A generation ago, English boys attending junior schools (ages 7-11) and in the lower forms of secondary schools (ages 11-14) generally wore short trousers as part of their official uniform. The age at which a boy graduated to long trousers depended upon the rules of the particular school and the wishes of his parents. This was certainly the case at the Surrey grammar school attended by the writer in the 1960s where all first and second year pupils wore shorts. Long trousers became an option in the third form and I can remember how pleased I felt to make the transition to 'grown-up' dress.

One unfortunate boy in my class still remained in shorts as a third-former and since he was quite tall he looked rather incongruous amongst his long-trousered classmates. It transpired that he would soon be leaving the grammar school to join a rather spartan boarding school in the north of England where all the pupils wore short trousers, whatever their age, so his parents saw no reason to put him temporarily into longs. This private education was funded by a grandparent and the boy's younger brother later followed him to the same Yorkshire school.

A glance at a volume of the Public and Preparatory Schools Yearbook from the 1960s shows that a number of boarding schools with pupils aged 14-19 insisted that they dress in shorts. Although innovatory in the 1920s, when shorts and open-necked shirts had been adopted as a healthy alternative to stuffy Eton suits, stiff collars and tailcoats, by the 1960s and 1970s such universal shorts-wearing appeared eccentric. Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire specified 'shirt, pullover, shorts, stockings and coat' as the official uniform. Bryanston School in Dorset was another stronghold of bare knees, specifying a uniform of 'grey flannel shirt, shorts and stockings, with grey pullover in winter.' Sedbergh, and Abbotsholme were also well known for their devotion to short trousers.

Whilst in some schools the time of transition from short to long trousers depended upon the boy's age, in other schools height was also a factor. A correspondent recalls:

At my boarding school in the 1960s, we had to wear short trousers until reaching the age of thirteen and a half or the height of 5 feet 3 inches. I don't know what was special about this figure but we used to line up in the house matron's room each half term to be measured, hoping to be allowed to discard our juvenile grey shorts for ever.

When did junior schoolboys cease wearing short trousers? According to a correspondent to 'The Times' (April 2003):

When I was a child in the 1950s boys still resembled the illustrations in the 'William' books by Richmal Crompton from 30 years earlier. In 1962, when I was in the sixth form, about half of the new boys coming to my grammar school still wore short trousers, some retaining them into part of their second year. By the time my wife started teaching in 1968 nearly all primary school age boys wore long trousers. Thus, like so many things, the great change occurred in the sixties.

Unwilling shorts wearers

This photograph of grammar school pupils from the early 1960s shows how shorts were worn by junior boys with regulation 'stockings' (long socks) with banding on the turnover tops in the school colours. No doubt these boys would also have been expected to wear school caps and it was during that decade of rebellion and social revolution that both these items of uniform came to be resented by schoolboys who were now encouraged to view themselves as young 'teenagers'. A boy who wore blue jeans at the weekend did not take kindly to having to wear juvenile short trousers on school days. This item from the 'Junior Letters' page of a national newspaper gives some indication of boys' feelings:

I am going into the third form at my grammar school next month. Last year I had to wear shorts, but third years are allowed to wear either long or short trousers. My parents say that since I still have several good pairs of shorts I should continue wearing them. I don't think this is fair. I'm quite tall for my age and think I will look a lot better in long trousers. I'm also worried that most of the other boys in my class will be wearing longs and will take the mickey out of my shorts.

More than 20 years later, in 1989, the following letter was published on the problems page of the TV Times:

My 11-year-old son has been allocated a place in a comprehensive school where the uniform includes grey shorts for the first two years. He regards this as such an insult in a 'big' school that he wants us to find him a place somewhere else. Some of his friends are going to schools with no such rule and he's afraid they'll make fun of him. On the other hand, the school has an excellent academic record. We have decided that this takes precedence. Do you agree?

The agony aunt replied:

I certainly think it's a bit hard on grown-up boys to have to wear short trousers. I can remember my younger two complaining bitterly, and in winter there's real cause when those knees get frozen. However, your son's education must come before sartorial considerations. Send him to the comprehensive but promise him you'll lobby the head to take a more modern attitude to uniform. And make life easier for your son by getting him some long trousers to wear at home. Why not get some especially smart ones as compensation?

Sometimes letters in support of short trousers came from schoolboys, as witness this Daily Mail 'Junior Letter' from a fourteen-year-old in 1982:

In my view wearing short trousers is an essential part of a boy's growing up, despite complaints about cold winter weather. Any decent boy should be able to accept the toughening-up process of wearing shorts in the cold. My dad likes me to wear shorts all the time because they are smarter, healthier and cheaper. They last longer because I don't outgrow them as fast as I would longs and I can't put any holes in the knees. I used to get teased but the headmaster stopped the culprits when my mum complained. I sometimes wish I had some long trousers, but my dad always says that I will be a man soon enough so I should enjoy my youth while I can.

'Where are the knees of yesteryear?'

Finally, we come to a 'Times' correspondence of autumn 1988, initiated by a feature article which had asked 'Where are the knees of yesteryear?' A fashion historian was quoted as saying: 'Shorts for boys are a vanishing thing, almost gone I'd say. It's all to do with social trends, the breakdown of the old rigidities of the class system, the decline in the influence of the public schools and the grammar schools which aped them. It was always a purely British thing, part of toughening them up for the colonies and the Raj.'

'It seems that prep schools are almost the last bastion of the little grey flannel numbers,' observed the author. 'But many prep schools are making them optional. Are we losing forever those battle-scarred boys' knees that were never covered until the great threshold of manhood was crossed, with the first pair of long trousers?'

A number of letters arrived from parents agreeing with the sentiment of the article:

Instead of proper boys we have mini-adults who reveal lily white unblemished weak looking limbs each summer. It seems grey flannel short trousers exist only for the very brave.

But there were also objections from past shorts wearers:

Before any more mothers get carried away by the 'Just William' imagery, may I state, as one who actually had to wear the rather demeaning and impractical things, that there is nothing character-building about shorts. There must be many of my generation who can still vividly recall the pain and misery of gashed or scraped knees in which was embedded, like sharp knives, the grit of the school playground.

A prep school boy wrote to report that:

If anyone wants to see proper schoolboys they can come to my school. I wear grey corduroy shorts all year. My knees are always muddy and I have lots of cuts and although I have garters my socks have a habit of sliding down my legs.

The correspondence was rounded off by a letter from the Rural Dean of Shaftesbury who recalled a rule at his prep school which was imparted to all parents of new boys:

NO BOY, HOWEVER TALL OR HOWEVER IMPORTANT, MAY WEAR LONG TROUSERS.

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