Boyhood fashion musings

Sometimes I talk a bit about attire on here, sometimes about whatever may be on my mind, sometimes more around boys regression and I feel that makes it different.

That's always been what makes this blog different than the others, it's a bit "behind the scenes" and it has a different sort of focus really.

One thing that has fascinated me really from childhood onwards are fashion trends and how they influence even those things that are not really meant to be fashionable by design.

For instance there was during the late eighties a push on Grandfather Shirts with rounded necks that never really took off and then there was the battle between the traditional duffle coat versus the cool 'mod' influenced Parker Jacket with its fur trimmed hood and the push in the late 80's for the Baseball jacket, not that as Brits we generally play that game.

I did have a few at the time!

But anyway the big one was waists on our underpants, shorts and long trousers because if you get low waisted shorts with high or natural waisted underpants you usually end up with a fair bit showing at the rear!

Thing is I remember when I was much younger how the waists of my shorts were and any 'tailored' longs too and they went to your natural waist - the thing we measure to get our trousers to fit - and that our shirt tails were longer than today.

Toss in our interlocking vests and underpants and that was snug.

This boys are at the natural waist and that was how it looked with a sleeveless jersey or standard jersey on.

As I got older I started to notice the waist bands started getting lower and starting to feel draughts more around the small of my back (my spine is curved, usually in pain and I notice stuff like this) and it got to the point that in America, then President Obama felt obliged to call out the trend for those wearing "low rider" trousers showing not just the waist band of their underpants but a fair bit of bum!

Where did this low waist trend come from and was it about just saving material costs?

Things come together eventually II

Last week I was talking a bit about how in a number of ways I am finding myself acting and being more of my emotional age not least with how the current Pandemic is affecting  life in a lot of ways.

For instance I have read from time to time comics although I haven't had a regular one in the way that growing up (allegedly) I had that you'd know that say every Wednesday you get the Beano come through the door or that at weekends my nan would give me the weeks Dandy although I do have a regular football magazine currently fortnightly.

That will be changing soon but just you know being to just say that able to say that to my parents as an everyday tidbit of chat without it being an issue is an indication that they too have accepted how I've changed.

I mean they do see me in and pre covid we'd been out for meals in grey school shorts, a school shirt with tie and grey turn over socks.

I did mention how I am seen and am treated in the wider community last time but an interesting thing happened this weekend as I was walking back home passing the house next door to a man I've know from (official) boyhood.

I walk passed looking from left to right with a woolly bobble hat on as a woman probably in their 40's or 50's opens the door to put the milk bottles out as I go by just striking my nose with a finger which is probably a nervous tic.

Anyway she looks toward me and shouts "You can look. I'm keeping a close eye on you" without adding any other word such as "Laddie" but the general tone is very much one of a woman addressing and admonishing a child.

It isn't a conversation with an adult. There is no "Excuse me why are you...." just a child pre-judged and cautioned anyway.

Obviously she is reading me as a boy! 

All I can say is it's a feeling I remember very much from being "Told off" for going down a path to the playground by a woman who lived by it. In Public!!!

Things come together eventually

We enter a new month as the old and the new as ever crisscross in my life as one sad thing was the funeral of Karen's father which followed about a year back her mothers, a man most respected by all of us and the wider community of which he was a pillar.

That on top of the loss of Karl's father kind of reminds you of how the bone age is advancing, a point he raised with me the other week when he enquired about my parents who naturally are of a similar age which bearing in mind we were all in the same class in Juniors isn't that surprising

The difference in a way is while they have some traits still from childhood, they're not mentally in grey shorts like me or pinafore dresses in the way some adult little girls may be, not that I'd know and if anything the thing I can say is today more perhaps than ever I've jettisoned much of the thin surface of simulated adulthood for the position of that boy called "sonny" by men and with just as much real say and authority as a ten year old child.

Covid has had lots of effects but for me the bigger one has been to just living more as a boy subservient to adult authority, having to follow the rules no matter what, being overseen, guided and verbally chastised standing in shortened grey shorts by men who are my adult authority figures as a boy of nine or ten who are younger in bone years.

I am more conscious of my emotional age finding my level returned just a boy and yet in such a trying uncertain situation more comfortable  for just doing what grown ups tell me.

Clean up in aisle four

While I get better I thought I would post some thoughts around a subject that's been a matter of controversy ever since the internet has been a thing from the earliest IBB's to modern social media, moderation.

All sites have rules usually set out somewhere prominent that take in two important elements, the terms of reference and standards the person running it has set AND that of whoever is hosting it plus the latter can and does wag the tail of the former.

No host accepting you=no site (Unless you self host)

When it comes to rules about the terms of reference of the site, they should say what it is about, what sorts of posts are considered acceptable and examples of what is not by content and the use of any and all images.

For instance mine has limits on the mention of c.p. and a no images of rule because that would put into Adult Content territory which our host doesn't accept. End of.  We do accept talking about childhood.

