IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH FASHION

Angus Cundey

Interviewed by Linda Sandino

C1046/03

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THE NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION

INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET

Ref. No.: C1046-03 Playback No.: F13130-31; F13325-26; F13453-54; 13547-48; F13672; F13873-74

Collection title: Oral History of British Fashion

Interviewee’s surname: Cundey Title: Mr

Interviewee’s forenames: Angus Sex: Male

Occupation: Tailor Date of birth: 07.06.1937

Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: Tailor

Date(s) of recording: 16.04.2003; 20.05.2003; 24.05.2003; 10.07.2003; 24.07.2003; 09.09.2003

Location of interview:

Name of interviewer: Linda Sandino

Type of recorder:

Total no. of tapes: 11 Type of tape:

Mono or stereo: Speed:

Noise reduction: Original or copy:

Additional material:

Copyright/Clearance:

Interviewer’s comments:

Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 1

Part 1 [Tape 1 Side A]

My name is Angus Howard Cundey, and I was born on the 7th of June 1937. And I was born, Muswell Hill in fact, north London.

And what were your parents doing in Muswell Hill?

Well actually, Muswell Hill was, I believe the nursing home, but we lived at that time in Hampstead Garden Suburb, where my father was, was then running this company, Henry Poole.

And for the purposes of the tape, could you just tell me his full name?

Yes, it was Samuel Henry Howard Cundey.

And your mother’s?

Eileen Florence, obviously Cundey, but she was, before that, Fitter. And her father was a, a very well known meat wholesaler in Smithfield, and in fact the company Fitters were the first to import New Zealand lamb into this country. And, he in fact made a lot of money, retired at fifty-five, and he built a very nice house in Aldeburgh in Suffolk, and that’s probably the reason that, that, and I went to school there, is probably why I live in Suffolk now.

Could you tell me...could we start with your grandparents? Could you tell me a bit about your family sort of connection with Poole, and, and...?

Yes, indeed. Well, we would in fact have to go to my great-grandfather, who was simply Samuel Cundey, and he married a publican’s daughter, whose name was Howard, the family name Howard. And that’s how we all have Howards in our name. So my grandfather was cousin of Henry Poole, and when Henry Poole died, he left half the business to his sister and his wife, and perhaps fortunate for us he had no children, so the other half of the company was left to my grandfather, great- Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 2 grandfather, Samuel Cundey. And that’s how... And at that time, my great- grandfather was sort of showroom manager of, of the company.

And your grandfather?

My grandfather, he entered the business when he was, I think about eighteen, and, strangely he was sent to Germany for further education. I say strangely, because, though Germany was, and still is, an important market for us, I would have thought French, France was more important. But any rate, he went to Germany. And when his father, Samuel, died, Howard Cundey took over the business, and eventually bought out the Henry Poole interest, and became the sole proprietor at the turn of, about, 1905 I think it was.

So what about your grandmother, his wife?

Ah, yes, now that... Her name was Houle, her maiden name was Houle, and her parents, or her, certainly her father, ran at that time a famous jeweller’s in St James’s Street called Ortner and Houle. And you still see occasionally a clock with Ortner and Houle written on it. And, I suppose, through being two tradesman, they...and St James’s Street being near to Savile Row, they, that’s how they met and subsequently got married. My grandfather, Howard Cundey, he married quite late, I think he was about forty-six years old. And, therefore, sadly, he died when my father was only twenty-five. And in fact, perhaps that’s something I should mention, because, my father was sent to St Paul’s School in London, and when he was eighteen he was summoned into my grandfather’s study, and at that time they were living in a, quite a substantial house in Queen’s Gate in Kensington. And he was asked, or rather, my father was told, that, ‘You are leaving school on Friday, and on Monday you’re taking the ferry to Paris, or to France, to work in our Paris branch.’ And my father said, ‘Well Father,’ I’m sure he didn’t call him Dad, ‘we haven’t discussed this, I haven’t thought about what career I’m going into.’ But, my grandfather would have none of that, and, needless to say, my father was shovelled off to the ferry, and to the, the Paris branch. Which, I always understood from him, was not a very good experience, because, here was the boss’s son, and they didn’t really know what to do with him. So all he did was to open and shut the door, like a doorman, and say, ‘Bonjour Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 3

