Pull up a Sandbag
As a bit of light relief, I would like to tell you what it was like for us erks in the late 60's early 70's. When I joined on a 3yr apprenticeship, (standby for the daggers) I had a clothing allowance. £8.10.0 per year if memory serves. At the end of the year any unexpended allowance was added to your pay chit. So scruffy uniforms were the name of the game to help save some money. Also you were issued with ALL you needed to wear including RAF Blue striped pyjamas and airtex boxers, essential to prevent chaffing of those still tender inner thighs. The best blue had moved on to a decent material, but at £23 wow betide you if ruined that. The aforementioned T63. I used to wear that as a working blue, as you could, and it lasted well into the 80's before it rotted. So all in all most of the clothing was of good quality, if not fashionable or smart.
Then as I was training to become aircrew in the early 70's, we were shown a proposed new uniform that was made of light cotton, I assume, washable material with a wind cheater jacket that looked like those worn by the US Navy and therefore very smart. The only question was the colour, powder blue! By the time it was issued, the material had changed to RAF Blue, understandable, but the material was now dry cleanable only heavy and the smart jacket was now like those worn by the RAC! At least a decent woolly pulley soon followed with a crew neck.
Whoever designed the new uniform had obviously been overruled by our lords and masters as to colour and material so it was still a hotch potch. Lets be honest we were a real rag bag in the 70's, you could be seen wearing old best blues, hairy blues, battle dress made of serge if you could afford the tailoring. At least the new trousers and jumpers smartened things up, mind you the smart crew neck was replaced with girly 'V' neck allegedly due to ties not being visible. Dont mention brevets!!
Slowly the uniforms have become smarter more uniform if the quality has suffered. What I could never understand is why whenever I saw a US serviceman his uniforms so much smarter and of much better quality. Cost I know came into it, but they were always much smarter and their uniforms never seemed to change in style, they even adopted the woolly pulley. Take short sleeve shirts for instance. Why were the US Navy shirts always smart, even on the fat blokes, the only answer I could come up with was they were designed to be worn without ties and hence the collar laid flat and looked smart, ours on the other hand, were merely the long sleeve shirt with the arms cut off. A small point but it makes a difference. Still better than wearing your sleeves rolled up and your tie tucked in between the 2nd and 3rd button.
As for sizing, during my aircrew training I had to go to the Airmed centre at Farnborough, they measured me, bit of a short arse you see, and announced that since WWII torsoes had got shorter and legs had got longer and so that is why the collar might fit but the sleeves of your shirt would reach your knees. Or maybe you were just fat.
There are lots of tales of course, we'll add some if the thread becomes too heavy.
Why do I add this, because those running the show joined up when I did or soon after and their ideas are invariably influenced by their early days.
Nothing changes, the system prevails.