Growing up in Australia I recall fondly our school days during the summer months; in high school we girls would sit in the playground ’hot spot’ with our school dresses rolled up above the knees (a bit further when the nuns were not in sight) and sun-bake. Someone always had some Reef Oil, Hawaiian Tropic (when it used to come in a brown glass bottle) or Coppertone bronzing sun oil in her school bag (we often went straight to the beach after school) – and it had to be in Frangipani, avocado or coconut fragrance otherwise you were not true beach culture and your tan just would not be the same. Sometimes you put Johnson and Johnson’s Baby Oil on your skin, but only if you didn’t mind peeling the next day and only if you didn’t have money to buy the proper tanning oils – all SPF products were just a no-no. On the weekend you’d only go to one place – the beach – you wore Crystal Cylinder t-shirts or little shorts and we lusted over the gorgeous surfie in the Cylinder TV commercial. Didn’t he hang out at Dee Why or South Curl Curl…?
By mid-summer we all sported golden honey-toned skin, sun streaked hair (from the salt water surf) and against our ankle-short white school socks our legs shone golden brown; we represented everything that was great about growing up in a beach-side suburb of Sydney. We wore sea-shell necklaces around our necks (and you only got away with wearing these if you actually hung out at the beach on the weekends), and our school dresses short-ish as the nuns patrolled such things – but our tanned legs justified it and we really envied the girls who went to the state high schools, no nuns to wield tape measures at them so they got away with extra short skirts and being extra rebellious. And in the 70′s being rebellious was the thing to be. Our school dresses were in colours that complimented our tans too – pale blue, yellow, pale mint-green. How different it is here in the UK…
Here the school girls tend to look like this…
Now let’s get a few things straight; at my school, girls who for some inexcusable reason had pale white legs knew better than to bare them in the summer - girls who had legs like tree trunks (see above) opted for school trousers (winter) or longer hems (summer) – wise choice. If your legs did not come up to scratch – and there were no harsher judges than your school mates – you did not even dream of wearing your hem short. The consequences were just too awful – the social consequences were unbearable, no-one would even stand near you! 
British school girls at a school here have demanded the right to wear what they like and as short as they like. Listen, just because you can girls does not mean you should. Here in Northern Ireland the “I’ll wear my skirt as short as possible even though my legs are rubbish” thing is endemic. They look slovenly - and their sturdy white legs are paraded even throughout the depths of a bitterly cold winter when everyone else is in tights. When I went to school we certainly pushed the skirt-length boundaries but we did it with style; we looked tidy, no hideous fake orange tans (it should be banned by law) or pierced faces. We were proud of the way the combination of the surf and sun naturally bleached our hair with blonde steaks in the summer so we always wore our hair with pride, no make-up either other than a little pastel eye-shadow because with a natural golden tan you don’t need it…make-up was for old women or slags anyway. And if you were fat you were…well – forget it – you didn’t sit with US !
I suggest to those unkempt looking girls pictured above to take a look in the mirror – their friends too – they look awful. You don’t HAVE the legs for showing off so do us all a favour and COVER THEM UP !!!
Photo Credit (Top): Dan Himbrecht.
Bottom Photos: Daily Mail
Nor have we – we have only just had our new dish installed but I kind of wish we had waited because I am none too pleased with the nightly offerings served up as ‘entertainment’.
I am not a good dental patient; even though dentists these days are wonderful I still spend the week leading up to the appointment in a cold sweat. Once I am in the chair I am fine – it is just the thought of it all…
And what people had to say…