Boot brushes have appeared many times over the years of this blog and the army marked examples are very common, regularly examples dating back as far as the First World War turn up for under £1 each. Those stamped up for naval or Air Force use are much scarcer, but I have managed to pick up a pair of Admiralty marked examples over the last few years. Until recently however a wartime dated RAF example eluded me. It was therefore fantastic to find this example a few weeks back for just 50p:
The brush is typical of all boot brushes, with a wooden back and bristles glued in small clumps into holes drilled into one side:
The bristles are made of hair, like nearly all brushes manufactured before the widespread use of nylon, and this is stamped into the wood along one side of the brush:
That this is an RAF brush is clearly indicated by an AM and crown mark indicating the Air Ministry and the date of 1941:
‘Kent’ is the name of the manufacturer and indicates that this brush was produced by GB Kent & Sons Ltd. This firm is still trading today and their website gives some history:
G B Kent & Sons Ltd, manufacturers of brushes since the eighteenth century, is one of the oldest established companies in Great Britain.
Kent Brushes was founded in 1777 by William Kent in the reign of George III. We hold a pre-eminent place in the history of brush making, with an unbroken record of excellence in the quality of our production, which has been recognised by the granting of Royal Warrants for nine reigns.
The Kent family continued to run the company for six generations until 1932 when the last of the three Kent brothers passed away. Then Mr Eric L.H Cosby, owner of Cosby Brushes Ltd, entered into an association with G.B Kent & Sons. This started a new chapter in Kent’s long history, and since then, Kent Brushes has been under the creative and dynamic direction of the Cosby family.
The only other marks on the brush is an RAF type stores code marked in minuscule type into the same side as the AM mark:
Airmen were issued a pair of boot brushes on enlistment, just like their counterparts in the other services and were then responsible for the upkeep of their own footwear, polish being bought out of their own pay at the NAAFI.
We can tell that this spoon was destined for India as it is marked with an /|\ over an ‘I’ mark on the rear:
This was the military acceptance mark for India and is seen on a variety of British and Indian made military items used by the forces in the sub-continent. This spoon though was made in Sheffield and is marked with the makers stamp ‘SSPC&Co’:
This stands for the Sheffield Silver Plate and Cutlery Company Ltd, of Priestlet Street Sheffield. A 1921 dated advert by the company shows some of the designs of flatware they offered:
I suspect that this spoon was manufactured between the wars, as by the Second World War India was increasingly reliant on domestic manufacture to meet the needs of its military forces, as described in this exert from ‘The History of the Supply Department’
The most obvious difference is that it is made of a tan coloured cotton rather than the white used in Great Britain. The tapes on the end are still made in white though:
I have seen other examples where the tapes are in green and I suspect that there is no significance to this beyond being a manufacturing change. The basic design is identical though and has a large pocket at one end and a series of loops along the body of the wash roll to fit knife, fork, spoon, razor, comb, spare bootlaces etc. into:
There is no maker’s name stamped onto the wash roll, but a large /|\ within a ‘C’ stamp indicates Canadian ownership:
I have seen other Canadian made examples that are dated and stamped up with a manufacturer’s name, the wonderfully titled Parisian Corset Manufacturing Company Limited of Quebec being one of them.
This can has a small screw cap and the top of the can would originally have been shiny metal. This example has clearly been lurking in a shed for many years so the top is covered in sixty years of caked on grease. Removing the lid then provides something of a contrast:
This bottle is still half full and it smells exactly the same as the modern bottle of Brasso I have for cleaning my own cap badges! Modern Brasso contains C8-10 Alkane/Cycloalkane/Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Quartz, Kaolin, C12-20 Saturated and Unsaturated Monobasic Fatty Acids, Aqua and Ammonium Hydroxide. One would assume the recipe is little changed since the product was introduced.
We can date this tin of Brasso by the information on the back which indicates it is supplied to Her Majesty the Queen, indicating it is post 1952 and that the contents are 7oz which suggests to me that this can comes from the 1950s or 1960s before widespread metrification:
David Fowler did National Service in the 1950s and recalls the use of Brasso:
Whilst the opposite side says ‘NAAFI Canteen’:
“Over to You”, the official news sheet of the 5th Battalion Coldstream Guards reported the introduction of these tokens in its edition of Monday 10th July 1944:
The contents of this bottle are mostly talc, but also include micota which combats athlete’s foot and sweat rashes. Like a civilian bottle of talcum powder, the top has a twisty lid that allows the contents to be sprinkled onto the user’s feet:
Of course it is not just feet that this powder is useful for, anywhere that gets hot and sweaty for long periods of time can be dusted with the powder, such as the crotch and arm pits. A simple white label with details of the contents and an NSN number is stuck to the front of the bottle:
Interestingly the powder has a shelf life of two years. I am assuming that this is a long as one could hope it would remain sterilised, the talc part of the ingredients remaining fine as long as it is kept dry pretty much indefinately. One soldier advises:
This example is made from wood and clearly started off by being having the handle turned on a lathe, the point where the spindle was pressed into the wood still being visible on the base of the brush:
The top of the handle was divided into four, with a central area to accept the bristles:
After this was secured, string was tightly wound around the top of the handle to draw the four quarters together and secure the bristles into the handle:
Note the recess lathed into the handle for the string to sit in. The handle is stamped in ink indicating it was made in London in 1945:
The /|\ arrow clearly indicates it was made for the military. This is definitely the budget end of shaving brushes and I suspect many troops would have quickly ditched this brush in favour of a better quality civilian example, not only is the handle crude, but the bristles are coarse and unlikely to make a good lather easily.