Carol’s Column

Cast off your school uniforms

BLAME it all on Totius Claudius (known as Tote to his very good friends), an early Roman Emperor.

He began it all.

One balmy day, in midsummer, while trotting down the Appian Way, surrounded by several cohorts, he turned to his chief of staff, Humphonius Polonius, and said: "We shall have togas."

Humphonius was flabbergasted.

He adjusted his loin cloth and inquired: "Togas, Oh Mighty Emperor?" (they were very polite in those days).

"Yes togas," replied Tote.

"We, the guardians, shall wear white togas and the auxiliaries we'll stick into pale green so that they may blend with the countryside.

"Gladiators will look pretty jolly in purple pantaloons and as for slaves — ah well, slaves need only wear loin cloths. Get it?"

He continued: "That way we'll be able to recognise each other even after a hard night out at the Colosseum. Anyway it'll really brighten up things at the Senate."

At that stage, he stopped to adjust his laurel wreath which had dropped over his left eye — giving him a somewhat rakish look.

His eyes, albeit squint, lit up with inspiration.

"We shall call these togas uniforms. Each person shall be uniform in his uniform."

"And the women?" ventured Humphonius Polonius timidly, "what about the women?"

Tote scratched his left ear lobe (his right one had been ripped off in a noble tryst with his current concubine).

"Ah, the women we'll dress in silk togas of a low cut so that their outstanding assets may be displayed to perfection."

Tote smiled — a wicked grin that made him resemble the despotic warrior that indeed he was.

"We will issue a decree in the Government Gazette," he said.

"I really like the idea of uniforms."

It must have happened something like that I ruminated to myself as I absent-mindedly took a bite out of one of the children's salami and pickled cucumber sandwiches on whole-wheat bread.

They say pickled cucumbers refurbish tired brain cells.

It was an amazing thought.

And here we were, about 2 000 or so years later, still on the Totius Claudius tack.

Only today, it was a group of school principals who somewhere had got together and said: "We shall sport a different uniform for each school so that we may tell our own people apart.

"And within our own schools — each and every pupil will look exactly the same."

Perhaps they'd added as an afterthought: "Furthermore, we will make the boys suffer, for they need strengthening."

The implication being that women were already strong, you understand.

Yes, it must have happened like that I thought to myself as I watched my two high school sons trudge off to school on this it's-so-hot-you-could-fry-an-egg-on-the-pavement summer's day.

Bursting Adam's apples — for they were almost young men — were incarcerated in stiffly buttoned-up, starched, white-collared shirts.

Their necks were strangled by threadbare ties that blew behind them as they rode off on their two-wheel chariots.

"For heaven's sake, don't get your ties caught in the spokes," I yelled as they departed, weighed down by their thick pure-wool blazers.

Their young legs encased in thick, long, grey trousers, their feet tucked sweatily into regulation nylon-non-breathing grey socks and hard black leather shoes.

Black so that they might absorb every bit of heat from the boiling, broiling African sun and hard in order that the feet may not move too freely within their restrictive confines.

After all, what could be worse than liberated feet?

The sun beat down relentlessly as they cycled into the distance — their knee caps perspiring in the heat.

This is ridiculous, I thought to myself.

Besides, how on earth do they ever tell the difference between all those children looking like green clones in their green uniforms.

I mean, even I have difficulty in distinguishing my own family from each other. It's only when they stand up that I can tell the difference due to the varying heights.

Something had to be done.

I phoned my spiritual mentor, Bertha Bones, a militant mother of seven sons.

"I agree," she said aggressively, "but what can one do? How can we banish these ridiculous uniforms?"

And then it came to me.

"Sabotage!" I shouted triumphantly down the line.

"We will undercut and undermine the uniform — demolish and destroy!"

That night, surreptitiously, I cut off one leg of Barry's thick, grey, serge trousers plus the edge of Ralph's blazer.

Neither son noticed and both set off to school in the regular way.

It gave me such pleasure to see Barry's free knee blowing in the breeze as it pedalled furiously away.

The following day I removed the sleeves from both blazers.

Their arms were now free to move — the strait-jacket appearance of the blazers had been radically changed by such a minor cut.

Slowly, day by day, I removed pieces of uniform.

Until this morning, when they both came down to breakfast almost totally unencumbered.

"It's a trifle chilly," remarked Ralph.

Barry was more explicit.

"Ma," he said as he sat down to breakfast, "look, I appreciate your sentiments — I know how you feel — indeed we both do.

"We know you think this uniform is unhealthy, stupid — and to put it more strongly — absurd."

He paused to take a spoonful of yoghurt, then continued plaintively:

"But Ma, we're the only two boys in the whole school who wear their ties as loin cloths.

"Now don't you think that's a little extreme?

"Please think about it as it creates problems at school. Not least of all when the wind blows."

I looked at both my sons.

"You mustn't let little things get you down," I said.

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