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FITTING IN – PART 23.7

I hate uniforms.

I know you need them in certain professions. You need to be able to find a policeman or a nurse when you need one. You need to know if the person trying to kill you is officially allowed to.

So why do we need them when we are little school children?

‘Oh well, darling,’ my mother said, ‘it’s so the poor children can look the same as the rest of us.’

Really mother? But, I don’t think there are any poor children at my school.

We all know the truth, don’t we?

School uniforms are to do exactly what they say – to make you uniform. Not to help the poor. That would be a first, wouldn’t it mummy, apart from the money you put in your SPC* missionary box each week so patronising middle-

class bastards can go round the world ‘rescuing’ the poor ignorant savages with bibles, cigarettes, alcohol and guilt?

School uniforms are the first step on the ladder to make you fit in so you will grow up not rocking the boat.

And the poor children don’t look the same as us because they haven’t got posh school uniforms from Harrods like we had at boarding school. They’ve got clothes made out of nylon and they haven’t got lovely embroidered Cash’s Name Labels sewn into their anoraks have they? But then, they wouldn’t be much use to them would they, because they probably can’t read anyway.

‘But thank you mummy for explaining everything.’

*The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. I actually had a great love for this missionary box and became quite an expert at getting money out of it with a kitchen knife. I think my mother probably never knew because she didn’t empty it. She just handed it over to ‘Vicar’ who gave her a fresh one to fill up.