"When I first put this uniform on........! Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a group of schoolgirls in the uniform  of the 1920s/30s.   It made me look back at my own life in Uniform and immediately came to mind the lines of the song in  Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "Patience" where the soldiers' chorus proudly sing:                                             

 "When I first put this uniform on,

I said as I  looked in the glass......." ".

 

 

There was not a strict uniform at my primary school, but I was desperate to wear a gymslip.  My mother did not like them, but eventually I got one handed down from my cousin Josie,  and i wore  the striped school tie and the red girdle round my waist, feeling I had stepped into one of the school stories I  loved to read. 

   

 

 My hair in pigtails with red ribbons.

 I am second from the right on the second row, with my hair tied in plaits with ribbons, next to the little boy kneeling in the striped pullover.  A typical 1950s style of dress and hair. 

 

When I started secondary school (girls only) in Blackpool,  the uniform had just had its first major change since pre war times.     For the first two years,  we wore short pleated navy "Windsor Woolie" skirts,  with braces - made by a local firm, and still very "little girlish".    I certainly cannot see any self-respecting  12 year old wearing such a style  today!  Unlike the pudding basin hats  or berets of other schools in the town,  we felt very smart and modern  in a  pillbox style hat  - navy with a narrow sky blue band  round it. a fringe at the side and a metal school badge.   I was so proud of that hat!  My mother said she felt seasick sewing the school summer dress - it was sky blue again,  highly patterned with with lots of white sea motifs and waves  - as befitted a school in  a seaside resort.   

 

We moved across country and my next school uniform seemed extremely dowdy in comparison  - long navy pleated skirts, and a  navy beret which sat like a flat pancake on my head (hair now in a pony tail).    You were expected to wear the beret at all times to and from school - major rule breaker if you were spotted without it. . Unfortunately  I have no photograph of myself in these school uniforms. 

 

Shop jobs during my university holidays meant wearing a shapeless, dowdy, usually grey  overall, circa 1950s style.  It was always far too long for me, so the priority was to get it home after my first day and shorten  the hem - after all this was the 1960's and the era of the miniskirt!

Onto my work in tourist information centres in the Scottish Borders - it was the 1980's when kilts were then a fashion statement, so for the first time at work  I wore an attractive  uniform -  a kilt in the mid blue/green of the local Douglas tartan.   However kilts became too expensive as a uniform item, and we later had pencil skirts - but still in tartan.  Men on the staff were just given a tartan tie, so the women had the better deal. 

Uniform  fashions have changed so much  and the trend now is very casual - purple polo shirts and grey fleeces - with no sign of tartan.  Whoever chose grey must have been colour blind  - to think  that it provided a good welcoming first impression to visitors,  when so much of Scotland is often sitting  under grey skies!   I am glad I worked  in earlier times in a uniform that made me feel smart and professional.  

Onto wearing a uniform for leisure  - my first being as a Brownie  and wearing the brown tunic dress,  and a yellow folded tie,  which very practically could become a bandage or sling  - I was never called upon to use it in that way!  In the Guides,  I  graduated to a blue blouse worn with my navy school skirt,  and  red folded tie, as I was in the Scarlet Pimpernel Patrol. 

 

No photographs, but I did knit a Brownie doll for my daughter when she joined the local group - no longer the large tie but a small collar tab.

 

 

Being  a junior dancer in Staining Gala - an annual community event in my village - gave the pleasure of a different "uniform"  each year .  

 

 

Here we gathered in the church hall for a photograph, prior to our outdoor performance.   I am the little one  fifth back on the left.  We were obviously very well trained, all  standing the same way - heels together, toes turned out,  and skirts held out at the same angle.   Our dresses were apple green satin,  with silver cardboard headdresses and our shepherd crooks garlanded with crepe paper flowers. For me, the  worst aspect was the torture the night before of having my hair put into rags, in the hope I would end up with ringlets the next day.  

I am the front row far left.

Looking back, this was c.1952,  not long after the war, with people still having to put up with rationing, but the gala days were a great tribute to community efforts, and my mother, as the local dressmaker, was heavily involved in making the costumes.   I was delighted to wear this dress as my uniform for the day,  and  which was  later destined to be my party dress for the year. 

Back to the white blouses and dark skirts of the prompt photograph:   Below is  the alto section of the choir I sang in for nearly 40 years - the Roxburgh Singers -  I am on the back row - second left.  This photograph was taken before  our performance of Handel's  "The Messiah",  c.1978 - the first time it had been performed in my small town for a very long time, so was quite a momentous occasion.

Two decades later, it  was decided that our long black skirts, white blouses of our own style and varying shades of whiteness   were not smart enough and we needed to up our game.  The result was  an outfit of  still the black skirt, and a black camisole top worn  with an over blouse of  jade green - I was happy as jade was one of my favourite colours. But what happened?  No sooner had we all bought these, then  amateur choirs starting adopting the more casual,  look of black trousers for women and self-coloured long sleeve blouses.    But we kept our formal look.

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