Go on, who had the strictest School Uniform ???

This all sounds hideously familiar. In winter, Lower and the first two years of Middle School had dark green gymslips and pale green blouses with round necks. Last two years of Middle School had very slightly more flattering dark green gymslips and pale green blouses with Peter Pan collars. Sixth form had grey skirts and pale green blouses with revers. Dark green macintosh or coat, black velour hat with wide red and green headband bearing embroidered school crest until sixth form when the hat was a bit like a bowler with a narrow ribbon and silver badge. Clark's indoor and outdoor shoes – black plimsolls with red laces for games and with a gusset for gym. Hideous grey skirt shorts and a white tee shirt with your name embroidered in red for games until the sixth form when you could wear a Fred Perry shirt with your initials embroidered in red. A strange tunic garment for dance in your own choice of colour. Green or blue overalls that tied at the back for science until A level when you could wear a white lab coat. Summer uniform was a pale green moygashell dress, dark blazer with school crest on the pocket and a panama hat.

We also had a school song, but ours was in Latin and known as the school carmen. I don't remember much f it but it had several verses and we had to learn it off by heart. We also had to walk in silence along the right-hand side of the corridor between lessons and had a silence bell rung on the High Table at lunchtime when all 700 girls had to shut up until the head or senior mistress rang it a second time. Morning prayers at 8.50 and evening prayers at 4.50.

Ha absent now I know you were one of Miss Jean Brodie's young ladies

harrigran Not dissimilar, but not that interesting, I'm afraid. Still, it did give us all something fairly harmless to rebel against. A wet velour hat shoved into a satchel full of homework once you're safely away from prefects never looks the same again.

I loved my school uniform, blazer, boater, Clarks shoes, 30 denier stockings with seams- but have a strange memory:
it was the day of the first year (Upper 3rd) medical and we had to line up outside the Headmistress's office wearing only our thick navy knickers (it was a girls' school!). I was horrified when I walked in to be examined by the school nurse to find the Headmistress sitting in her chair with her poodle on her lap, watching. Strange or what?

We had to wear horrible purple and grey, most unflattering! Hats were compulsory - grey felt bretons in winter and stiff boaters in summer (actually the boaters were quite fun and attracted a lot of attention from tourists, and we used to scrunch up our bretons behind our back-combed hair). Grey gloves in winter, white in summer, and occasional 'glove inspections' at the gate to make sure we were correctly dressed! Ugly, clumpy shoes, thick socks or 60 denier stockings; a summer dress that looked like a florist's overall. Everything quite deliberately designed to make us look as dowdy as possible, in fact!

We wore square-necked blouses with buttons round the waist, to button on to voluminous black gym knickers with your name embroidered across your stomach.
My mother made all my uniform, from vague little sketches, so everything was different from everyone else's. Even my blouses were Viyella, cream instead of white cotton.
I wore white socks until I left at 18!

Goodness apricot - blouses buttoned on to your knickers and your name embroidered on your tummy - how wonderful you must have all looked.

Just thought - if you were buttoned into your knickers it must have been quite a task to unbutton yourself when you needed to go to the loo, or perhaps they thought that "young gels" were safer buttoned in - a form of chastity belt perhaps

Does anyone know why girls wore liberty bodices and not boys? A little sexist if you ask me, because at the age that girls wore them, they didnt really have anything that the boys didn't have!

A lot of the liberty bodices had rubber buttons near the hem so that you could attach suspenders, only way to keep the long wool stockings up. I wonder if that was the reason for them rather than modesty.

hel, it's a long time ago and my memory may be inaccurate, but I am fairly sure that a boy I played with as a child did wear a liberty bodice - he had a 'bad chest'. No reason why boys shouldn't have worn them. I had to wear one after having pneumonia and suspenders were indeed attached to it.

We had a very strict uniform policy and you could get a detention for being seen on the way to or from school with your blazer undone or your beret not at the right angle.
My most abiding memory though, is the day I forgot to bring my hockey boots to school and was made to play in bare feet. This was the middle of winter on a field covered in tiny points of frozen worm-casts.
I wasn't allowed to wear my plimsolls, not even allowed socks. I needed to be 'taught a lesson'. This resulted in two outcomes. In the short-term, the lesson was learned and I never forgot my hockey boots again. In the long-term, it has resulted in quite a few interesting encounters due to a life-long rejection of irrational and bullying authority.

