Blazers of glory

Most mornings on the way to work I pass students flowing out of Fulham Broadway tube station en route to the London Oratory School. They are an assorted bunch. Some seem more confident than others. One or two of the boys look immaculate, while others have clearly stirred their cornflakes with their ties. Some of the girls appear remarkably grown- up for their age — but presumably that’s my ‘how-come-policemen-are-getting-younger’ syndrome.

What they share apart, obviously, from wishing they were still tucked up in bed, is a uniform chosen for them by the school, which they have adapted with varying success to their own personalities or moods on any given day. They might think their uniforms are in some way stifling and repressing their true personalities, but nothing could be further from the truth. The room for individuality within a prescribed collective is obvious for everyone to see outside Fulham Broadway station. The colours may all be the same, but every ensemble is different. It was ever thus with school uniform — and my goodness how I used to hate it when I was a student. But I would defend it now as rigorously as I despised it then.

Learning to get around rules without technically breaking them is a life-skill, and one that’s useful to pick up at an early age. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a rule at my school that boys’ hair could not cover the ears or go too far over the collar. So bolshy specimens like me used to tuck our locks behind our ears like curtains folded over spindles and keep our heads at an angle when engaged in conversation with officious teachers whom we knew took an unsavoury delight in following the letter rather than spirit of the law.