit: Got a rocket from the form-master organising the trip, for walking across to 60051 and posing for the photograph. "Boys, you must stay together, no more wandering off!" 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruffalo Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Would you buy a used notebook from these people? At the time, no. Today, I wonder if any of them is in the computer sales business? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceptic Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Have a care Sir - Bristol also made very fine bespoke motor cars, what? And, of course, for the 'Prols / Plebs, there were their omnibuses and charabancs. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devondynosoar118 Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Just a thank you to all posters, to say how wonderfully evocative the pictures are for those of us who missed main line steam and are lapping up the atmosphere! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted January 30, 2013 Author Share Posted January 30, 2013 The cap with shorts combo. Did I have a cap fetish as a youngster? Probably taken at the back of Derby Loco Works, what with all those Fowler tenders and a Johnson one on the right. The spotter behind is wearing a jacket and tie. 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 (edited) Not to mention the de rigueur sandals! Edited January 30, 2013 by 10800 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Does anyone remember the series in one of the boy's comics of the late 50s/early 60s? Written around the trainspotting trips of a "rich kid" who took his mate with him. I seem to recall special saloons tacked on to the rear of trains, haulage by the likes of 3440 etc? Stewa\rt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pH Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 (edited) Does anyone remember the series in one of the boy's comics of the late 50s/early 60s? Written around the trainspotting trips of a "rich kid" who took his mate with him. I seem to recall special saloons tacked on to the rear of trains, haulage by the likes of 3440 etc? Stewart "Ginger and the Duke and the Wee Blue Book" in the 'Wizard' - here you go - http://www.britishcomics.20m.com/ginger01.htm http://www.britishcomics.20m.com/ginger.htm http://www.britishcomics.20m.com/ginger02.htm Edited January 30, 2013 by pH 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
.thumb.JPG.dbf3c44f17895636b3e9ae1d390a60ea.JPG)
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now