Jay Sata (#2022),
Interested in the Wings she's sporting in the pic above. At a guess, they appear to be (a) slightly smaller than the standard drab silk normal pattern, and (b) in gold lace. And (as has been pointed out already on this Thread), they show a King's Crown on top. Queen Elizabeth came to the Throne on 6th February, 1952.
Where had I seen a similar thing before ? A search on "Pilot's Brevet" Thread (Military Aviation Forum) yielded my Post (page 165, #3288). Excerpt follows:
...I'd picked a bad time to buy a new SD.
Around 1950, the Service Dress jacket pattern had changed from the pre-war style. This was the story as I heard it. Pre-war, there had been a Mess Kit for RAF officers: a very natty short pale blue "Eton" jacket and waistcoat, and a gold stripe down the side of the "trews". The war had put all these into mothballs "for the duration", and in the austere post-war years it had continued to be thought inappropriate (and too expensive) to revive their use. For dinners and functions in Mess, your No. 1 uniform was quite good enough.
But there were mutterings among some older and senior officers (who had kept their Mess kits and were still able to get into them) that this was "letting the side down" and amounted to a lapse in standards. There was a Committee somewhere in Air Ministry which busied itself with these matters. Some bright spark came up with a compromise. Why not have a SD jacket which could double as a Mess kit top ? People now wore battledress all the time on duty: off duty you always wore mufti. The only time your SD came out of the wardrobe was for parades and Mess functions - when you wore it with a white shirt and a black bow.
It seemed that King George VI took a keen interest in these proceedings - after all, he had been an RAF officer as Duke of York in the twenties. He had the last word in any change in the Sealed Pattern of any Service uniform. He approved this idea of a dual-purpose SD jacket. Now to design one to his liking.
I can only report that the Committee and its royal patron took leave of their collective senses. What they came up with was an incredible thing. The back centre seam of the jacket was replaced by a double "syce cut" (like an old policeman's tunic). The lower patch pockets came off. The fourth (bottom) button below the buckle came off, replaced by a small, flat button to go under it. To cap it all, the wings were in gold lace !...
The decision (which evoked howls of derision and execration) was reversed after a year or so. But one last trace of the folly was stubbornly retained; the old wartime four-button jacket came back (inc. centre back seam and patch pockets) - but the small, flat button under the buckle still replaced the fourth button.
Meanwhile many people (and I) had bought the wretched things (and were heavily out of pocket). For we chucked them away, got out our old jackets and chopped the bottom button off, shrugged the buckle down a bit, and Bob's yer uncle ! - new patten jacket.
Could T.C.-T. have found one of these 65 year old garments and cut the gold lace wings off ? More likely they were knocked up by a goldsmith in the local (Indian) bazaar. But then why do a King's crown ?
"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice.
D.