In the winter of 1962/63, in primary school in Yorkshire, with compulsory play outside, the milk in the school bottles froze inside the classroom; the cream would push the tops off.
She had this snooty Hyacinth Bucket vision of me as some sort of prince in waiting and would send me in a blazer, tie and shorts to my normal primary school, even in the snow.
I don’t wear shorts in winter, but today where I live (400 metres from the beach in Brittany) it is 6C outside and wet and windy.
The teachers would insist you drank your milk quickly (agony) before you were forced outside to “play” (taking it outside was forbidden in case you broke the bottle).
Feeling the need to wear shorts, or indeed short sleeves, is possibly an instinctive response to maximise the skin’s exposure to natural light.
