Martin Brayley

In the notes about the author, it states that Martin Brayley served in the "armed forces" for 24 years - odd that it is not more explicit, with his service and rank or rating. The book is dedicated to his father, Leading Cook Derrick Brayley, who was lost in the cruiser HMS Gloucester in 1941. Whatever the background of the author, he had done a pretty good job of pulling together the various uniforms of the Senior Service and some of the arcane detail related to it.

However, for me, the book is ruined by the use of new colour photos, showing modern-day men wearing uniforms of the period 1930-1945. Some of them are utterly ridiculous, laughable indeed and the 'matelot' would have been soon reprimanded by the Master-at-Arms and the 'officer' by the First Lieutenant for their manner of wearing the kit, their deportment even. Some of them are akin to high camp, and it is almost as if the models were pretending to be sailors in some gay magazine. The seriousness of this book is undermine by the likes of the model in tropical uniform on page 79 and the cover photograph - the dust jacket - is ridiculous (in the true sense of that word)! The conceit of writing the captions as if these models were real sailors of the time is bad form - each one should have stated differently. Phots of real sailors and fake sailors - it's a joke.

The book has an index, albeit entries unnecessarily repeated, but what is missing is a far more comprehensive glossary of terms - how many people really understand what Undress Uniform really means (Wikipedia has a good article on the subject)?

The black and white photographs of naval personnel of the period are good but it is a pity that most do not have names - only senior officers have names, and this is lamentable. Sourcing the photographs used must surely have meant that the names of a good number of the subjects were known - the reader should be told.

There is no mention of Royal Marines or WRNS uniform. One items of clothing missing entirely is underwear - even in 1967, joining the Royal Navy on the lower deck, one was issued with ghastly cotton trunks that were a yellowish colour which, with washing, might turn sort of white. Most young men discarded these items and wore their own civilian contemporary underpants. What a waste of public money those items of unwanted naval clothing were, though I'd not be surprised if the underpants were stock from the Second World War and/or later National Service.

A few mistakes to correct. On page 72 the S badge caption should read "Supply Rating" not "supplying Rating". I can't remember whether the blue tapes of a junior rating's blue uniform were white when worn with tropical uniform (photos, page 92) but certainly white tapes were worn with blue uniform at a wedding. A common error in general language is to refer to a ship's company as a crew - a boat has a crew, a ship or submarine has a ship's company (even though a submarine is called a "boat"). The shoulder badge and shoulder title (captions, page 109) were more commonly called, I think, a shoulder flash. In the composite photograph on page 148, the S badge for a Supply Rating (a 'Jack Dusty') is upside down. In the caption for the photograph of medal ribbons on page 154, it's the naval Long Service and Good Conduct Medal and not as stated.

Nevertheless, there's much here that one might not find elsewhere and of, like me, an Amazon goodwill gesture of £30 meant that this book cost £4 rather than the rrp of £25, all the better. In closing, as I close the book, that front cover photograph, and associated colour photographs, still irks!… (mere)