On the other hand ASB.NET does allow c.p. but has a no mention, depiction or suggestion of anything that may be seen as or about a child even your own childhood which is at least in part a host restriction.

Every so often you will have a person push the boundaries of your site either by content such as posting material contrary to the rules or posting material that does not fit within what the person who started the thread intended and belongs elsewhere.

You can move posts and message, which is a preference of mine, delete the posts as off topic or otherwise against the rules in the latter sending a warning to say nay more and you may be banned.

Personally I am pro inform,monitor and deal with the posts but this may not work with the kind of person who just feels the forum is for and about their posts, thinking their ought to be higher authorities  they should be able to appeal to.

The internet is not like that, you join a site seeing what it is about and it's rules and a Mod's word is the last on the topic.

Likewise you have members who want to leave they may of change their interests or taken offence at something or other and before you know it it's "I want to remove my account" or "Please remove my posts" instructions you're getting.

Deleting accounts is difficult as you tend to find several days later the individual wants to rejoin but by that point hard deleting accounts means they can't get back to where they were.

Removing posts is a minefield that I have strong views on from moderating a large site for a period.

The problem with removing an individual person's post is that often they reference and are referenced by other peoples posts who have not asked for their posts to be removed that may of taken them good time to type to be removed.

I believing in respect them in the moderation process and so may may amend a post with a [Mod note....] inserting to explain what was in the other person's removed post the person referred to unless the content was unacceptable.

The other person's posts will be removed if agreed the at time but because of the complications it takes time, MY TIME, I will add to do this properly.

I don't apologize for NOT removing threads which may of been started by the one who wants her or his posts removing but other people have posted on it because simply those other people haven't consent to losing posts AND the topic is valid.

Do not go whining to me that I should of removed the whole thread just because your post is no longer the opening one. You are a guest at the forum and not bigger than it.

If you do come back you can always repost what it was then.

Harvest break week thoughts

After tomorrow what was my Junior School breaks up for the Harvest break for just over a week a ritual that was punctuated by Harvest Festival that usually meant learning a reading, the whole Juniors practising the hymns, the Minister or Vicar giving a talk about harvest and thanksgiving and a collection by us with help from our parents of food to help the most needy in our community.

It's probably apt then that I spoke for a bit this weekend with Karl who was one of my boyhood friends at Junior School and, knowing me, is one of many boys and girls of that era here who respect me for what I made of my life given the stack of cards I had, doing things that many of them didn't.

We spoke with the natural ease of boys together many decades on that reminds you of that bond and those shared values you had and as the week progresses there is every probability I will see todays boys of the age we were who curiously enough are just the current generation version of us and exchange a few words with as they play and I enjoy what has become this lockdown my playtime too.

Boyhood is a link across the generations.

*based upon a ide from the old TSB and the wordpress back up.

Past childhood into new adult-childhood

In some ways this post is a complementary post a post a few years back on the regular blog really because reading is a part of my regression, a getting back to my natural child-like state that puts me in Little Space as such as it is about maintaining my limited ability to read and from that to learn about new things and new words.

Sometimes people argue about  you can have parts in your Little Space that are not of the era you were brought up in as if they are not emotionally an authentic part of you so that if say you were brought up in say the nineteen fifties, you cannot have plushies or have say books from other eras.

In my regressed world you can add some things into it so say action figures can be complemented by say a Teddies or Dinosaur plushie because it's function and utility to is the same, you play with it, it comforts you as hold and hug it as the inner child you are.

We didn't have computers then just typewriter's and diaries but they are in our new childhood not just for publishing and printing but for playing games and reading about things and our hallway telephone is often now a mobile phone that fits in our shorts pocket.

In much the same way to read say the books of Jacqueline Wilson is a part of understanding a part of contemporary childhood with the objects and experiences our age in it, that can aid me understand more of this age I'm travelling through as the hybrid adult-child I am.

The core though is very much routed in era I was brought up in not least the extent to which the stories I read or were read to me reflected the social norms around us even though things were and did change over time and in that context re-writing them so much of the social structure is missing but the dialogue sounds dated even for those of us who lived through the nineteen seventies and eighties just muddles it all up.

One might as well say for arguments sake have " Noddy goes to school" re-written by (insert editors) based on a story by Enid Blyton  as miss out the whole section when in the class room a slipper is hanging by the chalkboard and when a child is naughty, is instructed to fetch it but hesitates, Noddy (trying to be obliging and not realizing what it symbolizes) says "I'll fetch it for you Miss!" because that was just how it was like in the first year of Infant school where we got a few spanks in front of the class as we all learned school discipline as a class.

Such things were and are part of the authentic emotional sense of the inner-child me tapping into my experiences and to part of how we were brought up and part of Caregiver to little re-parenting.
Consider this quote:
 
"Big-Ears the goblin was always on the look-out for anything he could take. Sometimes it was an apple off a barrow, or off somebody's tree. Sometimes it was a biscuit from the counter of Mr. Butter the grocer's and sometimes a few flowers from a garden.

