SOGGY children arriving dripping wet for lessons could be a thing of the past after a North firm launched the world's first waterproof school blazer.

School Colours, of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, hope the Ducksback blazer will prove to be a uniform winner.

The firm's director Mark Southcott lives in Richmond.

He got the idea for the item of clothing after watching children from schools, including St Mary's Primary, in the town, walk to classes without a coat.

He said: "I've also talked to headteachers who say they just cannot get children to wear a coat.

"The children walk into classes with a wet blazer and they sit at their desks steaming away.

"We have worked on the Ducksback blazer with the single aim of keeping children dry on wet days and, when it is not cold, eliminating the need for a coat at all."

The blazer is the result of a year's development. The garment, which will cost about £38, looks like a traditional school blazer with a woven polyester fabric on the outside - but inside has a waterproof and breathable membrane.

The present director's great grandfather, Creswick George Southcott, started School Colours in 1890.

Since then Mr Southcott said the family firm has been at the forefront of school blazer development over several generations.

The company produced the first coloured wool blazers in the 19th Century, striped blazers in the 1920s and the first machine-washable garments of the 1960s.

"Our great grandfather and founder would be rightly proud of the Ducksback product," he said.

The firm, which is based on the Monkswell Park industrial estate, in Knaresborough, employs six people. The clothing it designs and sells is made in eastern Europe.

The firm will sell the waterproof blazer direct to schools and is planning to write to every primary and secondary in the country to promote the blazer.

Supplies will be ready for March or April next year, with the first children likely to be braving the rain in a Ducksback blazer in September, next year.

School Colours has already applied for a patent for the Ducksback.