BEagle and ACW418,
"Bedford's of Newark" - of course ! Thanks to you both for the info, and for the birthday wishes. Bedford's were a lifeline for the NS people who came in in the '50s, and for the ones like me who crawled back in under the wire, and who saw no reason to keep Messrs Gieves and their ilk in the style to which they had become accustomed.
I would think that the bulk of their stock was bought cheaply from the huge number of chaps leaving at the war's end. Fortituously, the wartime jacket could be converted to current pattern by simply cutting off the bottom button and invisibly mending the buttonhole (those of us who still had wartime jackets dispensed with this last step and just shrugged the buckle down a bit).
The ca. '51 pattern horror rather upset the applecart for a while, but it soon disappeared amid universal execration. Another source was "Exchange & Mart"; some chap advertising had bought a big batch of surplus W.O.'s uniforms from RAF Stores; cut off the "two dogs fighting", sweet-talk everloving into sewing on braid, a good press, and (if you were a stock size, like me), Bob's your uncle !
Crombie greatcoats were more of a problem; the old style ones would have needed quite a bit of re-tailoring to pass muster in the new (half-belt) style, but I was lucky in getting a newish one. The (optional) serge ones were a bad idea from the start.
Whatever happened to the blue mackintosh (rubberised) Raincoat ? Now there was a useful thing !
Chugalug,
I am sure your C.O. acted from the most laudable of motives, but was it wise to encourage a bunch of (shall we say) very enterprising young gentlemen to use their initiatives in acquiring the materials for a vessel - particulary an aluminium one ? (the G/C'c was wood clinker-built). Supposing a mainplane or a canopy vanished, wouldn't the constabulary say "Allo, Allo ?"
Now you're an Aerial Observer on a Jet Provost Trial ! That ranks with "O.C. RAF Ski School, Kashmir" on the Cushiness Scale. What exactly did that involve - it sounds just like the job that would have suited me: I know nothing of the JP, but it looks quite harmless in a teddy-bearish sort of way.
This I must hear !
My thanks to all three of you, Danny.