Military 'woolly pully' sweaters

[Harp]

... and there are good ways of storing wool to make it moth proof. I hope the WP's you have stashed away are safe and that you will revisit them in the autumn.

I've a moth chew wooley shrapnel shark bite sent to former Marine tailor for wound dress. Spread sulfa powder over cut, bandaged field dressing, with a tad morphine needle before med evac run out. Sweater survived. Previously bedded down barracks locker bereft camphor moth balls; however, open any tactical storage suggestions.

 

[Edward]

I have to be honest and say that I find natural fibres more comfortable and there are good ways of storing wool to make it moth proof. I hope the WP's you have stashed away are safe and that you will revisit them in the autumn.

I've gone that way too myself. That said, I by and large tend to stick to repros of pre-1960 clothing designs (or, per budget, what could pass for same), which just don't look or hang right in many fabrics available now. I once had a HeyDay pair of repro Oxford Bags which looked nice, but when worn the poly-rayon type fabric was too light and the came off more like Culottes than anything. I have to admit, I do like a cotton knit, though, as a bit more moth-proof than wool. The WP as we see it now I suppose is a little bit of an outlier in my wardrobe, being largely finalised into the early 60s, but it works. I'm a fan of the V neck style over a tattersal shirt and a knit tie for a relaxed weekend look. I need to pick up a couple of new ones at some point. I do favour a bottle green when not in the Old Country, and a burgundy-wine colour. The RAF grey-blue is a nice option too.

The WPs I had as a kid back in the early 80s (one blue, one brown) were likely 70s made, passed on from a cousin four years older than me who'd outgrown them. Crew necks, certainly, worn casually with jeans at weekends. I remember wanting a green one, but being told I'd get shot in it. (This would have been the tail end of the hairiest period of our local issues, and days when some of the kids sent over on Operation Banner had been too quick on the trigger in some circumstances; my parents were very keen for us not to be mistaken for any form of military, 'para' or otherwise, at a quick glance while squinting into the sun. I don't think I got it then, privileged as we were living in a backwater that wasn't much troubled (pun very much intended), but it stuck with me later on.

Funnily enough, I noticed last year watching Say Nothing (Disney / Channel 4) that there are some very good shots of a drawstring-neck commando style one being worn by Rory Kinnear, as an officer in Operation Banner who goes in on a 'nice cop' interrogation approach with an arrestee they consider potential tout. Good shot of the lapels particularly, and how they fasten with velcro when he removes his rank tabs before gonig into the interrogation room. This would have been set around 1970. A few years before I was born, though uniforms portrayed were very much consistent with what I remember squaddies wearing at checkpoints back in the eighties. The RUC also wore them in their deep green - what I'd call a 'bottle green', though "black green" was the generic they were known by. Nice quality back then, I'm told - the newer PSNI uniforms, when they were redesigned for a different era, apparently compromised on quality a lot.