Clocks on your socks....

[amyjayne]

John Peels autobiography mentions the above phrase. Anybody any idea what it means?

Thanks in advance, AJ

[Quizmonkey]

Clock can mean any decorative pattern embroidered on a sock or stocking - but if you're looking for a figurative or metaphorical sense of the whole phrase, no idea!

[Jay_Jay]

What a spendid phrase! But then Peely was well-educated. Perhaps it means always rushing around and not having the time to do things properly.

[Jay_Jay]

I believe, AJ, that I actually heard Peel use this phrase in one of his shows. It may mean - and I want to hark back to Quizmonkey's sock definition - that someone who is quite well-off and could afford 'clocks' on their socks. In other words they could afford to have the extra work put into the making of their socks. It might be an old North Country cotton-mill phrase.

[amyjayne]

Thanks guys...

The passage, for anybody that's interested, actually reads as follows:

Some rules were so arcane that to this day I don't know what they meant. For example, only members of the School First Eight were, I believed, allowed to have clocks on their socks. If you have any idea what this means, I'd prefer it if you kept the information to yourself. I like the picture I have had in my head for fifty years of clocks on socks and don't want mere reality to spoil it for me.

[Jay_Jay]

AJ. To have the context is far better! I'm really none the wiser for it, though.

They the ('School Eight') were allowed to have "clocks on their socks"?. Too arcane for me, sorry!

[amyjayne]

I think perhaps Quizmonkey is right.

The School First Eight being the only ones allowed to wear decorative socks as part of their uniform...?

Not sure at all... ahh well!