Did you wear a uniform?

I wore uniforms through most of my working life, really missed my London one when I moved north. Ours had been designed by Hartnell so we were proud to wear them, except the 6 weeks prelim'course ones known as purple passions. Think these were a rite of passage until our proper ones were made as we were measured in the sewing room by lovely ladies when we began the training. Still have some offcuts in a patchwork cushion along with the darker purple staff nurse fabrics. Uniform in later hospitals really wasn't as nice, missed my gorgeous purple cloak for the walks back to the nurses homes in all weathers too.

At school, and fondly remember wearing grey pleated skirt with stiff, multi-layered net petticoat, what did it look like!! First job after school, worked in a bank and had to wear an overall. Nylon and all the same navy colour but could vary in design. Moved branch and changed colour to pale blue, subsequently passed on to MiL who wore it for housework.
Later on wore nylon overall again while midday supervisor at school. Finally worked in Court Service and had to look really neat and smart if in Court, mainly black skirts with white or cream blouses, no trousers. Still have a couple of the black skirts which do come in useful if attending a funeral.

My best friend was an in patient in a mental hospital where the nurses wore ordinary clothes not uniforms. My friend told me this was a bad policy because a fellow patient sometimes confided to him they wanted to kill themself, and he did not know which inmate was a nurse to report this to.

I wore one at school. In the early years working as a Teaching assistant you were expected to make up paint for the children they used glue too so we wore a nylon overall. Later on we had cotton tabards.
Must admit I like a soldier in his dress uniform ooo.

School uniform. Hated the summer headgear, a panama hat. Cut a hole in mine on the last day and backcombed my hair so it shot up out of hole as I walked out of school for the last time.

Tesco uniform when I left teaching. Not the prettiest clothing I have ever worn. The trousers were hideous.

Waitress uniform, black dress, white apron.

White, grey trimmed tunic for my 15 years as a mobile manicurist. I liked that uniform the best. Very clean and smart.

Hideous itchy wool school uniform with blouses that were too short for everyone but had to be tucked into the skirt (gored, and SO unflattering) I must have heard the phrase 'tuck your blouse in' uttered all over the school about a thousand times over the years. No uniform for work, thank goodness, but an awful lot spent on smart office clothes as a result.

I've worn uniforms both as a police cadet and as a policewoman and from what I can recall I enjoyed it both times - it's now over 50 years ago .
At least you didn't have to decide what to wear to work every day!

My school uniform was a pleated skirt with a woollen cardigan in a dreadful turquoise blue called "Petrol blue" which I have always disliked.
Now I wear a black uniform (polo top, sweatshirt and multi pocketed trousers) as a Community First Responder volunteering with the ambulance service. Eye catching yellow and green safety jacket too.

I served in the army overseas for several years and the uniform was not only smart but entirely necessary for the job.

My husband was in the RAF and all my friends used to 'swoon' that he was 'a man in uniform'. However, because I used to see him every day in uniform I thought he looked far sexier when he was in a suit!

My Mum’s only real job , outside of the home, was in the WAAFs during the war. She looked fabulous in her uniform!

School, Brownies, Guides, Guildry & WRNS.

Yep, nurses uniform everyday, however as I worked on the nursing Bank sometimes it was blue or green scrubs dependent on which area I chose.

Nurses uniform always had to be home laundered at least 50 degrees, scrubs just tossed into laundry and they were washed for you..

Grammar school uniform in the 1960s. Luckily no rules on the length of our short skirts , unlike the girls Catholic Grammar school down the road where they had to had to have their skirt touch the floor when they kneel down .
I later became a nurse so was in uniform until I retired

I’m a nurse, but nowadays work mostly from home

I worked for CU insurance in the 60’s and 70’s. All female staff members, about 20 of us, had to wear dark blue nylon overalls which we hated. We were all office staff in a clean environment so no idea why!

School uniform, and then straight into WRAC lovat green in the sixties. Loved it; felt good in it and always proud to be seen in it. Unfortunately one of my postings was to a section of the MOD where we were not allowed to wear our uniforms, so it was kept for military high days and holidays for a while. DH was also a soldier - always looked wonderful in his uniform, especially his mess dress.

I worked mostly in an office - so the nearest I ever got to a uniform was when the Company I was working for had a TV ad. running, and the female staff were issued with a pale blue T shirt with the wording "Cover yourself in Pearl!."
Ever the rebel, I insisted that the male staff were also supplied with them. They, of course, refused (there were no male office staff at that point, only sales personnel, though that did happen later) - and so then, did I. I took my T shirt home and only wore it on holiday, and long after the TV ad was forgotten!

