Reflections on Fridays in the past

Friday's eh?

Crackerjack from the past, today the one slot for Blue Peter we all had our "must see" television programs on that day which was the gateway to The Weekend where school lessons stopped for two whole days, weekly boarders went home and the rest of us may of gone on a excursion.

That was always the thing about weekends beyond World Of Sport and the Final Results on Grandstand with the teleprinter final results soming through at the bottom of the screen plus Match Of The Day if we got permission to be up late on Saturday.

Having come home by bus or train uniform was off which was as well as although it was smart you may well of stood out in your immediate district garnering some attention.

Girls seemed to come from another planet and not always that very demure having been chased from one end of the high street to the other in my teens by a gaggle thereof.

No sooner that you'd got used to that and been in Church where all the grown ups would be asking you how you were and how it was going  you'd be preparing  for the cycle to continue.

Summer hols reflections

Pretty much every educational establishment has shut for the summer hols although unlike the past some of us recall this no longer means the school is not in use.

For instance my local junior school, the one I did actually attend does have the breakfast and after school clubs running for working or "vulnerable" families even though they are not undertaking formal education.

So far in I have seen few school children about which suggests they are either away or plugged in to their electrics which these days doesn't mean the tv, games console or a personal computer but their mobile phones eating up the data allowances too.

It's also worth saying something I touched on elsewhere which is children don't wear uniform 24/7 even though we see them as schoolboys because they do other stuff like play and so may have sports shorts and t shirts on if not actual football strips if having a kickabout in the park.

Sometimes I think we forget that as adult little boys or schoolboys who for whatever personal reasons are emulating that life we do not have to either so for instance I may wear a t shirt and a plain shortish pair of sports shorts if out going around in the park.

You do look more blended in doing that when school is out than in your full uniform although there is no reason of itself not to have your grey shorts on as if you may of been visiting a mate rather than with blazer and cap.

We're not avatars, we're schoolboys of adult chronological ages.
 

Looks and resting

 

The last week has been somewhat cold, temperatures often around the two to three degree mark during the day with wind chill in the minuses so perhaps it might of surprised some that I had bought something from the past.

It took some agonizing over it, but after a pretty long hiatus I bought a "proper" duffle coat with a modern microfibre lining with two deep pockets and zipped small inner ones after being without one from the age of sixteen and three quarters.

My old one had Beatles and Rainbow badges fastened on it on the left top in a  neat line and wooden toggles to which you fasten it up with and was bottle green in colour.

This one is grey with tough plastic toggles and an inner zip to fasten the front right the way up to keep draughts out and still feels hefty and as warm as toast.

It'll go with the reminder of my uniform.

Over the Christmas period I did watch a few Pantomimes on Cbeebies, the BBC tv channel for sevens and under and this, the current one was one of several simply cos with all the groan up noise about Covid, I needed to escape and get back to just following a story getting right in it.

Way back in time certainly at school from the earliest days many of us can recall being introduced to the standards about how we presented and the importance of correcting things like a untucked shirt or socks that were minded to fall down although I still think garters should of been mandatory as they do help.

Sock elastic is weird stuff, I have some socks that seem to stay up for long with no aids and adjustments on my part and yet others that I pretty much have to wear garters with as they'd be coming down within minutes of a brisk walk. 

Wrapping and tidying up

Image credits: Grey Shorts
It may sound incredulous but it's the second week of December and I'm still going outside in my shorts and long socks with just a decent coat over me which is quite something because for a long period I used to get very ill over the winter not being able spend time out of doors, having to be wrapped up.
I think a lot of this is down to making more of a point of eating better less starchy food, taking more regular exercise everyday except in the most inclement of conditions and cultivating a hardier tougher body more befitting of boy like me.
In my youth Christmas cards were a big thing and still are so while much of what I touch wood should be having is taken care in the hands of Mr. Claus, I do have my cards to do before the cut off date for posting them.
I have done a bit of tidying up on my Tumblr one involves changing its URL which is fine for followers as you'll be automatically changed over but for anyone that isn't, a updated link is on my about page and my Uniformed Regression tapatape site.
As well, I have trimmed the odd entry because of Tumblrs messy A.I based flagging system for (potentially) nsfw content and also as they seem trigger happy over sensitive content setting a low bar over things that were just part of our childhoods as regular accepted things. They tend to suffer from a "The past you wish to depict must fit our idea of present accepted behaviour" complex unable to accept the past is what it is.
It seems some things may have to kept for here so I'll put the odd post in over Christmas I think for you to look for.