Monsieur’ to...[laughs]...to the customers. So I don’t think that was a very happy time for him. And I’m not sure even today if he really did want to be a tailor. And then as I say, when he was twenty-five his father, my grandfather, died, and so there he was, head of this very, in those days, a very substantial tailoring company. Fortunately he had a brother, a younger brother, who became a chartered accountant, and did in fact come into the business, and so, the two managed to put it all together and run it. But, so that when I reached eighteen years old, by that time I was at Framlingham College in Suffolk, and I always wanted to go into the Royal Air Force and fly an aeroplane, and the headmaster summoned me into his study, and said, ‘Now what are you going to do when you leave, leave the college?’ And so I said, ‘I want to go into the Royal Air Force.’ And, he said, ‘Are you sure Cundey? Do you not realise that you could inherit a most wonderful firm, probably the most famous tailor’s in the world?’ And, well it obviously made me think. Because my father had never spoken about the company in that way, and never intimated even to me that I could come into the firm. And so, when I got back for the school holidays, I said to my father, ‘Would there be a place for me in Henry Poole?’ and his face lit up and, and he said, ‘Of course.’ And, so I gave up, or abandoned the Royal Air Force, and became a tailor. And the amusing thing is that, he did in fact send me to Paris as well, but not quite in the same way, in fact he came with me on the ferry, and introduced me to a cloth merchant’s that we deal with in London, and they have branches in Paris. And then I went and worked for Lanvin, the big couture house, for six months, where I learnt to, to hold a needle, and to sew, but, not, not expertly, but, it gave me a very good insight into what goes into making a, a jacket. And then I went on to another tailor, Paul Portes, a famous company then, in the rue de Rivoli, where I spent more time I think in the cutting room than, than sewing. But, I was in Paris for a whole year, and, it kept me in very stead, because, I then did my National Service in, in fact, the Royal Air Force...[laughs]...and, eventually, in about 1963, my father said, ‘We would like to resurrect our business in France,’ because of course the Paris branch died at the outbreak of the Second World War, and it was never started again after the war. And he said, ‘I would like you to go to Paris and see the customers that we had.’ So, my French was very useful, and I...and it was very good experience for me, because I was all on my own, having to measure and fit customers, and of course show them cloth. And I remember they, so many of them were so supportive, they remembered the company before the war, and... And eventually, the business grew so Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 4 much that, that I had to take a cutter with me to help me out, and, well probably do the job properly. [laughs] So, that’s how my poor father started, and, and I started but in a much more friendly sort of way. And I’ve loved tailoring ever since.

So, so, why do you think you chose Lanvin as the company to, for you to work with?

Well Lanvin did have a, it has a men’s department as well as the ladies...on each side of the rue du Faubourg-St-Honoré there’s Jeanne Lanvin, the, the ladies’ couture house, and then Lanvin Homme, which is obviously the men’s department. And then, at that time, Lanvin was a very prestigious company which, I think to a certain extent it still is. But I think it was probably the choice of the cloth supplier, the agent, the cloth agent, that was in fact French, that he arranged that, and, my father obviously approved. And it was, it was a very great experience. I was in the workshop on the fourth or fifth floor. Nobody could speak any English, except, every morning I used to have to say ‘Good morning’ and shake hands with each and every one of them, and one of them, there were two words, he could say, ‘Zee big lion.’ [laughs] So every morning he would say, ‘Bonjour, zee big lion.’ And, and then the other amusing thing was that at, I think it was 4.15, they would put on, they would change the radio service from French, Europe No.1 I think it was, to the BBC, and I would listen to Mrs Dale’s Diary. [laughs] And as soon as it was over, they went back to Europe No.1. [laughs] So, I wouldn’t say I exactly enjoyed it, but it was a, a break from trying to struggle with French.

