An item on BBC news just now about starched collars. Needless to say sodding Gosfield Park or whatever it's called got a mention.
I was supposed to have some starched collars for my last school, and was provided with some. They were dealt with correctly, if expensively, by the school laundry, starched and pressed to make them stiff, white and shiny.
But they were damned uncomfortable to wear, and fiddly to put on with collar studs. They abraded one's neck unpleasantly. Actually they are a squalid Victorian expedient intended (along with starched detachable cuffs) to make a sweaty, grubby shirt last for a week, just the collar and cuffs being changed daily. Yuck! And after a while they would get yellow or otherwise grubby where they abraded one's neck. Dried blood and DNA probably...
None of the rich boys at the school bothered with them. They just had shirts, often with assorted collar stiffeners to stop the collar from curling up, either little plastic inserts (which got mangled if left in during laundering) or a device with springs and prongs that left the collar points a bit threadbare after a while.
Gosport Park... tchah! Load of goddam cobblers.
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Laundry new
Laundry new