Schooldays

There was much howling of wind around here from Friday onward as I remarked to Sammy so I got a few things done that I might of delayed as I wasn't able to be until later on on Sunday.

The origins of the this post go back to 2005 and Friends Reunited because one core aspect of that site was links to schools and other places you'd been that just didn't allow you to contact people you knew but also included sharing otherwise scattered artifacts of that time.
I am feeling very brave today and am sharing something with you.
That school picture is my Infant/Reception class would of been sometime probably early 1970 as in reception we didn't have to wear a uniform although you can tell those who already were going down that route.
Staring from the back row at the far right was Mrs Bell, our Reception teacher who did give me some extra tuition as I wasn't good at speaking then, and the boy in  a grey sweater and tie actually next to her is me. Third from me is Mark one of several children of the 'big cheeses' of the Methodist Chapel.
Back then much of what as children we took part in was organized by them and a prominent landowner so we were very much connected to that form of Christianity and its moral teachings. It wasn't sufficient  to learn academically for us it involved moral education too.
Second row from the back on the far right was a boy who was only with us a couple of years who was blind in one eye and to whom we absolutely did take care of and next to him was 'Tich' from another prominent family.
You'll note the back and second row are nearly all boys and that was not just pretty normal for the era but also because the boys of our class were a pack, a unit and a tight one at that would look out for each other.
Dead centre on the front row was Karen another of the families of prominent Methodists who were involved in running the chapel and a farmstead.
The building wasn't untypical of country districts being late Victorian with Boys and Girls entrances originally  but in practice we had Infants and Juniors with matching playgrounds.
The building ceased to be a school at end of Summer Term 1974 because it was too small for our needs with us needing to use a community hall for things such as French, P.E (not Games) and school canteen for lunch sharing the building with a parent run Preschool, mobile child welfare clinics and so on.
We moved into a new purpose built school for Autumn Term 1974 which had more space although it was of the trendy open plan sort with each year having its own 'homebay' to which we moved across the building for art, and science.
It had a hall for all school assemblies held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday which were Christian centred, games with climbing frames and store areas for static equipment and music.
At the time we didn't use it for eating  as instead we finished in time to clear are desks which had changed from wooden ones with matching chairs to Gopak tm triangular ones and grey plastic backed chairs to eat off and as we were 'top class' juniors, we were expected to head tables for our younger children, looking after them.
Games was always played in the new building outside with much more space and grassed areas for Soccer and other ball games.
Today as a former governor there I know they eat in the hall and much of the open plan design has been converted into defined classrooms with doors which while I understand does keep noise distractions down that can be an issue I did feel personally was claustrophobic taking out much of the spaciousness of the original design.

Young teen looks

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.

Cub scouts

Cub Scouts and Scouting in general wasn't something I got into or to be more accurate was encouraged into although my older brother did remain it up to his mid teens and my younger brother was a Cub.
It wasn't that it didn't appeal but it wasn't talked about in front of me by either of them so I'd only discover randomly it was 'Bob a Job" week and the like when they'd go out and bring home the completed forms to show what they did to take to Cubs or Scouts the next meeting.
Nor did my parents ever talk with me about joining, perhaps even inviting the cub or scouts leader to talk with me perhaps thinking disabled boys like me didn't have a place in Scouting although in later years I learned that during that era local packs did do this.
To me it was an essential part of being a boy, learning useful skills and values to help me make the most of it and a potential help in learning to integrate that I missed out on to the point when I started age regressing in my mid teens wearing the odd thing such as the green sock garters with their sashes and shorts was one my first steps back in time.