Norwegian shirts

[badjez]

Thanks once again.

For a short while in the 1990's we wore black Norgies with horrible matching black sweatpants beneath flameproof wool overalls for public order events. The issue white uniform collared shirts looked ridiculous beneath 'babygrows' and were not as flame/ heat resistant. Sadly, the ever image conscious Met Police in their wisdom decided shirts with ties had to be worn with PO overalls and other forces fell into line with them, so the Norgie was relegated to training only.
Wearing uniform trousers beneath PO overalls was incredibly hot, especially with full body armour, legs pads, arm guards etc. During one event the rubber in the lining of my trousers actually melted onto my shirt.

The issue boots, like most of the Army's were suspect, especially if exposed to petrol bombs, so we got hold of some US made boots and had them imported. I cannot recall the name of them but they were like wearing high-leg training shoes from the day I got them. Indestructible until they came to Australia and eventually fell apart in the garden.

Stephen.

[54Bty]

Another tale; for those who remember green Denim trousers or the lighter green Jungle trousers. For years we managed to wear these trousers on exercise, warmish, easy to clean and pretty tuff cloth, then some bright spark decided that we should wear green NYLON based coveralls instead. A demonstration of the flammability of these soon changed the sparks mind so we went back to denim, but not for long, as we then had Trousers Light Weight issued, and yes they were as flammable as the coveralls. Nothing to do with Norgies except they were also part of the dress.

Marc

[Expat Yeoman]

Stephen, to reiterate much of what has been stated above, I believe private purchase in the 1990s (my first one was circa '92) and then superseded once there was an issued equivalent with C95 - and I would agree quality of that was inferior to the private purchase one.

The challenge is the date of intro of C95 will vary giving you a wide range for when they stopped. As noted above for some units that was in the 90s, for mine it wasn't until 2003 that we switched to C95.

[badjez]

Michael and Marc,

Thanks.

I believe there was a pecking order in which CS95 was issued, starting with Regular 'Field Force'. This uniform was not issued to Reserve Army elements until finance became available during the Financial Year 2000/2001.

One problem is that all this is too recent to be history, so the records have not been released to PRO etc., and much of what is on the internet is unreliable.

Stephen.

[Tiger Pete]

Hi Stephen,

You are correct. My unit received CS95 in 1999/2000 (between my Juniors and Seniors- that's how I remember).

KR,

Pete.