The School Cap

 

Does anyone know when the School Cap ceased to be worn? Was it worn from the earliest days of the school?

Some boys, who perhaps inherited theirs, had classier-looking caps than the type my mother bought for me when I joined the school. That type was possibly a "Utility" version originating during the war years. I hated caps in general but found the Peter Symonds cap of the time with its garish alternate segments of bright yellow and blue, particularly loathsome (the yellow, incidentally, turned greenish when rained upon for the first time). My mother loved it though despite the fact that the combination of garish cap and short-back-and sides haircut made my sticky-out ears even more prominent.

In summer, especially around Founders Day, the better-off sported straw boaters, do you remember that? I never manage to aspire to that but later on I did get a new cap (was my head swelling due to increased knowledge I wonder?) and the design of this cap reverted to the earlier one I had seen on some of the prefects when I joined the school. The "new" cap was of superior quality and much more expensive to boot. Good business for that little shop in the High Street which today would be at risk of being reported to the monopolies commission. Regrettably the first day I wore it, probably some time in 1952, an older boy enquired whether it had a "Whee" in it, took it from my head and threw it through the air, gleefully shouting "wheeeeee". It fell in a puddle.