Me and school uniform

My school uniform was pretty standard: white blouse, pleated skirt (on the knee), grey pullover, grey socks (very nasty and itchy) worn with a turquoise, black and silver tie.

In year 7 some girls managed to make this uniform their own - displaying black and red lacy bras through the thin white cotton (mustn't exaggerate - two girls did this).  The rest of us wore M&S vests and could only aspire to such greatness. 

But depending on prevailing fashion we all spent quite a lot of time either rolling our skirts up - to create a curious artificial muffin top or at other seasons pulling the skirt as low as possible - taking care not to reveal too much knicker.

There was also a fashion for wearing as baggy a jumper as you could get away with.  Girls would sit with their knees clutched to chests and then pull the jumper over knees; after a lunch break sat in this position most jumpers would be bigger (if although rarely uniformly - it produced a strange lumpy effect) - sadly for me Mum's washing techniques always returned mine back to normal size or possibly somewhat smaller.

Ties were worn as short and fat as possible, especially by those with cleavage; alternatively you tied them so that the slim side was uppermost (think Justin Timberlake in school uniform - there is a man who likes a skinny tie)  Strange that we never tried different knots - so much variety out there - Windsor, Pratt, Four-in-hand, Prince Albert (um ... mind boggles with the last one - I couldn't bring myself to do a Google image search).

Me and the purse-belt rebellion

There were only so many ways that school uniform could be customised - sophisticated girls wore American  tan tights (any other colour was strictly verboten) and rebels wore black pullovers rather than the regulation grey.  We were frequently lectured about the importance of maintaining a good uniform (honour of the school,  not looking like slappers) and there were regular uniform inspections with dire consequences if found wanting.

Some bright spark suggested we should wear the correct elements of the uniform, but mix things up a bit (I bet she became a lawyer).  So one Friday at break time,  along with most of the girls in Year 8,  I took off my tie and fastened  it around my waist.  Then the particularly ugly grey purse-belts we wore around our waists were worn as necklaces.  We all wander around the school giggling like idiots and feel quite secure as there was safety in numbers as Slipper Woman couldn't whack  all the girls in our year.

My hero

Our insurrection did not go unnoticed - we were summonded to the hall and the deputy head asked the instigator to stand up to save the rest of us from punishment.

I would like to say that we re-enacted the famous scene from Spartacus and that girl after girl stood up to say 'I am the purse-belt rebel'.  (Isn't Kirk Douglas lovely in that scene, a little bedraggled and dusty, but that manly tear so makes up for his lack of grooming.  Not so keen on the pants, but suppose slaves couldn't be picky).

Back to the hall - no one owned up so we all had a lunchtime detention.  Uniform rules were rewritten to specify what part of the body a particular item could adorn.