And who would be in this room with you, could you describe it a bit?

Well I, I was apprenticed to an Armenian coat maker, a very, very skilled man he was. And then there would have, I think from memory, one of them was a youngish, older apprentice but still young, working with another tailor, the one that said ‘Zee big lion,’ he was a coat maker, and he had this young man as an apprentice. And then there would...I think there were about three other coat makers, I think they were all coat makers in that particular workshop. And in fact, what I can remember is, this young, young man took me to the France-England rugby match. And of course, naturally, I went with him, and so I was surrounded by French people, and I started to Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 5 cheer for England, and, he quickly told me to shut up, because, he...[laughs]...I think he feared for my safety. So I had to keep very quiet for the rest of the match.

And what do you...is a coat literally a coat, or is...or...?

Ah, yes. In tailoring, like, like us, a coat means an overcoat or a, or a jacket. Yes, it’s, I suppose an old English word, that, you talk about a coat maker, and he will make all sorts of...if he’s really skilled, he’ll be able to make tail coats, white tie, morning coats, what we call a lounge jacket, which is the basic garment we wear today for, for business. He could probably make a frock coat. So, in other words he is a coat maker, because he can make all those different types of, as I say, we would say coats, it’s really, even the coat that you wear with, as a lounge suit, he still writes down for his payment for making it, a coat as opposed to a jacket. That’s even today.

Could you describe your apprenticeship?

Yes. What happened... Yes, I can remember it well. I left school in the autumn term, because I was not the brightest of, of students, and I had to take a second, have a second stab at, I think it was English language and English literature in GCE as it was then. So I stayed on until the Christmas of 1954. And then I had my Christmas holidays, and started, I had three weeks in the wonderful old building that we had then in Savile Row, before it was demolished. And I worked for three weeks with a, with a tailoress. And the tailoress actually taught me how to hold a needle, because I’d never...my mother never got me to sew on even a button. So I had no idea. But I, I must have picked it up. And she showed me how to use a sewing machine. So that, three weeks later, when my father took me, I suppose it was the end of January, out to Paris, and I was then left on my own, living in a pension, and I had to work, I started at eight in the morning and worked till seven at night. But of course, in those days the French, at least some of them still do today, they take two hours for lunch. So at twelve o’clock I would get a bus back to the pension and be given lunch, and be back again within the two-hour break. But I didn’t finish till seven. And, most of the time I was actually using the needle, and padding canvases and collars and lapels, which is the sort of format even today that we use to teach a youngster how to hold a needle, and the different stitches. And I really did that predominantly for, for six months. It Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 6 was a treat if I could use the arm and do some under-pressing, I never did the final press, but I was allowed to do under-pressing, which is opening the seams and that sort of thing, as the, as the coat is being made. But I think generally I was...I certainly became fairly proficient at holding the needle, and padding these canvases and lapels. And I did a little machining. But, it was certainly a very good insight for me to see how a, a handmade jacket is made, and how much hand work should in fact go into it. And then I came back for the school – not school, for the holidays, in August. And then in September I started with this other tailor in the rue de Rivoli, Paul Portes, who sadly is no longer. I mean as I say, I think, I think he rather liked me to be around, so when customers came in, I was sort of introduced as ‘Mr Cundey’s son of Henry Poole,’ and, it gave a, a certain amount of cachet I think to, to Paul Portes. And so I used to spend too much time really in the, in the fitting room, and in the, in the cutting room. I’d have...it would have been better for me I think if I had carried on with learning a bit more about the sewing side of the business. Because in fact, what happened after I left Paul Portes, as I said, I did my two years National Service, and then my father put me in the cutting room in Savile Row, but even prior to that, he sent me to the Tailor and Cutter Academy, which was in Gerrard Street. And Gerrard Street today of course is Chinatown, so my, my cutting school is no doubt now a Chinese restaurant. [laughs] That’s where I was taught basic cutting, and I think I was there for about three months, maybe more, and I was given a diploma at the end of it. And then I came into the firm’s cutting room, and worked with a Mr Brentnall. And in fact, eventually Mr Brentnall went to the London College of Fashion where he taught, taught cutting there, but, he worked for us for a long time, and, and I was his, his trainee I think, not an apprentice, trainee, for... And he taught me firstly how to cut trousers. And I used to actually go into the fitting room and put the trousers on the client, and then I would chalk mark it, and do, as I saw it, the correct alteration. And just at the last minute, Mr Brentnall would come in and correct some of my, my chalk marks. And then I would watch him fit the coat, the jacket. And that’s how I learnt, basic, I have to admit, it’s only basic cutting and measuring and fitting. But it, it kept me in quite good stead as I said, when in 1963 I went off and built up the Paris business, where I, I was on my own for at least two years before the head cutter came, came and helped me.

