On the instructions of the headmaster. Mr J S. Robinson, 20 boys and girls attending Hemel Hempstead Grammar School were sent home to surprised parents on Monday. The same course was adopted with another six on the following day. Their offences – failure to observe school uniform regulations.

Some of the boys had arrived wearing blue or cream shirts instead of the regulation grey, while in a number of other cases black jackets were being worn instead of the regulation blue.

The girls, for their part, had been guilty of wearing “slip-on” type shoes instead of laced shoes or sandals, and stockings instead of socks that should be worn during the summer. In a few other cases the girls had arrived without their panama hats.

[From the Watford Observer of May 24, 1957]