Did you wear the kilt?

[hielandladdie]

I just wondered how many of our members wore the kilt when they were
boys and how they felt about wearing it. I also wondered what they
wore under their kilts when they were lads, I was given girl's bottle
green school knickers to wear under mine and knew many other lads who
wore the same or girl's navy blue school knickers and wondered if
anyone would be interested in passing on their experiences wearing the
kilt.

[hamish]

I wore a kilt most of my boyhood, even to school. I hardly ever wore
the short trousers which boys in those days had to wear. It seems
incredible nowadays but generally boys only got their first long
trousers when they were about 13 or 14 and I know of one mother who
kept her son in short trousers until he was 16! Poor boy. So the kilt
was an attractive alternative. There was a certain amount of
trepidation when you first went out in a kilt, to a big gathering, or
to a new school. The kilt is very prone to being lifted up. You
expected to be teased and you were! Fortunately there were a few other
boys wearing kilts in my area so it was not so bad.

You ask what was worn under our kilts. In the 1950s and 60s, like you,
most kilted boys usually wore girls gym pants (the famous school
knickers) which, for girls, doubled as PE wear and ordinary underwear.
For boys those pants were only for kilt underwear - special black
shorts were worn for PE. Green was probably the most popular colour
for boys kilt knickers, followed by navy blue. In some families, it
also depended on whether or not you had an older sister - you often
got her cast offs of whatever colour they were. It never seemed to be
the other way around if you had a younger sister. But when there was
no other female relative the knickers were bought specifically for the
kilted boy and could even be a colour to tone with the tartan of his
kilt. When we got to about 16 some mothers began to wonder about
sending their sons out in a female undergarment. The problem was that
in those days there was no really obvious alternative to the knickers.
Male pants were uniformly white or cream which was rather unsuitable
for underkilt wear. The upmarket kilt shops like Forsyths, Pettigrew &
Stephens, Paisleys etc used to supply little tailored undershorts in
the same tartan as the kilts they supplied. A kilt would generally
come with two pairs of undershorts and this was fine for Sunday wear.
But for everyday wear the shorts never lasted nearly as long as the
kilt. Also they were horrendously expensive. Some of my friends
started to wear boys black gym shorts which had to be shortened
because they came almost to the knee in their original length. Others
wore swimming trunks or rugby shorts. But as often as not the older
boys, now young men, when choosing kilt underwear, reverted back to
the original knickers. I remember wearing knickers right through
University with a couple of pairs of tartan trews for Sunday best.

Hope that you and others found this of interest. Otherwise we should
just have a private conversation.

H