Gieves & Hawkes
G & H, excellent quailty. I have a suit and an overcoat, bought over 30 years ago in their sales at very reasonabl prices, and altered to fit at no extra cost. They are both still going strong and they still fit - just!! It pays in the end to buy quality.
Hugo Boss in Vienna used to make our Lauda Air uniforms. We did not wear hats, but the black overcoats were superb. Regarding pay, I seem to remember RAF Officers with surnames starting A to M were paid into Cox's and Kings and N to Z were paid into Coutts.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Thread Starter
Regarding pay, I seem to remember RAF Officers with surnames starting A to M were paid into Cox's and Kings and N to Z were paid into Coutts.
Mind you, we were at Henlow, not Cranwell….
Yes they did, however an SS uniform is hardly acceptable in polite conversation these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_B...shion_designer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_B...shion_designer)
[QUOTE=ORAC;11165465]Cox’s & Kings. Taken over by Lloyds in 1923.
.......Still with them, but now a PO Box somewhere in Chelmsford…..
QUOTE]
At S Cerney in 1961 a Mr L A Hogg from Cox's and Kings - from I think Dept R3, came to give us a banking lecture and I signed up.
A few years later I visited the branch for the first time at 6 Pall Mall, it later moved next door to No7 and as ORAC says it's somewhere in Chelmsford. I'm still with them too but I think Starling's better !
.......Still with them, but now a PO Box somewhere in Chelmsford…..
QUOTE]
At S Cerney in 1961 a Mr L A Hogg from Cox's and Kings - from I think Dept R3, came to give us a banking lecture and I signed up.
A few years later I visited the branch for the first time at 6 Pall Mall, it later moved next door to No7 and as ORAC says it's somewhere in Chelmsford. I'm still with them too but I think Starling's better !
Opened an account with Alkits at Thorney Island (first time) and left it running while I was overseas. Long-lived lounge suit, eventually surrendered to avoir dupois and later got my No ! hat from them to tart myself up for the CFS (H) Colour Party. Hugo Boss provided a luxurious db blazer (at a massive reduction) from the Virgin Uniform Store - yet again, eventually, the waistline defeated the tailoring !!
At the 'banking' brief at RAFC in 1968, which was given by someone from Lloyds Cox's & Kings,the 'advice' he gave was for people to open accounts with them, as they were a paying agent and it would be 'simpler' for all concerned...
I told my fellow Flt Cdts that the advice I'd had from my own bank manager was to stay with them "....because you'll be a name, not an account number".
Somehow this got to the ears of the speaker, because a little later some weasly little Cadet Wing Flt Cdr came sniffing around, determined to know who'd said it. But even though I'd only been at Cranwell for a few days, I knew already when to keep shtum!
Stayed with the same bank for the next 20+ years and only changed to another branch when mine was absorbed by another.
I told my fellow Flt Cdts that the advice I'd had from my own bank manager was to stay with them "....because you'll be a name, not an account number".
Somehow this got to the ears of the speaker, because a little later some weasly little Cadet Wing Flt Cdr came sniffing around, determined to know who'd said it. But even though I'd only been at Cranwell for a few days, I knew already when to keep shtum!
Stayed with the same bank for the next 20+ years and only changed to another branch when mine was absorbed by another.
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Hillingdon House
"In 1810 the estate was sold to Richard Henry Cox, a member of the Cox banking family and the grandson of Richard Cox, founder of the travel company Cox & Kings.[7]"
AKA HQ MATO, of course!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillingdon_House
AKA HQ MATO, of course!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillingdon_House
I still have my 3 guinea ( that's 63 shillings for youngsters) Gieves Flight Cadet mandatory civvy hat to politely raise to proper officers and ladies. I have kind of treasured it because spending that sort of money ion a trilby in those days was pretty mind-blowing. It has been restyled several times and presently is of the plantpot persuasion.
It brings back absolutely no fond memories.
It brings back absolutely no fond memories.
I still occasionally wear a suit my father in law had made in 1966 when he promoted to Flt Lt. It was made by EC Squires and still looks like new so I'd say he got his money's worth out of it. Incidentally when it came to uniforms he always refered to G&H as 'Gieves the thieves'.
I also have two of his suits - which I had altered to fit me and they both are 'as new' too.
Beags . I had an "account" but always paid cash.. Then I started getting invoices for a transaction I had long cleared. I let this build up for months with a stream of increasingly insistent incoming letters accruing as I was elsewhere. That was an odd year of transistion you will recall.
Funnily enough when I got back to the Towers and presented the receipt proving payment to the concerned party,there was little in the way of an apology. So I moved on.
Burtons were quite good actually !
Funnily enough when I got back to the Towers and presented the receipt proving payment to the concerned party,there was little in the way of an apology. So I moved on.
Burtons were quite good actually !
Sad news. I opened an account with Gieves as an RN cadet at Dartmouth in 1971. I fed it £5 per month until the minimum input was raised to £10 or £15 per month some years later. I kept the account in credit and Gieves paid me a decent rate of interest (subsequently renamed “discount against future purchases”) each month. This allowed me to buy the occasional new uniform, replacement ‘light frame’ cap and even a dinner jacket when needed without going into debt.
I only cancelled my account, and was reimbursed my healthy balance creditor, when Gieves closed their premises at Gunwharf Quays (formerly HMS VERNON) in Portsmouth, after moving from The Hard, and it became necessary to trek to their nearest branch in Winchester.
I only cancelled my account, and was reimbursed my healthy balance creditor, when Gieves closed their premises at Gunwharf Quays (formerly HMS VERNON) in Portsmouth, after moving from The Hard, and it became necessary to trek to their nearest branch in Winchester.
A civvy viewpoint of G ^ H overheard at RAF Uxbridge 1956.
Scots metman, natty dresser, mourning loss of an apparently irreplaceable button from his G & H sportsjacket "It's only about 18 years old!"
Scots metman, natty dresser, mourning loss of an apparently irreplaceable button from his G & H sportsjacket "It's only about 18 years old!"
I first realised how good G & H SD hats were when I bought one from somewhere else!