You could say the main feature of the week has been the return to winter with fairly cold temperatures, hailstones, drizzle and all of that having been caught out in it so the thicker layers were needed outdoors although I spotted the boys in one area going cross country in their tops and shorts on Wednesday at one school and another in with the gas fire one.
Actually this kind of almost but not quite sailor suit inspired look was very much the thing in the late 1970's as I rebelled against the longs I rather liked and dressed more like as "going back" became more acccepted at home.
School was different and being in the Marches we did have bi-lingual staff from the Valleys of Glamorganshire who had this wierd fascination in keeping boys in longs, even being a boarding school we'd see their own children in the height of summer fully covered up top to bottom.
Whither it was connected with Methodist inspired notions of displaying working class respectability to the outside world or some other odd idea I don't know but it made little sense to me and I saw less of in England which can be as class conscious and inwardly conservative as anywhere.
I liked that look as much over time I was able to return more to the tailored approach of my junior years and still do.
So you encountered + noticed a South Wales phenomenon matching the wrong that happened to me. I was Cardiff + Vale rather than Valleys, but they adjoin, this regional pattern across them makes sense. It can be linked to the catarrhal air problem. It's the same region as could spawn a terrible private school requiring only longs from the age 8 year up.
ReplyDeleteI never had as bad as those Valleys boys, as at least I wore shorts Apr-Oct, from age 9 only outside school + one friend's company. But the same catch-cold catarrhal air that cheated me out of winter wearing, did it make those Valleys boys' families think shorts were never healthy at all ? Surely it fits ! Unlike your forum friends, you should have an interest in the whole South Wales tragedy now you have told that you actually saw some of it in your childhood.