Weird Pocket Finds

[Baron Kurtz]

I picked up a 1950 pattern British Army "Jacket, Overall" in Oxfam the other day, and it had a rather large chunk of cannabis resin in the inside breast pocket.

Damn students.

bk

 

[carebear]

A dead stoat.

No really...

Was you ever bit by a dead stoat?

 

[Vintage Betty]

Did it leave grass stains?

 

[ohairas]

As I saw his whole life spread out on my bedspread I began to dislike or fear him for his failure. I vowed to do my best not to end up a lonely old man in one unwelcoming little room.

Great story Tommy!
Nikki

 

[Tommy Katkins]

My father, long deceased, was a countryman from County Wicklow, Ireland. My maternal aunt tells a story of how my mild mannered uncle Stanley, who came out of the Battle of El Alamein with stripes on his arm, had once bodily ejected him from the house because he had a ferret in each of his trouser pockets, both very much alive nibbling away at the upholstery. I kid you not.

 

[dhermann1]

Stripes?

My father, long deceased, was a countryman from County Wicklow, Ireland. My maternal aunt tells a story of how my mild mannered uncle Stanley, who came out of the Battle of El Alamein with stripes on his arm, had once bodily ejected him from the house because he had a ferret in each of his trouser pockets, both very much alive nibbling away at the upholstery. I kid you not.

For the benefit of us Yanks, "stripes on his arm" refers to wound stripes, the equivalent of the US Purple Heart?
BTW, I've never met a ferret I didn't like. A friend had a little ferret named Ebenezer, who was as cute as the dickens. My brother had a friend who had a ferret named Hiram, who he used to hire out to farmers during the depression to rid their houses of rats. Grand little critters, ferrets.

 

[Tommy Katkins]

For the benefit of us Yanks, "stripes on his arm" refers to wound stripes, the equivalent of the US Purple Heart?

I guess he did get wound stripes as you say the equivalent of a Purple Heart. The aftermath of the battle was the only time in his entire life that he was ever hospitalized and then only for a short time. But all the pictures of him in uniform show him in Khaki drill and, as was his lifelong way, with his sleeves rolled up high so I cant see if they're present or not. No, when I said 'stripes' was referring the him being made up to Corporal...apparently he did some good work when the 'push forward' pushed too early through and mined area of the Western Desert. More than that I couldn't tell you, as he was a very shy and modest man. Its says "Acting Sargent" on his service paybook at the time of his demob in 1946. I have a couple of his campaign medals but any other gong, including military sportsmanship medals, that I know for certain he was awarded have gone AWOL.

best TK

 

[Tommy Katkins]

I picked up a 1950 pattern British Army "Jacket, Overall" in Oxfam the other day...

Hallo Baron, when you say "Jacket, Overall" do you mean the kind that's a crappy algae coloured denim-like material?

best TK

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Hullo, Tommy,

Yes, that horrid green denim "chore" material. Cool jacket, though. Mercifully no longer in the hands of an undergraduate.

Funnily enough (or not), my paternal grandfather also came from the deserts of Alamein with an extra stripe. Highland Division, he was one of the famous Highway Decorators, in that he - being a painter by trade - was in fact one of the ones that painted that damn insignia everywhere.

bk

 

[Tommy Katkins]

Hello BK,

Last time I saw one of those military work blouses it dirt cheap at a flea market in my hometown of Kettering, Northamptonshire the jacket was with the trousers in a box with some webbing other military odds and sods, but I left all where they were and later regretted it greatly.

My uncle was a shoemaker by trade being a Northamptonshire lad, and, in his own telling, he stupidly put his hand up when his NCO asked if anyone knew anything about boots and shoes. He became the company cobbler during lulls in the fighting, and of course in desert warfare there was quite a lot of inactivity, and I think he was glad to have a use for the time. When he returned to England, maybe in 1946, I'm not to certain of the dates, he was stationed at Dungeness, Kent and the workshop on the shingle beach he shared with three other cobblers was know locally as "The Yellow House". Forty years on it would be the home of the film maker Derek Jarman but there is a sepia toned 1930s picture postcard of the house in his war photo album as for some reason that I've yet to discover or maybe simply because it was (and is) a yellow house it was a noteworthy tourist sight even then. I'd visited it before I knew my familial connection and I had some pretty good fish and chips nearby.

Kinda as a homage to my uncles experience and those first photos in found in Glasgow when I did a History Masters I choose the touristic experiences of working class servicemen station in Egypt and Palestine as the subject for my main research paper.

TK

 

[Dinerman]

When I first got my curling sweater, the pockets were filled with this strange rotting plant material. Turned out to be little bits of old curling corn broom that I guess had broken off and the guy had stuck in his pockets to keep off the ice.