the long and short of it

We note ages for many reasons. Twenty-one was once significant as was thirteen, but sadly no longer. At twelve, even though you were at secondary school whether it be grammar, technical or secondary modern, you were expected to wear shorts. Long trousers were for thirteen-year-olds and over. Overnight you changed from boy to man regardless of how advanced your hormones were. Facial hair with shorts was as common as a squeaky voice in long trousers. This change to manhood was memorable.

At twelve you played rough and tumble, climbed trees. played war, pirates, Cowboys and Indians, and even doctors and nurses if the only play friend was a girl. For some reason girls did not play war. At thirteen you had hobbies or went fishing. That was a shock.

With shorts you had dirty knees that needed to be washed before school next day. The washing of the knees was a nightly ritual in front of the fire except for Sunday. That was bath night. To wash knees you needed a basin of hot water, soap (carbolic or stronger) and a flannel, normally slimy with a unique unpleasant smell. My mother placed the bowl at my feet but washed the face and neck first. This washing had to be vigorous and roughly done to prize dirt from the Dermis or deeper, especially behind the ears where no dirt existed. With soap drying on the face the legs and feet were eventually washed, after which the flannel was rinsed. The interval between rinsing and drying of the skin was extended to ensure the skin became painful by a process called chapping. Long trousers thankfully ended knee washing.

Long trousers brought in sloppy socks. In shorts you wore long socks. They had to be kept up at all costs. To keep socks up circulation was restricted by strong elastic bands ,which were placed below the knee and the top of the socks folded over. Socks were thus kept neat, straight, and level unless you moved. Woollen socks are gravity fed, as soon as they are pulled up they struggle to reach the ground as quickly as possible. Below the long trousers scruffy socks languished at the ankle.

The purchase of the longs was a ceremony. The tailor complete with tape measure steered you toward rolls of material before realising your parents could not afford anything that fitted properly. At the Off the Peg rack they selected the appropriate grey to wear. Once the grey was selected, not too bright not to dark, with an ability to fix grass stains permanently, the measurements were taken. The tape was passed around the waist, then outside of the leg. The tailor indicated he would take the sensitive inside leg measurement with an embarrassed clearing of the throat. He enquired what side I dressed, this was imperative for a good fit. To this day I have never seen trousers marked 36W – 29L right or left. So has the wrong-sided trouser curbed my development? Once measurements had been taken, you were handed a pair of trousers you could grow into. In lay terms, didn’t fit, too long, too slack, that needed to be taken up. All Trousers had turn-ups. The tailor pined the fabric where a neat stitch or two could shorten them and be able to let down at a later stage. The implication of the pinning was that trousers would last, were not played football in, or cycled in, or trees climbed.

No consideration was taken for status. In shorts those in longs bullied you. Once in longs you had to establish your position in the pecking order. This meant fights and holes in the knees, so much for room to grow into.

There was another downside to long trousers, they had to be pressed. Pressing with a damp cloth was as near as they got to a cleaning. Steam forcing through the fabric plastered a pungent latrinal aroma to the ironing board. Thus trousers were always the last articles to be ironed.

Wearing trousers came with little rituals. A single crease down the front, tramlines was very non-you. To sit you gripped the crease and pulled trousers up to stop bagging in the knee area. This sound logical manoeuvre strictly adhered to did nothing to avoid knee bagging or stretching of the fabric.

Within three years I had mastered long trousers, just in time to be sent to the Far East and plunged back into Naval shorts and gravitational socks