Originally Posted by
BEagle
Cape Leather gloves were another procurement balls-up! In the late '80s, some political correcto queried why they were known as 'Cape' leather. "They must come from the Cape of Seth Efrika", he mused. This was before they let Mandela out, so there was concern that MoD might be buying equipment from the nasty apartheid people....
So the supplier was changed; instead of the pristine white (or rufty-tufty SH green), we began to get inferior light grey things, probably made from recycled Etruscan goat scrotums, which lasted barely a week before they ripped...
Common sense later prevailed and we went back to the previous type!
BEagle, at one point during my time at HQSTC the CL gloves were to be withdrawn from use because rendered down Whale products were used in the manufacture. The master plan was to bulk buy those grey/green American things. The thought (by all of us) of a withdrawal of the RAFs most valuable barter commodity was too much however, and a new method of finishing was developed PDQ.
Sadly, I am on my last pair of whites but I have a green set remaining that will probably see me out...