The past few days must have been the usual last minute mad rush to get all things ready, books, bags, shoes, and yes, uniforms.

Rushing to get the uniform for my son, I could not help reminiscing the old days when, at least, we need not have to rush to a shop just to get the necessary uniform.

Photo courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

Ah, in those days, the designs were more generic. Especially so for the boys. Chances are it would be a white shirt and white linen shorts/longs, or navy-blue ones. While for the boys, not much have changed, the shirts might not be pure cotton and the pants might not be linen.

While it was metalic school badges, these days, they are embroidered. And there’s the vest, the socks with the school insignias and the necessary PE t-shirts and shorts too.

In our days, chances are that even the uniforms could be hand-me-down, perhaps, with some stitches here or there. I could also remember, trying to prevent stains on the collars caused by perspiration, we would wrap the collar with a handkerchief.

Shoes? Chances are it would be sing-ma(?) or nanyang. These days, it could well be Nike, New Balance or well, there’s still the Bata, which was the expensive ones in the old days. Our favourite shoes in the secondary school days were the “basketball shoes” which had the ankle protections.

Yes, we have indeed come a long way. And our school uniforms these days are almost like what we used to read in the English storybooks and wondered why we did not wear the same. (^^)