School Uniform Shops 1950/60s


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True, Beekay. That branch of Pork Farms used to sell miniature cottage loaf buns. One could buy them with various fillings at lunchtime in the70s. Cheese salad was my favourite.

 

On the corner opposite The Halifax was National & Provincial Building Society, providers of my first mortgage. Later taken over by Abbey National.

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Jill, we were walking around a swap meet (mostly tat market!) this morning and there was 1 fella on his lonesome wearing saffron robes. Made me think of both you and Chulla!

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I don't remember anybody at Radford Boulevard school having an official uniform. Some kids, whose mum's thought their darlings were better than us oiks had grey flannels and a blazer but most of us made do with whatever we had. I particularly remember a time when I only had wellies. In winter they were up and when it got warm they were rolled down. When they got too tight, mam used to cut the toes out !

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My Mum always bought my High Pavement uniform from Dixon and Parker. (D&P) in Friar Lane. I was grateful for this because other suppliers, especially the normally excellent Co-op.. weren't up to the job. The main item was of course the jacket. it was only at D&P that you got the rich, deep chocolate brown jacket.  The Co-op ones were a lighter.. orangey sort of brown. which got more obvious with age and wear.

 

I recall in my first year at HP I even had the long grey socks with the tops in the school colours of brown blue and gold.. to go with the short trousers.  I hated those and was in long ones by second year.  There were also the tie, cap and scarf.

 

There was quite a list of stuff my poor parents had to find before I started at HP.  Apart from the specifically HP stuff, there were grey or white shirts, and grey 'flannels' for schoolwear. Blue shorts for rugby and athletics, white shorts for gym, white T shirt for gym, 'house' rugby shirt and blue rugby shirt, pumps, rugby boots, cricket 'whites'..

 

Then there was the white apron, complete with pocket, for science lab work, and also for metal/woodwork.

 

The 'cool' thing to do in HP, was to wear beige Cavalry Twill trousers with the rest of your school uniform.  And of course.. this being the early 60s your Cavalry Twills had to be tapered... which meant a fair bit of grovelling to Mum to get her to do the alterations on the old Singer ...

 

Such fun!!  :rolleyes:

 

 

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The Co-Op stocked the Manning blouse and was the only outlet other than D&P to do so. The blouse had sort of maroon and white stripes, not red and white...which would have been much easier to find but was not permitted,  grey skirts, for daily wear and for hockey/netball plus the white aertex shirt were stocked by the Co-Op. Everything else was D&P. Green wraparound overall for science subjects, petersham tie, grey flannel knickers!! red pursebelt, beret,blazer,badges for blazer and beret, hockey boots, tennis shoes. We had to make our own cookery aprons. Mine was yellow, my house colour. We also had to make our own tennis skirts. Both these items were such a mess by the time I'd finished with them that a neighbour took them to pieces and made them properly,  The same person also made my dance tunic.

 

At Berridge, no one wore uniform so all this came as a shock. Every item had to be named with tape. Heaven help you if it wasn't, for there were regular inspections. Shoes, black or brown. White sandals permitted in summer. Heels no more than one and a half inches, measured from the inside. Again, regular checks were made. Grey flannel knickers to be worn at all times.  Skirt hem must touch the floor when kneeling.

 

Hair tied back at all times, no jewellery other than a watch, no nail varnish, no makeup. No kidding! Things have certainly changed in 50 years. 

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Beekay, regarding arrows and typing thereof, they can be found using a Windows facility called Character Map. Accessing this differs slightly according to which Windows version you are using so, perhaps best to use Mr Gooooogle to find out exactly.

 

Character Map will offer you every character and symbol available via the keyboard in every font installed on the machine.

 

Beekay, I've just looked back at your post and I have it wrong in what you were asking. I thought you meant arrows in text, not added to graphics. My apologies.

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15 hours ago, Beekay said:

CT, what programme do you use to put direction arrows on your posts ? B.

 

I missed that question earlier.

 

For arrows I use Graphic Converter, which is good for various technical features rather than being a graphic programme.

 

For more graphic-ey things I use pixlr, which is effectively Photoshop Elements under another name.

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By the time I arrived at Manning in September 1969, the rules about socks had been relaxed. As first years, we wore white ankle socks but grey wool tights in winter. It was damned draughty inside Manning with all those ill-fitting French doors and unheated quads. From the second year, we wore ordinary nylon tights. One of my friends who was at Manning in the 50s tells me that, even in the sixth form, girls had to wear white ankle socks and she attended her first job interview wearing school uniform, complete with socks. She was offered the job on the strength of the Manning's reputation!

 

It did have a very good reputation with employers. Presumably, none of them had to suffer its rigours or they may have thought otherwise!

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High Pavement was a relatively 'liberal' school.  Although there were uniform rules.. there was always a bit of leeway.   You could usually get away with socks that were other than the regulation grey or brown.. though I doubt that you'd have gone unnoticed wearing Dayglo colours.. or white.

