bigjohn

When writing my recent post about ‘Phil the Greek’ I was reminded of an amusing incident back in the early 1960’s when I was working in the sales department of Art Metal Inc. which, at that time, was the largest office furniture manufacturer in the world. The company’s London office was situated in Buckingham Palace Road about half a mile or so from ‘Buck House’ itself.

One day I was sitting at my desk when the ‘phone rang and the switchboard operator asked me if I could take a call from “the palace”. I smiled to myself and said .. “OK, put them through” .. and was about to give some prankster an earful, when a very posh voice said something like ..

.. “Hello, this is the Duke of Edinburgh’s office here and we are in urgent need of some more file folders for His Royal Highness’s filing system” ..

Well, to cut a long story short, Prince Philip’s aide or whoever he was, agreed to send someone to pick up a box of folders and I agreed to have them ready for collection.

Not long afterwards I got another call to say that someone from Buckingham Palace had just arrived outside the building, so I picked up a box of files from the stores and went out to meet them, expecting to see what ?  .. a footman in a taxi ? .. a horse drawn carriage ? .. a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce ? .. a mounted groom from the nearby royal stables ?.. or even just some lowly clerk arriving by bus ?

To my amazement, when I stepped outside, there, sitting astride his ‘steed’ by the kerb was a tall palace guardsman, looking incredibly smart in his No.1 dress uniform. Except that ‘his steed’ wasn’t one of the Household Cavalry’s magnificent black geldings, but one of these …

When I was in my early ‘teens’ I always wanted a pair of those American trousers made of some blue fabric with big pockets, lots of white stitching and lighter coloured turn-ups (cuffs); just like the ones I saw in the Hollywood movies and in imported US comic books.

I learned that they were called ‘jeans’, and sometime in the early to mid 1950’s I managed to obtain my first pair from a ‘surplus store’ which sold hard wearing clothes for manual workers such as my father, who always wore a blue denim ‘bib and brace’ and jacket when working on the railway … (He is the one with the saw).

Over the years I ‘ve worn many pairs of jeans of all styles, including narrow legged ones, flared ones and even ‘cut-off’ ones, but I never wore ones with holes in the knees, tears across the thighs or with rips in the arse.

Now such jeans are all the fashion and don’t ‘come cheap’, so, over the years, I must have lost a small fortune when my scruffy denim pants had seen better days and were thrown out.

So, what’s the latest in ‘must have’ jeans ? .. It’s mud stained ones !

I can’t wait for the ‘pissed your pants’ look …

… or  “Oops!” far worse !