'A Dedicated Follower of Fashion' -- 49 (Inkerman) Battery Message Board

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Subject: 'A Dedicated Follower of Fashion'

Author:
Jim Martin

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Date Posted: 11:49:51 04/15/05 Fri

There was a kind of need to personalise what you wore in the Army, not so much to rebel against the Army dress code but to individualise yourself in a certain way from everyone else in a society that was based fundimentally on teamwork and conformity. I suppose it was a matter of pride. You tended to style yourself on a role model of a soldier that you looked up too and respected to a degree. As some of the senior ranks used to say that "You don't want to look like a bag of shite tied up at the middle" so when issued with clothing we used to get it tailored to fit if possible, as these items were always to large and you didn't want to walk around like Ronald McDonald a clown, to be ridiculed and taken the piss out of! Spent many an hour customising your kit so that you would look smart and blended into someone who was to be taken seriously. Even coveralls were given the treatment. Most importantly the head gear had to be right especially the beret had to make a statement as to your status in regards the pecking order of things! Anything from a pinhead to a gun canopy with a tankie style somewhere in between. Slashed peaks on your No1 dress hats was another item that some of us cannibolised on and got away with! I used to wear an old brass cap badge not the plastic stay-bright version in my cap. On many inspections I used to get pulled up as to why I was wearing it! I would reply "that it was my grandfathers who was a master gunner" Usually that worked and nothing more was said! If they had looked closely they might have noticed that it was the Kings crown and not the Queens that was located above the gun on the badge in question! Only a technicality maybe but some of these Officers prided themselves on attention to detail and they hadn't noticed! Of course there were exceptions to the rule concerning dress codes, our eccentrics of which we had many within the Battery, those colourful characters whose attire and apperance was strange to a degree who didn't 'conform to the norm' and basically couldn't care less about vanity or personal pride in ones appearance. While some of these got the 'flack' it left the rest of us to continue pushing the dress code to the limit!
By the way Dave, the message subject title was sung by the 'Kinks' a blast from the past you could say!

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: 'A Dedicated Follower of Fashion'	Dave P.	17:28:33 04/15/05 Fri