I have been forced to wear lots of clothes throughout my life, most of them were formal and stuffy. When I was little, I was forced to wear the clothes my mother picked for me, and I no free choice to pick my own. That didn’t change until I became a teenager. I wanted to grow my hair long, but I wasn’t allowed to. I wanted to wear fashionable clothes, but I had to wear formal, ‘church’ clothes. When I see children running their parents ragged in shops, being fussy over what clothes they want to wear, I think that my mother would never stand for it. 

We didn’t have uniforms in the 60s, when I was at primary school, but I had to wear quite formal stuff. In secondary school, I had a uniform of white shirt, tie, blue jumper, black trousers and shoes. Strict school uniform policy was always a bore, but I think a basic one is good to have, because it saves parents and pupils from the pressure of wearing expensive clothes for school. 

When I became old enough to make my own choices, I became a heavy rock fan, grew my hair long and wore denim all the time. I had long hair until I was in my thirties. 

My first jobs were in shops. In one, I had to wear a hideous red checked shirt, clip on kipper tie, blue trousers with a sewn-in crease, and a huge badge that said ‘Hi I’m Paul’ on it. That was an awful uniform that unfortunately, I had to wear for several years. 

Socialising was no different. In the late 70s early 80s, you couldn’t get in a night club unless you wore formal clothes – shirt, tie, and proper shoes, no trainers, chinos, or denim. It was a cruel twist of fate, because I was geeky enough, without having to chat girls up wearing a shirt and tie! 

Later jobs found me wearing suits and ties, which lasted until I was in my mid-thirties, when I started working in schools and I could switch back to wearing only shirt and ties. The irony of being a teacher was that I became the uniform police myself. I was the one that had to check the children were wearing the correct shoes and shirt etc. Truly, I despised doing it. In my opinion, children should not be punished for decisions their parents made about what clothing they were sent to school in. I was once given the cane for wearing the wrong jumper to school. I protested that my mother had made me wear it, but to no avail. I cannot see the logic in such strict school uniform policy and argued with many headteacher over it, but it was like arguing with my mother. 

My final professional uniform was wearing my own company polo shirt, which I wore when I delivered training, workshops and lectures. I found it extremely frustrating that men were expected to hold much higher uniform expectations that women, but then hey, I think in the long run they have a much harder time of things than men do, so I’ll shut up. 

So, to answer the question, if I had to wear one set of clothes over and over, what would it be? Well, that would be t-shirt and jogging bottoms of course, because there’s nothing more comfortable than them. When I think back, my grandad used to sit in the house at night wearing his shirt, trousers and shoes. He didn’t even have slippers! How times have changed. We are so lucky in our modern times, and I’m grateful for the luxuries we have. So yes, wearing uniforms has been a chore in life, but I’ll take that over the difficulties previous generations had and the sacrifices they had to make to get me to here.