He was too clever to be found out, which was a pity, because a good spanking would have done him a lot of good, and might have stopped his bad ways. But nobody ever spanked him or locked him up for a night, so Big-Ears grew worse and worse. "

 It's from the "Hi Feather-tail!" Noddy story in Enid Blyton's Sunshine collection where clearly we are talking about teaching Big-Ears right from wrong from an early age in they way that was the norm then. No 'but they have (insert) syndrome so they can't help it and there is an implicit idea that it's the adults who are to work on managing your behaviour so you learn to however difficult it may be. You learn social limits, not be exempted from them.

It is very relevant because truthfully I had the same traits as Big-Ears, was pretty good at not being found out so my behaviour had gotten worse and worse in my hybrid adult-child life and why it is spanking has been put back into it, to re-parent me in the way we were expected to so so adult-child me learns to conform.

Or take the following exchange from Claudine at St Clare's one of six novels in the St. Clares girls boarding school series Enid wrote:

"If I wasn't in the fourth form I'd give you the hardest spanking you've ever had in your life, Angela. A good spanking would be the best thing you could have."

"Nobody has ever laid a finger on me in my life."
The first person speaking is Carlotta, the wild ex circus girl who is a Prefect and that is Angela's  retort.
 This like the other quote has now been removed from current editions on sale  but it rings very true in that Prefects and Head Girls and Boys did have that delegated authority with one threatening me with quite a spanking if I was caught smoking in school.

It also had to be said, it wasn't just them that did, so did teachers.

That was the kind of thing that was not so much the core plot but very much in the background of those stories I loved by Enid Blyton such as the girls boarding school  Malory Towers, St. Claire's series and referenced in the Famous Five.

For being there you got more of a feeling of how each character felt, empathizing with them in their situations that you also knew of that either wholesale deletion of a paragraph or  replacing the word with a say scolding doesn't work because expecting a scolding feels different than say expecting a spanking.

What happens is therefore more believable for being set with the social expectations and sanctions of that very era where pretty much everything else is at odds with Twenty-first century  Britain anyway.
It is in the form of novels, a depiction of the world that in the past I was brought up in so in their attempt to render a depiction of the past in terms that are seen as 'right on' so-called 'politically correct' is in so may ways a tampering with our recollection not just of these texts and how they they were a part of our lives but also of our recollection of the world as it was as that child around seven to thirteen as we lived it.

Grown ups are more than entitled to debate the rights and wrongs of our era (although a return to that era's values and sanctions is helping me no end) but in airbrushing the world we knew, they are not simply disrespecting us who loved reading these books at the time, enjoying re-reading them later in life, they fail to give a basis to explain to newer young readers the difference between now and then, muddling up the past.

The battle of the Scouting Blogs

It's been a cold and pretty wet weekend as we went out of September and dropped in many ways into October which has seen more activity on my own forum which is good to know as it's getting on for about two years old now.

This week I do wish to talk a bit about what has seemed to me to be a battle of blogs around scouting that started around 2018 when there were on Tumblr a number such as Neckerchief's which was about uniformed youth organizations that used the neckerchief and, a mainly german centred one and particularly roverscout1love.

Given some of the issues I was having on Tumblr with one account (TSB 2) terminated, I decided to make a blog centred around Scouting as I had found myself on Tumblr blogging more and more on the topic and at the same time decided to make a long form extended version here on Blogger.

As usual, often tumblr users do blog each others posts, sometimes and in my case often adding detail and commentary on an image and so it was that I did use some of roverscout1love's and in time mine it had to be said was quite a popular one for its comments and fresh content.

Little did I realize that when for some reason that tumblr of his got terminated without any good reason, it was going to get a lot tougher as seeing he'd returned as roverscoutandy that a discrete inquiry privately as to that account being his was to lead to him blocking all of my tumblrs from it and anyone who who reblogged his content.

This on top of the reduction due to termination of an number of scouting blogs was starting to affect my blog which was when I decided to originate more of my own image content to the point of using my own pictures and put in more about the "me" bit on scouting to make it stand out which it did until inexplicably every tumblr account including the one with that one was terminated. I have my suspicions about how that came to be but they're staying under my hat.

That was why it was it remained on blogger and continues to run charting not just the past in scouting, the movement today but also my own scouting having quite a following.

I've always tried to make mine different, not being content to just plonk a picture as if to say just pictures of scouting were enough when a number including his don't have any other detail.

His has not been updated since July 4th while mine is three times a week with substantial entries, mine has fresh content including the odd essay, his has pictures.

To me it shows an approach in blogging regardless of platform that is about adding and making an entry distinct that shows your personality counts.

Whatever the real issue was with him regarding me, my blog stands out.