User: victorbaker

I was at school in England in the 1980s when boys' shorts were really short. Our school didn't have rules about whether a boy could wear shorts or longs, but most boys wore shorts till they were 13 years old. A few boys were still in shorts at 14.

When I was 15 at the end of the 4th year, I went on the school trip to France. There were only about 30 of us and we stayed at a boarding school. The residents had gone home for the summer. We were in a huge dormitory, sharing with another English school and some French and Swiss boys.

On our 2nd day there, 5 boys decided to sit at a cafe in town and have a couple of glasses of wine, which the barman happily served them. But they were seen by the masters and ordered back to the school. In the early evening all the boys from our school had returned from their visit to town and there were boys from the other schools present too. A master from the French school thoughtfully provided a leather strap. The 5 boys were told to bend over the ends of their beds and a master gave them 6 whacks each with the strap.

The strap was used on several other occasions during our week long stay in France. I went on this school trip 2 years running and received 4 whacks of the strap twice the first year and 1 caning of 4 strokes the second.

My last school trip was when I was in the 6th form and we went to the Costa Brava in Spain. There were 26 of us made up of 4th, 5th and 6th form boys. The 4th and 5th form boys were all caned at least once each, but the 5 of us 6th formers were not, as we were gentlemen!

The first time I went to the school camp was at the end of the school year when I was 12 years old. We went to the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England. There were about 80 boys split into tents of about 6 boys. I think just about every boy thought 'great, a couple of weeks away from the discipline of the classroom'. But the masters who came with us hadn't forgotten to pack a few canes in their luggage. And they meant to use them.

At 9:30 pm with all the boys in their tents a master blew his whistle and shouted lights out. Nonsense really, because being summer it was still light, and we had no lights in the tents anyway. But we had been told that lights out meant no talking. We were all excited, it being the first night, and of course most boys in all the tents were chatting away. And one by one the tents were emptied of boys wearing pyjamas, to be bent over and receive 2 strokes of the cane. Every boy was caned. It made no difference if a boy said he hadn't been talking.

Each tent had one boy named by the masters as 'captain', and during the next night's supper, a master announced that the captain would name one boy from his tent to receive 2 strokes of the cane as a warning not to repeat the behaviour of the previous night. Lights out meant 'no talking'! It was an horrendous thing to expect the 'captain' to name a boy, and more than one captain named himself. This naming was repeated at supper every night. Well before the end of the 2 week holiday, it was obvious it made no difference who the captain named, as the masters intended to cane at least one boy from each tent every night, no matter what.

Throughout the 2 weeks we boys alternated between saying how great the camp was and we were coming next year, with how terrible it was and I'm never coming back. All the boys were from the 1st, 2nd and a few from the 3rd years, so were between 12 and 14 years old. Older boys went to more exotic places like France or Spain. I went to the camp 3 years running, and only made captain the 3rd time.

Robbie Essex

I don't know if there was a difference between private (Public schools) and state run schools when it came to uniform rules. I believe that prep school boys wore shorts till they went on to Public school at the age of 13 years. If I remember rightly my school didn't have rules about shorts or longs and I think it was just the parents who chose what their boys wore.

I live near a Grammar school and I've noticed that there are increasingly more older boys wearing shorts lately, especially in the summer term after Easter. And also the press has run stories of boys protesting that they are not allowed to wear shorts in hot weather and have gone to school wearing skirts!

victor

norman, he said they were too old fashioned and no kid at his school would wear them. He usually wears boxer briefs, in different colours.