 

There was a rule that school caps must be worn with the rest of uniform, when outside school.  I don't think that was ever enforced during my time there..  

I could imagine announcements in assembly  "Jenkins Minor was seen without a cap on Gainsford Crescent this morning.  For this gross offence and for besmirching the fine reputation of the school.. he will be publicly flogged in the school yard at 12 noon as per regulations." :laugh:   Nevertheless a folded cap was usually to be found in every boys jacket pocket.  They were handy for wearing in the rain, or folded and used as a weapon.  The stiff part of the peak would make your eyes water if deftly applied to the head...  or other regions. Schoolboys were like that..  Incidentally the other jacket pocket was reserved for the school hymn book which had a blue cover and was purchased as I recall for 1s.6d. from the school. Apart from being largely redundant, as it contained many more hymns than were ever sung in assembly... its other purpose was to serve as a repository for your weekly timetable of lessons, tucked inside the cover.

I don't recall much being said about hair length, as the 'long hair' phase began with the Beatles and the Stones.  I suspect that parents were a bigger influence than the school in regulating that.  My avatar picture was taken in Summer 1967, for my first passport... one of those 6 month 'visitors' ones.  I'd be 18 and my hair looks quite short.

 

Another incidental.  Most of us carried our books etc, to school in a standard Army Surplus haversack.. obtainable from all good Army Stores.  Some favoured Army Khaki.. whilst others favoured RAF Blue.  My 'sack' doubled up as a rucsack for hiking and camping in the Derbyshire Peaks and it was quite surprising just how much could be crammed into, strapped onto, or hung from it.

s-l1600.jpg

 

Some older boys and sixth formers seemed to have acquired 'flight bags' like this.. and I always wondered if they had actually been on an aeroplane.. something I didn't achieve until 1979.

s-l225.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

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All this talk about socks and knickers with nylon tights, have I  gone on to another thread, (pardon the pun).

Thanks CT for the clarification. B.

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1 hour ago, DJ360 said:

Another incidental.  Most of us carried our books etc, to school in a standard Army Surplus haversack.. obtainable from all good Army Stores.  Some favoured Army Khaki.. whilst others favoured RAF Blue. 

 

That was the standard thing to have at Fairham. Mine was an RAF grey/blue colour.

 

It was often difficult to see what colour it had been, because they were always covered by felt tip and biro scrawlings with the name of your favourite group/football team/singer/whatever.

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Indeed Kev.  Mine was scrawled with tributes to Ray Charles.. such that when I had very brief intercontinental contact with a former class mate now in Oz.. he recalled me as the school's 'biggest Ray Charles fan'.

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My sister had a very similar rucksack during her final years at Peveril. I remember her coming home once with a  blue hard backed shorthand dictionary which she'd been awarded as a prize. Apparently, she'd annoyed the shorthand teacher who clipped my sister around the head with it just before it was presented to her!

 

Didn't do shorthand at Manning and would never have got away with carrying a rucksack! 

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1 hour ago, Beekay said:

All this talk about socks and knickers with nylon tights, have I  gone on to another thread

Not as erotic as it might sound, Beekay. There was nothing at all salacious about Mrs Christie's knicker inspection.

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4 minutes ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Didn't do shorthand at Manning and would never have got away with carrying a rucksack! 

 

I can (could) do shorthand. Teeline at 50 wpm. Never once used it in real life, and probably wouldn't manage 5 wpm now.

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I learned shorthand in my late teens. Never liked it but needed it when taking notes in court. I could do 100wpm given a fair wind.  In more recent years, taking virtually verbatim minutes at child protection conferences and the like, I've used a laptop with external full sized keyboard attached. This enables me to hit 200wpm plus. Much easier than shorthand.

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200 wpm ...wow That set me thinking so I took an online typing speed test

 

125 Characters in one minute    :victory: 25 Words in one minute  :wacko:   17 errors  :Shock:  Adjusted speed ....   8!  :Fool:

Your crown is safe..   

 

Anyone fancy a go? :     https://www.livechatinc.com/typing-speed-test/#/

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Modern computer keyboards require virtually no pressure, therefore a person who can touch type may achieve high speeds not attainable on a manual or even an electronic typewriter. It's not really so difficult.

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On my second attempt:  

 

Quote

 

You're a T-REX.

Nice! You type with the speed of 32 WPM (134 CPM). Your accuracy was 97%. Keep practicing!

 

 
I should add I've never had any training, but spent donkey's years typing up reports etc in work.
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Just now, Jill Sparrow said:

It's not really so difficult.

 

Hah! tell that to my fingers, they  find it impossible to keep up with my brain..

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3 minutes ago, DJ360 said:

I should add I've never had any training, but spent donkey's years typing up reports etc in work.

 

 SOME people just have no modesty!      :angry:

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