Bespoke 3

On with the motley. The art of what suits is the art of matching an individual piece of cloth to an individual body. Suiting in the olden days was referred to as broadcloth. Broadcloth came and still did in 1963 in a width of 58 to 60 inches. It was folded in half, selvedge edge to selvedge edge and rolled on a board in various lengths according to the requirements of the the establishment. A normal suit length would be between three and a half to four and a half yards. There is a certain wow moment when the cloth is split to its full face and some cloths can only be termed beautiful. They shine and have a depth of colour made up of a harmonious melange of threads. Many cloths such as merino are soft to the touch and give a sense of opulence.

The selvedge edge is the tightly woven edge which sometimes has the weavers name and the cloth code. Sometimes can be seen the tiny holes which are made by the tenterhooks by which the cloth is stretched for fulling or washing. Sometimes in a large piece of cloth can be seen little teazels a seed pod with hooks once used to raise the nap on the cloth before it was finally finished.

In the workroom the cutter is on the left with patterns hanging ready to be placed on the doth to be marked up with the square piece of chalk, china clay chalk. The shears make a distinctive scrr as they make a long cut and a ring on the final snip. Snippings are swept away with a deft hand into the box beneath the bench. At right angles is the journeyman tailor.

This man is a character as all these types are. He wears a formal double breasted light grey suit. He has worked for many years in India and has come back to England with his Indian wife. His eccentricity is to spend the weekends in his chalet at a North Cheshire naturist resort, then called a nudist camp. This hobby tends to raise the odd eyebrow. He stands basting a jacket together and his lightning needle makes tugging sounds as it courses through cloth and facings. He only works a four day week and I think he is paid by the piece and it can be any task except the cutting.

I have used the table for cutting simple cotton linings and poplin for surplices. These are sewn by our tailoress who works in a garret a hundred yards down the road and has a dedicated phone extension. She is an expert trouser maker and also does alterations. There are three other facets of the firm, firstly CMT factors who are in Stoke and they make up our made- to -measure orders, then our two out workers: Ginty&O'Dowd who make the jackets and Manny Taylor, the vest maker. Both these establishments are a distance away and exist way above the street and a visit generally involves many flights of dusty stairs.

Ginty & O' Dowd are two Irish comedians given to double entendre jokes among themselves. Ginty is thin as I remember and O' Dowd is more gently rounded and larger. I never knew their first names. I just knew them as a pair of eejits who would make it more difficult to get a job done quickly and carried away.

Contrary to this was Manny, the vest maker, and his many machinists. He wanted to get stuff away as quickly as possible. Manny (Emanuel ?) as the name would indicate was a little Jewish gent given to much smchooze and schmutter and was a 15 minute schlepp away across the city. His girls, every one a shiksa, were something else, naughty, colourfully tongued and not behind giving a young man a "feeling up". The advice was keep away from the machines. They had a nasty habit of using mischievous fingers while one was engaged in a discussion with the boss. I am sure he had an idea of what was going on. Any mention was met with an embarrassing chorus of oohs and ahhs from the "lasses". It was a daunting errand to be sent on and accomplished with great speed.

There were others of one's own acquaintance in town, men in articles (accounting or law) always good for a half of Bass, from the wood, in the Manchester Merchants Bar, presided over by a diminutive well spoken lady called Mary. There was also a loud mouthed barrister's clerk in there who wore brown suede brogues. He will remain nameless. In fact he may have been assassinated by a secretive client.

In fact all my working world was there in Manchester of the early sixties. There are many other things of a private and a personal nature that happened there then and they remain just that, private and personal.

JL Feb 25 10 :04