School uniforms are a

contentious issue, of course they are. I can remember an American friend being surprised, perhaps even shocked, by the fact we still expect students in their final years of school to wear them.

They are no bad thing however. There is much less clothing competition among our students . You can't be ostracised for wearing the wrong designer top or not being able to afford the latest style in ragged jeans. It is also possible to tell which school they attend. More than one misbehaving, stone-throwing boy has been caught out like that.

When T.... posted a picture of her son's new school shirt looking decidedly worse for wear after tripping over though I was reminded of our school uniforms. I really must write S... another letter and tell him about these. 

Some of you will be old enough to remember the dreaded box pleated tunic? Yes? You know the sort of thing I mean. They had three pleats at the back and three at the front. The neckline was square. You wore it over the top of your school blouse and a tie. They were first designed well before WWII and we were still wearing them in the sixties of last century.  They made us look fat and awkward.

Looking back I shudder. We just accepted them at the time but now I shudder. This was the standard winter school uniform for girls all over the country. Boys wore short trousers until the later years of secondary school.

In summer we wore "shirt-waist" dresses. They would be checked or striped in the school colours. They made us look fat and awkward too. We had hats and gloves and 60denier stockings to contend with all year round. 

I haven't seen gloves or stockings for many years. Hats feature - but for the purpose of sun protection, not because girls are supposed to be "young ladies".  

In one school I attended, a school in a very remote community, we girls had nylon uniforms. The boys had nylon shirts. They might not have required ironing (and I have to assume that is why they were chosen) but they were very hot and uncomfortable in the summer. The Senior Cat also had nylon shirts and wore the obligatory "collar and tie" to school. I am sure that if the same school still existed (and it doesn't) the teacher would be wearing an open-neck shirt in summer.  It was my job to rinse all these things out at the end of the day and hang them on the line. In the morning they would be bone dry and we would simply put them on again.  

I had box pleat tunics in brown, in grey, in navy and then in grey and then in brown and then in grey again. I had different colour checked summer uniforms. I had blazers (always secondhand ) in brown, grey, navy, maroon, green in various schools. My siblings wore much the same. 

We grew up without much interest in clothes but I cannot blame school uniforms for that. Our mother simply had no interest in such things. Our "good" things "for best" were dealt with by our grandmothers. I wish my paternal grandmother was still here. She was very practical, perhaps she had to be when she had seven brothers and two sons. Her husband might have been a very well regarded tailor but boys are still boys and the girls of this family were not much better. 

I am sitting here in jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt and a striped cardigan vest I made from scraps...and I am comfortable. I think that matters.