Vintage antique ladder for her up scaling hobby.
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A lot of this stuff is incomparable though. Buying a nice little patch with your name on it is always going to be in addition to the actual clothing.
Must admit, I haven’t worn, or owned a pair of DMS in years, I have 4 pairs of oxfords - 1 parade pair, treble soled. two general pairs, both with added rubber soles, and finally one pair still in the box for when the others give out.
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Did you remove the protective wax before you applied polish?
My beeswaxed ones are for that…theyre the general use ones
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Don’t recall doing that. Perhaps that’s why?
Gentle blow torching then rubbing with news papet will sort that… Just make sure you have actual leather soles instead of rubber or it will be a world of hurt
I used to get the lid of the shoe polish tin and fill it with warm water. Add a couple or three drops of aftershave to it. Dip cotton wool ball in regularly and cover the whole shoe.
It gets rid of the wax and provides a platform for polishing.
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Oh well, they’re long dead now.
It works on DMS shoes as well. You just have to be careful that you don’t go overboard with the aftershave or you end up smelling like a cheap tart’s handbag.
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I know someone’s who polishes with aftershave 
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Bringing it slightly back on topic…
As such as we can discuss issuing No3 dress, it makes little difference to the blue hell of these rank slides…
Perhaps because I’m not a fieldcraft fan but fail to see the desire in subdued rank slides.
By definition their harder to see so removes the point of wearing them to display rank.
Removing the rank slide has the same effect…
I can understand officers choosing the appropriate backing colour but for SNCOs just seems like its being done to appear Gucci…
Perhaps that is the point and as someone who doesn’t get excited by the Gucci kit I don’t “get it”?
Why do you understand officers doing it but not sncos?
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Because
1- officers (particularly Plt Off and Fg Off) rank braid sits better when on a backing rather than loose. So happy that the backing matches the rest of uniform…else there is an argument for No2 uniform with No3 backing slides (ie why have the contradiction that blue backing is ok on No3 yet not vice versa?)
2- Officer rank braid is already blue…and thus not subdued.
Ps I’m against subdued rank slides full stop. Be it the full SNCO slides or “desert” coloured officer stripes
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I once got told off by an ACF Colonel for not saluting him when he was cutting around Okehampton in subdued slides. I made a point, when he stopped me, of staring closely at his slides, remarking I thought they looked like captain slides, before saluting and walking off.
Total thorn injury.
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i had a similar experience at Leconsfield
walking through one of the hangers and an Army officer (rank unknown, but escorted by a WO) walked past.
although i can’t match pips to rank, i know what an Officer slide looks like, but I couldn’t see it. I knew the WO was a WO, but the Officer wasn’t so obvious - so hoped for the best as I looked the other way as we passed only to be pulled up by the WO 3 paces later. A pleasant chat took place when he noticed we were CFAVs…with some kind words of re-education (although suspect he was ready to rip a new hole given his initial bark)
I’ve always struggled with WO2 vs Major. I mean, they could make them more different!
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I wasn’t do lucky. Not only do they have stupid army rules like “wear your hat indoors”, they had a major with subdued rank casually hanging round waiting for unsuspecting people to not notice him and fail to salute him.
I was with 2 regular RAF and we all got a dressing down. I didn’t dare tell him I hadn’t seen his rank, and if I had I would have called him a warrant officer 
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If in doubt I prefer to take the telling off for saluting a WO than not saluting a Major.
We teach Army ranks as local ACF CFAV seem to get more wound up than any other breed about this, despite being utterly clueless themselves about our or the RN’s ranks.
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