One of the peculiarities of British school terminology was that the dreaded “slipper” was frequently nothing of the sort.
What pupils wore on their feet might be called pumps, plimsolls, gym shoes or sandshoes, depending upon where in Britain they lived.
Yet once precisely the same article was removed from somebody’s foot and employed for disciplinary purposes, it somehow became “the slipper.”
There were exceptions.
Some schools apparently did use genuine household or carpet slippers. One recollection describes a tartan carpet slipper kept permanently in a boarding house.
But the classic school slipper remembered by countless former pupils was generally an old-fashioned rubber-soled plimsoll.
And that brings us to the first mystery.
