I think teeteringhead is a trifle confused.
... often happens these days .... particularly when I forget my medication!
Ah
Shy - the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd. 'Twas indeed Madding Crowd and your 1984 is exactly correct. Sgt Frank Troy of an unspecified cavalry regiment was the character - a cad but one with a modicum of style for a SNEC
. IIRC they gave me different Bathsheba Everdines to play with on alternate nights ....
.... perhaps the "just missing her with the sword" scene would have been too much for them every night ......
sorry for the thread drift ... so to return to the (slightly less drifty) subject of cravats: one remembers wearing one to a Saturday breakfast in the Mess as a baby JP stude - along with obligatory tweed jacket, tattersall check shirt and cav twill bags.
Unfortunately ones Sqn Cdr (a Woody Allen lookalike) was single and lived in and the following (one-sided) conversation ensued:
"Teeteringhead - I don't think that thing around your neck constitutes a tie within the meaning of Mess Rules ..... GET OUT!"
Yes best beloveds, chucked out of Saturday brekkie for being tie-less ... and ye tell that t't' young folk o' today - an' they'll not believe yer.......
