This apochryphal story appeared in an unauthorised history of the XIth Gurkha Rifles by Lieutenant Colonel H R K Gibbs, late 6GR
Funny things ties. Jolly useful for holding up the odd pyjama, though I hear the subalterns all wear lungis these days . Saw a Yankee fellow wearing an MCC tie the other day ..turned out to have bought it at Tiffany’s in New Amsterdam and didn’t know a googly from a bar of soap. Now, when I was in the Regiment, we didn’t worry too much about ties, far too busy dodging the wily Pathans and the Bhunia with his bills and with damned little chance to wear mufti anyway except when we went poodle faking to the club when the staff wallahs in New Delhi sent their mems up to the hills. Goings on aplenty then, I can tell you, but I won’t – never did hold with telling tales out of mess.
Can’t really remember exactly what the Regimental tie looked like in those days, except that it had to be in colours that came from whatever it was that the planters grew locally – red, green and black I think, or was that the cocktail the griffins had to drink when they were dined in? Anyhow, now that I am retired so to speak. I do wear a tie a bit more often nowadays, old school, club that sort of thing and something that some scoundrel sold me years ago as the tie of the Regiment.
Anyway, one day, a few weeks ago, I trekked down to Hampshire to have a few snorts with old Bletherskite. Bit of a cad, Bletherskite, got posted to the South Waziristan Scouts for slapping the bum of some pretty young wench in Mhow once too often – turned she’d come out with the fishing fleet to marry some Brigadier General in the Jam Stealers. Walking down the street in Fleet, minding my own business, I ran into some fellow whom I had never seen before in my life . Dressed up like a Madrassi remount wallah with a black pullover and one of those hats like the Congress babus used to wear long after my time. Claimed to be an officer of the Regiment, did this chap and asked me where I’d got my tie. Well, after I had damned his eyes for his impertinence, he had the blasted cheek to tell me it was the wrong pattern! Apparently, mine goes left to right, and it should go right to left or some other damned fool nonsense.
Reminds me of the time in Kabul when young Belchworthy of the Bengal Staff Corps wanted to get a cushy posting to Calcutta, so he took to wearing his new-fangled Sam Browne belt ( invented by some counter-jumping wallah ) upside down so they would all think he was mad. Well, all the Generals in Afghanistan were barking anyway, so Belchers had to stay. His next wheeze was to send his Havildar Major up to Dargai to fetch him a black woman. The Haviladar obliged, and Belchers produced a damned toothsome Ghilzai tart at the Resident’s Ball next month. He got his posting all right, but the bibi married a Colonel of the Guides, became Lady Snipefoggers and wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire. Nobody minded much then, after all, Wheeler married a black Maharani.
Returning to ties …I went to the Reunion a few months ago – didn’t know anybody but had a good shufti around. It’s all different now. They don’t send the inlying piquet into the Ghussalkhana at first light anymore. In my day, there would have been a damned great Kabuli with a Khyber knife ready to whip your whatsits off if you neglected that sort of elementary precaution. We had a talk at the AGM by some whippersnapper dressed up like a French dancing master who said that most of our ties were the wrong pattern. In my day, the lad would have known that his seniors are always right and he would have nipped off and bought one of the same as ours sharpish. I didn’t really follow the story, but it seems that some archaeological excavation in Salisbury or somewhere had opened up a long barrow and found four empty bottles of rum, a losing betting ticket for the 1818 Derby and a skeleton clutching a Weobley and wearing a Regimental tie. Apparently, this was the mortal remains of young Crutchley, who had gone on long leave ( once every seven years if you can raise the price of a P&O ticket ) and never came back. We always thought the young blighter had shipped on a West Indiaman and was living the life of Riley on a sugar plantation with half the darzhis of Calcutta bemoaning unpaid bills. The truth apparently was that he‘d had a tip from some mountebank in the Life Guards for a three-legged congenital no-hoper in the Derby and had stuck the family silver and his younger sister’s dowry on it. When the uneducated dwarf riding the beast had failed to oblige, Crutchley did the decent thing and blew his brains out, but without first removing his Regimental tie – which just shows that you can never trust an Old Marburian.
The point of all this is that young Crutchley’s tie is the oldest known specimen of the thing, and the black and green stripes are three-quarters of an inch wide, and the red is one-tenth. Apparently, we old buffers are all going to have to buy new ties and allow the box wallah who makes the damned things to light up another fat cheroot . Shan’t bother myself . Funny things ties.
