I Wear Short Trousers

In this topic you only ever see posts by folks who experienced this random and shockingly unstopped obvious cruelty by schools that only happens in some places. You never see the opposite experience, of liking shorts and these uniforms would have been right and suited and not cruel for you, but you did not have them. That oppositely cruel bad luck happened for me, and so much were year round shorts uniforms never a thing in South Wales, I actually grew up not knowing they existed, for my entire schooldays. Nor is there enough awareness of an awful heartbreaking tragedy for the shortist identity - and I feel it as an identity, that merits adding to identity politics. A sensory issue identity. By long narrow waterways there are local climates of saturated damp air, that causes respiratory irritation hence catarrh, symptoms like a persistent cold. So, if you have no source of knowledge that year round shorts are not harmful and do not mean catching cold, what does this nasal climate do to ability to find out by yourself ?
While this will happen less now that the web exists, a kid might have no web access by poverty or may have it oversupervised, so this can still happen. In South Wales, under the "Cardiff catarrh" known locally by my family, the climate meant I did not get shorts uniform schools, not even in private school starting in 1973! and no "that one kid who always wears shorts" to wake me up.
The media never told me that either the life option or those schools exist. Nor did it tell those schools' victims that opposite cases like South Wales exist. By not discussing it, it left us both in our local bubbles thinking the whole country was like them. Folks still post shock at finding out online those schools still exist. My mother never thought it possible, she believed all question of shorts in winter had ceased to exist when the mid century boys' breeches era ended, and she dated that to late 50s, She thought the scouts' dropping of their old breech shorts included the cubs too. On all those she was wrong !
Particularly heartbreaking is about cubs: they had a shorts uniform then, but we did not know, because never saw them around, and I hated football, so when I was interested in joining cubs because a classmate did, my grandma, sourced from local chats, warned that they often played football and persuaded us cubs would not suit me. Other memories I have seen of fast failed experience of cubs have featured football, so it looks like she was right, but how devastatingly stupid that the national scale giver of a shorts uniform experience to thousands of boys had its activity unsuited to exactly more sensitive softer boys who would like shorts, like me, and trying to suit instead the rougher types who would be down on both shorts and the idealistic parts of scouting. That football barrier is how narrowly I failed to discover in childhood that a year round shorts identity really was doable and does not mean catching cold.
This sorrow could even happen to a kid in the place the Prime Minister was MP for, James Callaghan. At 10, I tested the feel of staying in shorts all through Oct at home, longing to push its beautiful feeling on into Nov, and as the season turned the nasal irritations left grimly clear that year round wearing was an impossible dream that could not exist. This is a very deep sorrow and anger that still makes me cry, when since waking up in only my 20s, I have been a year rounder for over 30 years, and have recognition of it as a work need as part of being autistic.

I wore short trousers all the time as a child. They were part of the compulsory uniform at the junior school and outside of school that was all my mother had for me to wear as well, was the same for most of the boys I knew. I would be in shorts all year round regardless of whether. At the seniors, the shorts were also compulsory up until the third year at the age of 13 when long trousers could be worn but that wasn't compulsory on the other hand, it was at the parents discretion. Many boys started wearing long trousers at this point and it was a sort of rite of passage that showed you were older and closer to adulthood. Not all mothers got their boys longs immediately at this point though, including mine. I quickly started to dislike them as they seemed a symbol of me still being a little boy.

I was kept in shorts until I was almost 16 by which point I was one of very few of my own age that I knew of. It was embarrassing when I would be somewhere with younger boys who were in longs while I was still there in my shorts. I was glad when I finally did get a pair of long trousers. I do wear shorts these days on hot summer days though (not grey flannel ones though).

As for punishment by being put back in shorts, that definitely went on with boys in those early teenage years. Never to me though, that ship had sailed by the time I got out of them in the first place.

My parents where old fashion so they kept me in shorts to school, church, home until I was 18.

My mum use to insist a wore long trousers in the winter months for school us she considered the journey a cold one. I hated being the only boy in long trousers in my class.

When not at school my Mum would dress me in my old school shorts as long trousers were not heavy duty enough.

Likewise long trousers were not smart enough for Sunday best. So Sundays even in winter I wore my newest shorts which were much shorter. I use to notice my legs looked longer in those shorts. I don't remember feeling any colder or warmer whatever I wore.

the worst time for shorts was winter. I vividly remember having to try and walk through deep snow with my bare legs being absolutely freezing. We were allowed to wear long trousers to school and then get changed to shorts in the cloakroom. Our mums thought that wearing shorts in deep snow would toughen us up.
Every winter we had deep snow and frozen legs.
Oh yes we also got snow down our wellies and wet socks.

I wore shorts to Junior school up to the age of 11, absolutely all the time. If you wore long trousers you were considered to be a sissy. So all the boys wore shorts. I cannot remember it bothering me, even walking to school in the snow.

I remember being very disappointed that I could not wear shorts to senior school, but largely made up for it at home wearing casual shorts almost all the time. Mainly the very brief denim shorts prevalent in the 1970's. Though my mother sometimes insisted on me wearing more formal shorts when she wanted me to be decent. So I did wear grey flannel shorts and neat corduroy shorts at various times right through my teens. Among the more unusual shorts worn were pairs of denim bib shorts, which I found to be OK.

I certainly still wear shorts very regularly even in the winter to this day.

Hi Mazza
Like you I wear shorts whenever it is possible. One of my biggest regrets is my parents were liberal and I was one of the first boys to wear long trousers in my class. I really hated that first winter in longs November to March. I was also last boy in my class to stop wearing shorts in the summer. Shorts were never compulsory at school but no wore them beyond 11. The last time I was made to wear shorts a was 12. I knew only one boy who wore older than me.

I don't think being put back in short trousers as a punishment would had worked on me as I always preferred shorts.

I wore shorts until I was 14½ but there were about 3 or 4 older at that time. However I kept wearing them for punishments, usually for two or four weeks. After about the second or third punishment I decided it would be better just to wear shorts but never had the courage to ask. My worst times wearing shorts was taking my A levels in them and at a family wedding when only a couple of other little boys were wearing them.

I do wear shorts now.

I grew up hating shorts, perhaps through having to wear them for school until I turned 13 and was about to go into the Third Year, when it was all long trousers.

It's only in the last decade or so I've started to wear shorts again, when warm enough - I feel the cold rather badly in my legs and feet. Sometimes, even my old school PE shorts, which had survived by a quirk of domestic history!

Short trousers at school until thirteen, but in the summer holidays for a further year or two. I was never put back in them as a punishment. My parents had other ways for that.