The Quality of Uniforms

See uniforms, man? uniforms are great social indicators. Policemen, firemen, paramedics, such as they need good quality functional uniforms. They must command trust and respect, therefore they must be made well and look smart. You can even tell that they community polis types are deliberately less valued. It’s definitely no’ a proper polis uniform they’ve got, it is a lesser one, of lesser design and an insufficiency of quality. They’re mair on a par with that much-despised breed the traffic warden (tho I bet they’re not called that now. Probably Road Transport Misdemeanour Regulator’s or some such shite).

Yer community polis is someone the public, miscreant or otherwise, do not respect and that proper polis look down on as a pesky nuisance they have to pay lip service to at training seminars.

Yet the really scabby uniforms belong to those such as poor old bus drivers. Sent out to look smart in the scabbiest of uniforms. Naebdy could look smart in those. Yer Made in China cotton/polyester jobs, shiny and ill-fitting. And these poor conveyors of commuters., they are not always the most trim and athletic of the working community sitting as they do on sweaty arses for long shifts such as the number 30 Lothian service which visits two time zones and has a channel crossing in its schedule. Thus, some of these plastic-looking uniforms are voluminous and could be re-shaped as family tents or parachutes. The entire suit of bus driver clothing smacks of Shoe Express and Matalan.

Security guards, though, eh? Security guards. There is little good to be said about the uniform of the average security guard. If they were made to degrade an individual then they do a fine job. A man can possess dignity and pride in his appearance but not – never – in a LIDLs security guard uniform. It is not possible to achieve sartorial prestige wearing clothing even your own employers wouldn’t sell.

Whatever shitty, sub-standard material it is made from and manufactured in some Pacific Rim workhouse it seems to want to ‘droop’ when worn. It is a fabric called droop-wear. It is a fabric made of auld dusters, cheap-range plastic bags from Semichem and worn-out pieces of linoleum from the great days of Kirkcaldy. It isn’t a uniform it is a shroud. It would take Sean Connery in his prime to fill out such an outfit, maybe Arnie Schwarzenneger.

Supermarket security guards should be dressed like kings. They should be ermine-robed and crowned and paid to suit. Our new post-Covid society should honour such as these. For who else would put their lives potentially at risk over a stolen stollen cake or a pilfered 3-litre bottle of industrial cider?

Not, I!!