Certainly at RAFC Cranwell, as Haraka will recall, we used to have to spend our few shillings on detached Van Heusen collars to go with the itchy stores-issued shirts. A brand-new one was essential before the delights of the Ferris drill competiton..
Fortunately we'd had detached collars at school, so the wretched things were quite familiar to me....
Those blue/grey shirts were identical to police shirts of the time. The late Tony Smith (RIP) was once driving his blue Hillman Hunter back from White Waltham wearing his copper's shirt and black tie - looking very much like a Met rozzer. Someone in front of him wouldn't get out of the way, so Tony flashed his lights, put on his SD cap and pointed to the kerb... The other driver dutifully pulled over - only for Tony to speed past giving him a Churchillian gesture! Happy times, eh Haraka?
But who remembers that awful duck egg blue/green shirt which came out after the copper's shirt and before the wedgewood blue one (in about 1970)? It wouldn't even last one day's normal use before looking very grubby...
Back to the thread - at the so-called meet and greet for our Buccaneer course in 1976, the Wg Cdr's wife asked the wife of one of the course navigators "And which course are you on?".
Mistake. Big mistake. Huge!
She'd asked a fiery little Scots lass the wrong question - and was instantly put right.
She wasn't on any course, her husband was! Meanwhile her hubby watched with pride. But it didn't do him any long term harm - he was the only ab-initio navigator to graduate from the course.