The weather has changed, after a long and glorious period of sunshine. Trousers, not shorts. Boots, not sandals. Socks! A tee shirt! A waterproof to go outside! Why did it fill me with deep-seated gloom this morning, such a feeling that Heaven had ended and Hell, or at least Purgatory, was about to commence? Now I remember. Fifty or more years ago, on the first day of term after the long summer holidays, climbing unwillingly into trousers instead of jeans, proper shoes, a clean shirt, struggling to tie the hated school tie, then donning the beastly stifling blazer. Back to school, with all that it implied. The constraints of the clothing were just a pre-echo of the constraints of school life.
Bill