These three boys look pretty smart waiting for their bus to Prep School but in my area recently things have got a bit complicated with changes in the local bus services that do not appear to have been thought through.
Until recently all the services through our estate went from one common bus stop going clockwise or counter clockwise before continuing on but recent changes have some outbound services going opposite the bus stop with no indication of where you are to alight from.
Moreover it is on the end of a bus road junction as it joins the major A road where 'the powers that be' as I know from my 'adult' roles in the past were less than keen on having a bus stop.
We shall see if a new stop is put or changes made to the routes the next time I go out in my black school shorts, socks and white shirt!
I think I'll lay across the floor knees on carpet and play with this in the meantime as one of things I really loved to do as a boy was to drive things like toy cars and buses on imaginary journeys with people to whom I created something of a back story of.
This meant they'd be getting on and off for different things like shopping in the market square, going to school or work or taking a young child out for the day, stopping at the park.
It was like whole world I'd created.
Before I forget I'd like to thank everyone who read the blog last week, has followed the Tumblr all in the first week of going live and add I've helping dad out as he's a bit off his feet presently and we all know how important dads are to boys.
Next week I'll have something around age regression up on this blog.
It was in many respects a different era and to a point even the differences between that and my parents own that in someways remain the overall abiding memories of being a first of all a teen boy and then as legally a young adult but in many respects very much still a child didn't share the same expectations and likes in them.
A good example of that was the in their world there wasn't what we call leisure wear just play or casual clothes then school or work clothes which were more formal by material and tailoring.
Like many boys of that era sporty looks had an appeal based on coolness and trickled in from sportswear that in the past you might of just kept for school PT or games although it wasn't all soccer tops and shorts plus I was never that into soccer.
No, what I really went for was tracksuits and trainers which was never really on the bought for you side from my folks when my school introduced me to them because they were more practical for having no buttons to fasten only one zip to pull up and needless to say because you had t shirts on underneath of them, no shirt and collar buttons to fasten too.
They became an kind of alternative uniform outside of formal school wear removing the complexities of co-ordinating regular clothes with just having 'base layers' of vest, underpants and socks put on which all tended to be fairly plain.
The cut of tracksuits also matched my frame well being more long and thin so I felt good whenever I caught my reflection in them.
This last week, April 12th I have launched a Tumblr as it has been a very long time since I had anything to with social media to interact more with others who are interested in past childhoods especially boyhoods and also those who may be over the age of majority but are in lots of ways still schoolboys including the of wearing uniforms.
My Tumblr will be what is called 'Safe for work' although as term it's a bit hard to get my around as no one really has defined exactly what is safe for work or at least 'accepted' as most ideas like the idea of being in some ways more like a child aren't exactly awkward free conversations in the work place.
I'm reading it as being in the first instance as not about nor showing sexual material nor things that are connected to kinks such as "BDSM" and while I may mention spanking on here on the odd occasion, dropping it for ages unless I honestly have need to mention it, that's it, what I will say is there will be no images at all of actual people being spanked on the Tumblr ever.
That's because when you do, it tends to bring more the kind of people I mentioned before and in any event for what the Tumblr is about it's not something I have a need to post where as here I do talk from time to time about adult schoolboy life although what you include in that is very much your own business.
My Tumblr is called The Traditional Schoolboy.
Please do support it, thank you, C.
*Created April 12 2018, R.i.p April 9 2020, Wordpress version r.i.p June 16 2020*
When you move to a new school, it takes time to settle down not just into the formal structures of the school such as school break times, weekly Assemblies, and your years timetable but also the pupils and forming friendships.
Andy never Andrew who lived near Tarporley soon became my best boy friend to the point we were almost inseparable always being in the sides when it came to joint activities such as games or playing together at recess.
Between us we run the form Chess Club during dinner time recess arranging with the stuff to have classroom access during the period and to share wall place in the store room to keep or chess sets and help other boys and girls out cos we were very much for treating everyone as a equal.
Andy and I shared something else, we shared a few of our interests and attachments for that era with girls, we were very nurturing to others especially anyone who we saw as vulnerable and although we were eleven and twelve year olds, we still very much loved cuddles and teddy bears.
We also did manage to borrow the girls skirts a few times trying them on too deciding they weren't us and like me outside formal lessons we both wore shorts so with hindsight we were both boys but just a little less conventional than most.
It was suddenly around April of 1977 after taking a day off, being at home, that I returned to school to start gazing out of the window only to be informed he'd died in his sleep.
I was very very heartbroken to hear this and indeed just typing this today makes me cry because I so loved this boy, a boy who was to use that modern expression a "soul mate" someone who I cared for and it has to be said returned it hundred fold.
This is for him, a boy never forgotten, by way of tribute.
Something that was hard to avoid when I was at school was team sports cos you'd know before even getting as far as picking the team positions if anyone was missing and there was spare kit about so the old rouse of leaving your stuff behind wouldn't cut it.
Team sports are one of the most gendered activities in school which amounted to if you were a boy you HAD to play soccer which had a full kit that you needed to change into which is taxing if like me you have dyspraxia struggling with pull over, fastening and tying things.
First on over your vest would be a thick red football jersey with long arms and white ribbed cuffs which is different than most today and did help keep you warm in the winter months.
Next on were your shorts which were next to your skin to prevent your school ones from get damp and muddy.
It was always taken by our headmaster.
Our shorts in the 70's and especially early 80's were short being cut high in the thighs with contrasting ribbing along the hip seams and my last pair worn for soccer were just like these.
Personally I preferred them cos it was it more easier to move in than the longer ones which started coming back from the mid 90's onward.
Then came on your thick stripped socks cos you just NEVER wore your regular socks cos again they'd soon get damp and muddy which is no good for regular lessons afterward.
Then came you dedicated football boots with studs to help deal with muddy fields like our school ones but were laced up so I had to beg other boys to fasten mine up for me and in that era we didn't have elasticated laces that could be pre-tied and you were inspected before team selection.
Team selection if like me you were physically disabled always had the potentially to be very humiliating as one of two teams of boys first of all had to have you - and often they'd sooner not - and then find a position in whatever team formation they chose to play and usually they put me in defence and the odd time in goal so you'd hope you didn't let anything in you could just about stop.
Defence could prove a taxing cos they'd long periods of nothing much happening when my attention could drift off to passing aircraft or traffic as the school field corner passed a major road with trucks passing along it that interested me more and that was when my tackling didn't result in a yellow or red card being issued that is if there's didn't leave me on the ground for minutes being unstable on my feet at best.
Afterward we had to clean ourselves up as we had no proper change facilities, just a cloakroom with water and towels and get changed for regular classes.
Looking back on it I do sometimes wonder just what my attempting to play the game was about as later on I moved to school that played disabled sport which while taxing was more suited to me.
The conclusion I came to was it was about learning to have a go at anything and about trying however imperfectly to integrate me in non disabled gender norms for boys, to give me a space I might let boyish things out and join other boys doing the same.
While I was more open to playing sports across the genders and of preferred to chosen sports I felt more at one with, ultimately I believe in its own way it was another example of my headmaster caring for me by treating the same as all the boys providing an identity which while not being perfect was at least an identity and a space 'to be'.
For that I'm grateful.