Notsogrand Some teachers were just marvellous and inspiring, some were dull and dreary and one or two proved to be unreasonably cruel. I once inadvertently poured gravy over my iced sponge pudding because I thought it was chocolate sauce – that says a lot about the respective qualities of gravy and chocolate sauce provided by the school kitchen. I was forced to eat the resulting mess to "teach me a lesson". It taught me that a) that I don't like iced sponge pudding with gravy and b) that the mistress concerned was an untrustworthy, mean, old b***h.

I lived in Canada from 4 years old to 9 years old and 13 years old to 15 years old - so we didn't wear uniforms. However, when here I went to a private school and they were very strict about uniform. We had viyella blouses, red pleated gym slip with a red 'girdle' worn around like a belt, we had scarlet cardigans and a red and scarlet tie. Our socks were black and we had black lace up shoes. Outdoor wear was a navy blue serge overcoat and black velour hat with the school badge on the hat. In the summer we wore pretty pink and/or blue flowered dresses [I had one of each],white socks and Clarks sandals. We also had a scarlet blazer with the school badge and a panama hat. We had all in one gym dresses and navy blue swim suits. I loved it and felt very smart. We used to go into Derry and Toms to buy it and then had afternoon tea on the roof garden.

Gosh, I'd forgotten about swimming. When my older sister went to our school she had to wear a green woolly swimsuit and when she passed some basic test (swimming 2 lengths?) she was given a square white, red embroidered badge that she had to stitch to her bum (the swimsuit's, not hers). Later, the regulation cosi was changed to an aquamarine man-made fibre effort that became almost translucent when wet. It was deeply embarrassing for those girls who gave swimming, diving and lifesaving displays to parents on open days.

Joan, I just giggled at your hat detention. I hated mine - a sort of beret but in corduroy. I spent my time removing it and once even spun it out of a train window (unintentionally). I was always in trouble for not wearing it. As you say, it was not really naughty, just rebellious, a sign of our age I suppose.

And, Grumpyoldwoman, I still feel uncomfortable eating an ice cream cornet in public because of the rule against eating in the street.....

I remember spending ages with hair grips trying to fix my beret flat on the back of my head in order to preserve the bouffant hairdo! And the smell of hair lacquer ( remember that?) in the girls' cloakrooms.

re gym knickers buttoned onto blouses - that was for gym, not all day long. At the next school I went to they wore pastel rompers for games. I weighed 10 stone by then and, of course, loathed games and refused to cooperate.

I too went to a Convent and wore the white gloves, panama etc. but the crazy thing I remember most was that we had to get changed for P.E. one at a time in the classroom cupboard, for modesty sake. Of course we used to get changed in groups and the nuns used to have apoplexy when a large group of us tumbled out of the cupboard at once. Needless to say the P.E. lesson was almost over by the time we had all changed. Ridiculous......

That must have been some cupboard. Did it have an entrance to Narnia at the back?

Did anyone find that their summer straw hat changed shape in the rain. I seemed to spend every summer in an odd-shaped hat and, like everyone else, was not allowed to remove it until I got home Talk about embarrassing when the lads from the next door boys' school got on the bus!

My twin brother used my summer boater to use as a fishing net when he lost the original net in the stream by our house,mum had to clean it off and sponge it down and then put it on to the model head my uncle used for his tupee in order to get it back in shape,I don't think he went fishing again for a while after that episode.

My GDs school has a new headteacher about whom we know very little as yet. GD came home from school yesterday muttering in disgust about knee-length skirts and saying that the rumour is that he plans to tighten up the rules about school uniform. Her other gran and I both cheered. The skirts have been getting shorter, the ties have been worn lower and the mascara has been plastered on thicker and thicker. If anything is said to GD or friends we are told that this is how 'everyone' wears their uniform. Good luck to the new man. I hope he gets the backing of parents.

Very surprised at the number of people on this thread that went to a Convent School. Anyone go to the Immaculate Heart in Billingshurst, Sussex? Sadly it is now turned in to flats. It was a beautiful building. Apparently the builders found little notes, posted through the cracks in the floor boards, in what was the dormitory.

em good on the Headmaster,the same thing happened at DGs3s school last year and the offender's where sent home on unifrom inspection,DD work's at the same school and knew what to expect so she was in favour of the new regiem,after so many where sent home the message soon got across and they don't have any problem's now.I think that when the parent's where informed that they had to collect their children from school they soon got the message that it was not a fashion show but a school.Best of luck.