School uniforms

Can you spot The Accidental Ringer?

Such trifling matters merge into the background given the present state of affairs, but before all this viral stuff blew up, I was writing something about school uniforms.  Perhaps no one will be needing a uniform until September because they will all be home-schooled in their jim-jams at the kitchen table, should they be lucky enough to possess a kitchen table. However, there will come a time when such things will seem important again and people will argue and accuse each other along party political lines, so it is worth considering, if only to take our minds off other scary things.

I heard on the radio last weekend  that there are plans for legislation to force schools to make compulsory uniforms more affordable – to prevent them from insisting that a blazer must be bought at a particular designated shop because they are the only retailers allowed to supply the correct badge on the breast pocket. There would be rules to bar schools and academies from designing a uniform that is so distinctive that it’s elements cannot be bought at a cheap chain store or supermarket.   It seems inconceivable only 10 days later that such considerations were taking up parliamentary time.  Send them to school in what you can afford, and if the shade of blue of their jumper is slightly different to the official version, then what is the big deal? At least they are attending school.

This is a matter close to my heart.  I went to a direct grant school over 50 years ago and there was only one recognised school outfitter – Dickins and Jones – a rather up market department store in Regent Street, London, not quite Harrods but certainly not Littlewoods.  The uniform included a navy skirt, an egg –yolk yellow and white striped blouse with a very particular neckline, a blue V-neck jumper incorporating an all-important double yellow stripe, a blazer with badge and inspiring motto, and a navy gabardine raincoat, which sported a yellow lined hood, as worn by graduating students – not easily imitated.  Have you ever tried lining a raincoat hood ex-post?  The uniform was simple but unique and because of the little details could not be sourced from cheaper shops.  No-one got into official trouble for substituting items, but the wearer of the imitations stood out like a sore thumb.  I stood out like a sore thumb.

My mum and I visited Dickins and Jones during the summer holidays before starting  what would now be described as Year 7 – we called it the upper III.  She bought one of most things, and the cost was so eye-popping that we never went back.  For the next 5 years (sixth formers wore what the  hell they liked), I wore an approximate school uniform, based on the original purchases.  My yellow striped blouses were not the colour of egg yolks but of primroses because my mum made them herself from a Butterwick pattern.  You could not buy the school material by the yard and there was no pattern for the neck required, but my blouses had tiny puffed sleeves, and beautiful mother of pearl buttons.  They were much, much prettier than everyone else’s and other girls probably envied me my blouses, so distinctive and made with skill and love.  Similarly, my blue serge skirt was an old Guide skirt – perfectly nice and well cut, but slightly different to the 4 gored version available from Dickins and Jones.  My winter knitted hat was ribbed, not plain, and my jumper was also hand knitted and did not have a neck stripe.  I think that attempts to line the hood of a raincoat with yellow material were abandoned as a waste of time – as indeed they were.  Who cares whether your hood is lined or not?

At first it was uncomfortable to be so distinctive and so bespoke.  No-one teased and no-one bullied, but it was obvious that I came from a home with a different economic profile to most of the girls. If you were “really poor” the local authority awarded a grant for school uniforms so that you did not stand out, but we were not “really poor”. We were respectably lower middle class, and as such did not qualify for uniform assistance.  However, looking back, I think that it created some backbone and fed my naturally rebellious nature.  OK – so I wore home-made clothes that did not fit with the rest of the girls, I did very different things in my holidays to my immediate friendship group  (no yachts or second  homes in foreign places available), we did not have BBC2 (or even a colour TV).  Yet I learnt to be accepted despite these things.

Thus whilst I can understand the drive to make uniforms more affordable, especially in selective schools where it sometimes looks as if there might be a hidden policy of allocation of places by income because some families cannot afford the special uniforms, the fact that even 10 days ago we were worrying about it seems inconceivable. We have more important things to worry about now, but let us look forward to the time when we argue over whether it is important for a school to insist on a blazer of a particular shade of puce, rather than the brownish purple option available for a fraction of the price at Tesco.