Cut short

Times change. A schoolboy in England recently wore a skirt to school in protest at the school’s refusal to allow boys to wear short trousers in the hot weather.

Time was, schoolboys in England couldn’t wait to get out of short trousers and into long ones, even their older brothers’ cast-offs. They would have done so much sooner if their mothers had been less mindful of the cost involved. A wipe of Savlon on a cut knee is a lot cheaper than having to buy a new pair of bags gone through at the knee as the result of playground football.

Any boy caught wearing a skirt at our school would have found his head coming into contact with the facilities. As for hot weather, it was hot all the time.

chris@merlinco.com