Colditz - ITV

[Danny42C]

It seems to be the universal experience that the KD issued in UK was rubbish. Mine (in WWII) was poorly cut, the drill had no guts, the shorts hung baggily below the knee and the khaki faded after two or three dhobis into a pale sickly yellow. The first thing people did after landing in Bombay was to chuck this stuff out, after getting kit made to measure for a couple of rupees (24 hr service) by a dherzi in the nearest bazaar.

I'm surprised that this Thread has run so far without mention of the Gabardine Swine. As the story reached us, Staff Officers in Cairo took to having tunics and slacks made up in thin dark khaki gabardine in place of the official KD. This hung far better, was more elegant and more pleasing to the ladies.

Desert Rats coming into town hot, grubby and thirsty from chasing Rommel round the Western Desert, beheld these apparitions and promptly christened them in this way. I have never been able to get chapter and verse to back this up until now:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...TfefNxXwyxzNzT
P.18
The men facing death at the front referred to the pen pushers at Grey Pillars by such scornful appellations as the Gabardine Swine, or Groppi's Light Horse, or the Short Range Shepheard's Group, a contribution by Michael Crichton, whom we will meet later, (for before becoming a Gabardine Swine himself he had been involved with the legendary force Long Range Desert Group).