When I was a nurse in the 1970s 1980s 1990s - student, staff nurse, ward sister - I had uniforms and identity from the colour, the belt, the cuffs, the starched caps in different folded styles to indicate seniority - and I loved all of them. The capes worn inside out at Christmas for carol singing on the wards....it was all part of the job and the "old fashioned" discipline of those days - we wore our uniforms with pride whatever our level of training - as did the porters and ward domestic staff. Anyway I am just dwelling on times past! My "uniform" now is thermals, washable and grandchild-proof!

PS our uniforms as staff nurses and ward sisters, back in the day, were sent out to the local prison laundry - we all had our own named boxes. It's funny what pops into your mind when someone asks a question here isn't it.......

This is an interesting thread, thank you Foxglove for starting it! there's an amazing amount of nurses on this forum.

Brownies and Girl guides for me. My dad was French, so insisted the beret be worn exactly right.

Other than that, no uniforms for me. I worked in a bank in the 80's and we were not required to wear a uniform, I think Canada is perhaps a little less formal than UK for workwear. I always have admired the smart uniform of airline crew though.

I was very proud to wear the uniform of the women’s royal naval service from 1974-1979. We were very lucky to have a seamstress to alter them for us free of charge,those were the days.

i have only worn a uniform for two jobs first one was for etams the clothes shop, we all had to wear the same colour of skirt, blouse and cardigan or pullover, one year it was black skirt, white blouse and tan tank top.....yuck then the laundry at a care home was like a nurses uniform. all my other jobs have shops or one to one PA work and i usually wore skirts, blouses and court shoes. my son was in the TA at 18 and used to wear his army uniform and a dress uniform when he went to edinburgh to fire the 1pm gun, he then volunteered for 6 months in iraq, i have his pictures all over the house in his various uniforms.

school uniform obviously but we moved when I was about 13, only thing I was glad about was the hated navy blue beret got torn into four and each piece thrown out of the train at different stations! Hated the school down south and its uniform. I became a prefect and we had revolting green cord sort of berets and I was meant to set an example so had to wait until I got off the train to scrumple it up and shove it in a pocket. Wonderful "uniform" as a singer in the Gulbenkian choir in Portugal, where we wore beautiful made to measure long cream dresses which were hung beautifully with a yoke covered in beautiful beadwork. Everyone looked good in them as they were created to look good and the darts and stuff made them all look good. That was for singing in the gulbenkian foundation only. for singing in churches, making recordings or anything else we had a long slimline black skirt with a very smart black lace blouse, well cut to allow us to breathe deep to the diaphram. Then various other things but as a volunteer ambulance car driver for over 10 years 3 days a week , wore the ambulance greeen outfit, complete with name tag etc but got an oversized green jumper deliberately. took many people in wheelchairs, or they would manage to get into the car but needed a wheelchair at the hospital. You really needed a long sweater or you got that awful freezing cold gap where your jumper met your trousers or skirt as you were manouvering the patient into a chair, and reaching over to wrap a blanket round if it was cold, snowy or raining etc. I mostly took people from very rural areas in north yorkshire, so whilst I wore the uniform and badge I also carried with me spare shoes, sox, pants, trousers, fleece, mac, sunglases, suncream, gloves etc. You could wear them all in one day as we travelled long distances and the weather would change in a hour or so. Swaledale was always known for its lovely rainbows. But at 5pm on a cold february evening, bringing a patient home to a farm, where there was no lighting in the yard and a gale blowing up, you could step out in the dark and straight into a muddy slurry puddle over your boots, or if you coat was not tightly zipped the wind would be trying to whip it off your! I also carried spare fleece blankets and many other extras to provide my patients with whatever would make their journey easier . This also included spare hot water in a flastk, a clean flannel and towel if they had been sick or anything, cd's ranging from strauss and Bach to portuguese fado, brass bands and martin jarvis reading Just william. It all helped a long journey to pass as well as possible and we were thankful for the heating in the car these days. other uniforms I have worn have been a brownie guider, and a wrvs, and various other bits and pieces and of course doing flag days for marie cure or red cross or rnli I would be dressed appropriately. I think I was the female equivalent of Mr Bean!!

School uniform and uniforms in various holiday jobs I had eg Boots the chemist, supermarket, eytc. As a teacher my clothes were smart but practical and when one headteacher suggest his staff wore sweatshirts the same as the children I was horrified! I now wear a uniform in my part time job as museum Attendant and it is okay. At first I wasn't too keen as I have a wardrobe full of lovely dresses which would have looked smart. I can understand why it is useful to wear a uniform and really don't mind it now. My late husband was in the army and there really is something incredibly sexy about a man in combats!