" You aren't going to the allotment dressed like that" (Now! To be grammatically correct is this to be followed by a question mark?) I digress. Since I was 'dressed like that' and was obviously on my way to the allotment this must surely come under the heading of 'rhetorical question'. Just to check, since Gordon may well be reading this with his beady eye firmly fixed on the possibility of yet another howler from Croxson, I looked up 'rhetorical question' in my Fowler, never far from hand. And, I am pleased to say that it does seem to come under that heading.
What was the problem?
Merely that I was off to the allotment, dressed shabbily but with just the right degree of insouciant elegance that is called for when visiting an allotment in the backstreets of Portsmouth and wearing a cravat.
My problem is that I hate going tieless. I hate open- knecked shirts. Do you remember, Gordon, those Aertex shirts and how we used to carefully fold them outside over the collar of our sports jackets (who was it young enough to have posed the question 'what is a sports jacket, Granddad'?) We all wanted to look like those chaps in Enid Blyton who were also lucky enough to have girlfriends, even if they called them 'Chums'.
Tieless, when I look into a mirror - on those very infrequent occasions when I do - I don't want to be confronted with an image of something closely resembling a turkey on its way to it's Christmas holiday nor that elderly turtle that ekes out a lonely existence on the Galapagos.
So ... I wear cravats. So what?
The largest drawer in my very restricted clothes storage space is ... guess what, stuffed to the gunwals with ties. Lying in bed this morning in preparation for writing this drivel I tried to remember when I last wore any of them. The Int Corps tie I wore to Corps Day; the Langeleben tie, you all know the answer to that. There was a club tie which I have to wear at AGM's (being on the Committee, you know) and. Guess what. I couldn't think of a single one other than these that I have worn in many a year; certainly not since I last earned an honest crust, so why do I, and I bet many others, hang on to them like grim death? When it came to the tragic death of my daughter's partner, could I find a black tie? No! So, off to John Lewis I went and, extraordinarily, they did not have one either. And this in a City absolutely crawling with Freemasons who tend, at least in my experience, to like to wear a black tie together with their pretty pinnies.
Will I ever steel myself to dumping them? Oxfam, after all, is close to hand. I doubt it. I bet someone, some day will be saying "I wonder why Dad ever bought this monstrosity, forgetting that more than likely it was they who, in desperation, bought it for Christmas or one of those many birthdays with which I have been blessed.
A final thought. I could boil them all. I reckon from the myriad stains on them I could get quite a good bowl of stock.
jr
I also have a large stock of ties, many of sentimental value, which unfortunately nowadays rarely get an airing. The "Panther Motor Car Owners Club" tie (bought when I was one), the Cuxhaven Town tie (presented at the end of Exercise Beachcomber), the Beaconsfield Russian Wing "Zhenya" tie, and the Loughborough Cricket Association tie to name but a few.
Ties could once get you into trouble.
PG Wodehouse wrote an entertaining little story about when the impecunious Bingo Little, holidaying at Nice, wearing an old school tie (actually swiped from his Uncle) is mistaken because of this tie for someone else, which leads to hilarious consequences. George Thomas MP (later Speaker) one day took his seat in the House to find that he was an object of great humorous interest from the Tory benches opposite. After checking that his flies were done up, he met one of the Tory whips at the Bar of the House who asked him if he knew he was wearing an Old Etonian tie. George replied that he had bought it at Tonypandy Co-op because he liked the look of it!
When we were at Cheltenham in the 70s we were obliged to wear jacket and ties, and once a week our dress and haircuts were checked as we paraded in the corridor, while the long-haired t-shirted jeaned civvies walked by in amazement. That was about the first time I had to purchase a tie.
Then when I was promoted into the Sgts' Mess the RSM was from the Grenadier Guards, and insisted on us all wearing a tie in the evenings, even in the pigs' bar round the back, which didn't go down too well, as we had a lot of courses passing through and the students didn't fancy putting a jacket and tie on just for a quick pint in the evenings. The RSM listened to the complaints at a mess meeting and then said he wasn't going to lower his standards for anybody.
