LOCAL MUSINGS On the button!

by ANGUS RICHARD

It occurred to me late last night that the debris from our past sometimes gets carried forward to the present without question. Why we persist with such baggage remains a mystery. To illustrate this point, consider the gentleman’s suite.

Across the suite spectrum at one extreme is the young, inexperienced real estate agent, with the shiny suit, stove pipe pants, shoes so pointed you could knit with them, overwhelming body spray and a ghastly habit of calling you “chief”!

At the other end of the spectrum the tailored suit of the political class, the senior executives and CEOs.

The common denominator across all of the above is a seemingly useless row of buttons on the end of each sleeve . The purpose of which seems to be about as transparent as The Voice.

But here’s where it gets interesting. These buttons surprisingly are a throwback in history to the battle of Waterloo of 1815, the defeat of

Napoleon and the rise to fame of the remarkable Duke of Wellington.

The Iron Duke was an exceptional general. He may have had allied casualties at Waterloo of 23,000 men, but the important thing was that he won.

Incidentally you won’t find graveyards filled with the fallen as they had a habit at that time of selling off the bodies for fertilizer! Which reminds me of the wonderful TV gardener Peter Cundall who stated that when he died, he did not want to stop working and reportedly sought to be buried in a compost heap! (Now that’s a whole new idea for the Greens!)

The Duke was a stickler for discipline and order. His infantry were always brilliantly turned out in their scarlet uniforms and white webbing. What really annoyed him was the British soldiers’ habit of wiping or blowing their noses on their spiffy uniform sleeves! This practice being about as attractive as a Brussel sprout to a teenager!

The Duke was your exemplary “Alpha Male.” He would have not done well in today’s world of woke consensus. When later he became Britain’s Prime Minister, he held his first Cabinet Meeting. He was later asked as to how it went and responded “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to sit down and discuss it!”

Wellington needed to solve this rather unpleasant uniform issue. His solution was elegant. He ordered the sewing on of a row of brass buttons at the end of each sleeve. This made a dripping “wipe” or major “blow” a potentially painful exercise and it worked!

At Walmer Castle in the UK, you can view the Duke’s scarlet uniform, replete with brass buttons on the sleeve or check any contemporary portrait of him in uniform. He practiced what he preached and to this day we have carried forward his row of buttons on our suit sleeves.

In our modern world of tissues, you have to question why we persist with this throwback that was initiated by a general some two hundred years ago and somehow became a fashion item.

The only positive to come out of all this is that should another pandemic strike and tissues, like toilet rolls, find themselves in short supply you can always don your suit, grab the scissors, eliminate the buttons, and blow or wipe to your heart’s content! .