Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 12th September, 2024)

It looks like a factory outlet - I take it there’s no shops these days for the famous Slaters. Would I be right in thinking it’s somewhere in Wallgate?

We Brits are very good at forming orderly queues

When we went to school you could buy a coloured blazer from anywhere and then buy your school badge to sew onto the jacket. Same with other school clothes you just bought plain clothes and stitched your name into the item Now you have to pay top price for clothing with the school emblem all ready on the clothing sometimes even sports wear. Parents are being ripped off grand style

No school uniform when i was at primary/junior school in the 1950/60's, it is such an expense for working families these days when money is tight and likely to get tighter

There is a school uniform shop nearby my home in the south of England which always has large queues immediately before the start of the new school year. It is an expensive item and many parents need to leave it until the last minute in order to pay the outlay. Many parents have 2 children to purchase uniforms for.

Impressions of High Street Standish do school uniforms.

When I started school 1957 at least half of the lads had pants with patches upon patches. You never saw badges until senior school, when half the kids wore brothers and sisters hand me downs.

When I left school at fifteen I whizzed my satchel as far as I could throw it, tied the dreadful school tie to the school fence and said good bye to school forever.
I learned more about the world and the people in it after twelve months working than I ever learned from ten years of schooling.

Gone are the days of mothers shopping at the famous army and navy stores, and the poor lad starting school dressed as a Japanese admiral.

At first I thought it was a queue for a Food Bank!
There are a few smaller shops around selling school uniforms, we have one in Standish but we always found that Slaters carry more stock and sizes.
The last formal suit I bought was from Slaters in Deansgate Bolton last year, a great shop for menswear, not sure if they are connected.
No decent shops for men’s clothing left in Wigan anymore, I always go to Bolton, Warrington or Preston.
Having said that you can pick some really decent stuff up in Charity Shops!

It was such a good idea when schools made it compulsory.
It makes all the children equal and puts a stop to posh kids going to school wearing fancy designer sportswear.

Freddie, A lot of the local community charity shops sell secondhand uniforms for just a few coppers, so they are much cheaper than normal kids clothes

Freddie, A lot of the local community charity shops sell secondhand uniforms for just a few coppers, so they are much cheaper than normal kids clothes

For the record Please note Colin Taylor a new name on PAD is not me!

Colin Taylor I am all for school uniforms but why should certain retailers have total control of said uniforms? Why do pupils need clothes with the schools name on them,besides the blazer ,some schools they have the name on jumpers pants and sports wear? I even saw a teacher yesterday with a jumper with the schools name on it does he not know which school he works at?

I recall many years ago wearing a hideous bottle green uniform at St Pat’s. It didn’t matter where you got the uniform as long as it was bottle green. I always had hand knitted cardigans and we had to make our own bottle green baggy ‘ shorts’ for PE they ‘favvered’ the Army Shorts in ‘’It Ain’t Half Hot”. We made them in the first class aged 11 and they lasted until leaving school aged 15. Can’t imagine school children these days putting up with that!

https://competitionandmarkets.blog.gov.uk/2024/08/23/school-uniforms-is-your-policy-at-risk-of-breaking-the-law/

Birchall High School in Ashton changed the whole uniform colour, on a whim, a few years back. Imagine the cost of that to the parents of pupils.