School’s In
The state school kids walk down the Independent school children slide
hill their uniforms ‘customized’ to from Range Rovers, Mercedes and
define their identity, identically more, driven up the hill by a parent,
individual. Girls with ruler straight they wait patiently for the boot lid to
hair, darkly lined doe eyes and thick open automatically, thus saving the
foundation, pert breasts forced energy it takes to lift it. Their
skywards under polo shirts with St discreet sports bags are smart and
Someone’s embroidered. Boys unmarked. The senior boys look like
hiding school clothes under hoodies, daddy clones, in navy blazers, beige
pushing the boundaries of accepted chinos immaculately pressed, ties
footwear. Some of each gender perfectly ordered around proud
brazenly taking the odd puff of fag. necks. Pink cheeked girls, knee
Boys shove their mobiles in their length skirts, tidy hair and not a
back pocket; girls show theirs off smudge of lippy anywhere. The
while they Facebook and tweet. occasional middle nowhere voice of
Check out the street corners, you’ll mummy, ‘Darling, please don’t
see some Good Morning gropes. forget the Humphrey-Pococks
Hugs or fights. are dining tonight.’
Lucid Gypsy 
Graphic description of the school parade! Love the idea of senior boys as “daddy clones”!
Oh this is such fun Gilly, and so nicely observed. I do love the up and downness of it all. It works even better in email. It’s like a puzzle there that I enjoyed working out. May I send you a copy?
Hahaha thanks Isobel, my friends has just shown me how it arrives in an email – a mess!!! serves me right for trying to be clever – I formatted it in two columns as a word document and then copy/pasted. It turned out in two paragraphs with a big gap between so I then created new line ending and did a whole load of cut/pastes! It will probably put most people off so thanks for your patience! I think it looks as its supposed to in the blog 🙂
I liked it like that. Better I think, because it emphasised the steps and one group going up the hill and the other going down…
Brought my son to school yesterday after a long weekend. It feels great as a parent to bring him to school everyday. Lately he wants me to bring him inside his school holding my hand and all. Lucky me. He’s only six. I know one day when he grows up he would say, “dad, wait for me in the car,” when he’s around his cool friends. Precious times we need to savor as much as we can. Wonderful post. Reminds us all of how we were once in school uniforms, minus the cellphones, facebook and tweeter! Have a blessed day!
Ah enjoy your little boy while he’s so young they grow up so quick, I can’t believe my kids are in their thirties already. How times have changed, I had a neat school uniform, a satchel and would be in big trouble if I forgot anything. We didn’t even have a landline at home and had to go to a call box for a telephone! Simple times! Thanks for visiting me!
Great observations. I love the contrasts here, great piece. 😉
Thanks Louise for your nice comments and for visiting me, I love your blog!
hello!
loved every word!
since i’m in the States, I have a few questions about the types of schools. I’m assuming independent schools are analagous to our ‘private’ schools, where tuition is paid? when you say “state” schools I was a tad confused so would love to know how your system functions? Here, we have public schools run by city or county districts but there are no dress codes. (in this country with rare exception, the Catholic schools are the only edu institutes requiring uniforms; they have Saint names and are run by church dioceses seperate from the state)
Hi Karen! We have state schools which are free to all and the majority of children attend these. Independent, private or public schools are all fee paying and they usually have some sort of entrance exam as well (to make sure there is some hope of maintaining there high GCSE and A level results and consequently University entrance). They often produce a very different breed of kids! Virtually all schools have uniform as its seen as a leveler, but often teenagers will have their own interpretation of how they wear them. In a few places there are still exams at age 11 to stream off the brightest kids for grammar school (I went to one) but these are becoming more unusual. We also have some Church aided schools which can be fee paying or mainly state funded.
Thanks for visiting me and i’m glad you liked it! 🙂
hey, thank you!!! you explained that perfectly for me! One of the things I like most about blogging is connecting with international people….really helps round out the knowledge base!
thanks for checking back on the comments too, btw….seems not alot of people do it very often!!
I also love the connections I’ve made around the world, it makes blogging such a rich experience! I always read my comment and try to respond but it does become difficult to keep up as you grow!
I enjoyed this post… brilliant! 😉