Gordon
Paul, my dear fellow
There is clearly something much more seriously wrong in the Croxson household than grammar and syntax, if you allow your wife the liberty of addressing a person as sensitive as yourself in such an off-hand manner. You will need to remind her that you reached the rank of corporal and will not be spoken to in those terms. Your dress-sense is, I am sure, impeccable and always suited to the occasion.
Ties I now never, or rarely, wear include:
My Cambridge College (Who cares about that?)
Scientific Instrument Society (Membership lapsed)
Tie made up entirely of prints of railway tickets (Don’t want to look like an anorak, do I?)
Tie printed with Father Christmasses and Christmas trees (Has its uses)
Tie printed with Cupids firing arrows (Not wholly inappropriate for an ex-gunner)
Tie printed with Tiggers and Pooh Bears (You need to choose your moment to wear this one).
Made a curious discovery last week while helping to clear my sister’s house: two rather moth-eaten I Corps shoulder flashes. I cannot think how she came to possess them. I wonder if she helped me with the sewing when I Corps flashes were exchanged for Signals flashes prior to service in Germany? Tis a mystery.
As for black ties, the custom in my circle of friends is to attend funerals dressed in tidy, ordinary clothes, and not be too sad that the deceased has left this world for a better one. Paul, you have my permission to wear your cravat at mine.
Gordon
paul croxson
How unfair of you Gordon. If only for historical accuracy I now have to declare to the entire readership that, despite having served in the Intelligence Corps I merely reached the rank of lance corporal. I almost managed to reach the unique position of being the only National serviceman to be demobbed from the Corps as a private. Any sentence containing the words 'Soldier' and 'Croxson' is guaranteed to also include 'useless'. The only thing that spoilt my time in the 'Int' was the Army.
When I sit there, at the Museum Trustees meetings I sometimes look around me in amazement, surrounded by a Brigadier, two full colonels, two half colonels, the RSM and a couple of WO1's it reminds me that the Corps was and still is possibly the most egalitarian organisation that I have ever come across.
I am still ploughing on with my history of the 'Y' Service and currently have set myself the target of going through the list of officers from 'Abels' to 'Zilkowski' who served in the 'Y' from the Int Corps. It's a daunting task, huddled over the four volumes of the Apr 1945 Army List. It is amazing how, even through the War this record was maintained meticulously.
JR's mention of an ex-hero of mine, young Pelham G, reminds me of possibly the most bizarre episode ever in my life.
I'd been having chest pains and finding nothing obviously wrong with me and having good private health cover I was told that I should have this instrument shoved up the vein which started in the groin and reached to the heart (or was it an artery?). For this I was given just a local anaesthetic but was not at all cheered when told that there were to be two nurses present to resuscitate me as 'sometimes the heart stopped' OUCH.
There I was lying on the operating table, two resuscitating nurses safely to hand and I could watch the surgeon doing the business whilst at the same time watch the instrument winding its way up through my body on a massive TV type screen. Not at all a comforting experience.
Presumably to take my mind off things, the surgeon said "and what's your line of business then Mr*. Croxson?" to which I replied "antique books" which led us very soon into discussing the works of P.G Wodehouse whose work we shared a love for - indeed I collected his first editions in those days. Not only did I maintain a conversation but ... I also sold him a book. How about that for dedication. Should anyone be in the slightest bit interested, my heart did not stop.
* note, he did not refer to me by the honorific 'lance corporal' I like to keep a low profile.
RonB
I, too, have a number of commemorative neckties which I never wear but cannot be moved to throw away. I have, however, somehow mislaid the subjects of the following.
After my first 'retirement' I was employed by a subsidiary of a national companywhich I won't name. I'd been there a little while when the company commissioned the design of a 'company tie' which all managers were required to wear at work. The design was pretty poor so I forgot to wear it most days. A couple of the directors noticed, so I got hold of a very colourful tie sporting a picture of a smiling mickey mouse which I then wore for work. When asked by the Admin Director why I was wearing a mickey mouse tie and not a company tie, I couldn't resist the reply "Well, it's a mickey mouse company!" Fortunately he had a sense of humour, and the fact that I was made redundant two years later is not connected to this incident.