When you say you were alone, could you describe... Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 7

Well when...when going to Paris, I used to take a car, I had, I had a, I had an MGB I think, a second-hand one I hasten to add, and it wasn’t a company car, but I put in the boot all my patterns, and on the small back seats I would put all the clothes to, to be fitted. And, and I would then unload them at the hotel in Paris, and hang them up, and advise...by which time of course our customers had been advised that I was coming, and they would make appointments, and come and see me, and fit their previously ordered clothes, and hopefully look at some more samples for another suit. And, what happened, it, the business grew to the extent that I was keeping customers waiting too long whilst I was fitting Mr so-and-so, or Monsieur so-and-so. So I needed someone to do the, the cutting while I did the selling. And, and that’s how it progressed from there. Because, we then extended our trips, and we started going to Brussels, and then we would drive from Brussels to, Frankfurt, that’s right, Frankfurt, and from Frankfurt we’d go into Switzerland, and then come back via, via Paris. We would be away about three weeks at a time. And, our European business really got quite, quite a part of the Henry Poole order book, because, I think my father, very wisely, felt that after the war, the Second World War, there were too...we were too much dependent on America, because after the war the Europeans, and certainly the British, couldn’t buy suits in any quantity, because there were clothing coupons and dreadful things like that. And so it was to America that we turned in a big way, and, I think at that stage seventy per cent of our business was American; it could have even been more. And so I think hew as very keen to resurrect our European business, so that perhaps we weren’t so dependent on America. And there have been times since in fact that, there have been sort of hiccups in America, and we, we have depended on Europe, and then another time we depended on Japan, so that... Thank goodness we are a sort of global company now, so we’re not too dependent on any, any one country going into recession or what have you. So, I think he...I’m grateful to my father for opening up our European business, and, and in fact allowing me really to do it. And then it, it went from there, because in 1981, or 1980 in fact, by which time of course I was running the company, my father had, I think, that was the year that my uncle died, and the year later my father died, that’s right, so, I was, I was running the company, and we took over a company who had very good roots in Switzerland and Paris, they made for the Free French during the war, and had a bigger business in Paris than I had managed to build up. And so we sort of overnight doubled our, our business in, in Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 1 Page 8

Paris, and it went on from there that, Paris is still very important to us, though I, I don’t go any more, I gave up two or three years ago and let the younger, younger generation get on with it.

What was the name of the company that you took over?

Oh it was Sullivan and Woolley. And they were in Conduit Street. And they had, they took over in turn a Swiss tailor called Duggenheim[ph]. And with that they had a very good, or still, now we’ve inherited, a very good business in Switzerland. And as I say, they had a, a bigger business in Paris than we did. And we managed to build up with their help, or their cutters’ help, quite a good business in Germany, and we now go to Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Frankfurt, yes, that’s right, and then from there we go on to Vienna. So... But of course, if we go back to the company’s history, I think it was my grandfather in about 1890, that’s when he opened the Paris branch, but he’d also opened a branch in Berlin and a branch in Vienna. And, some customers still remember it through their, their fathers or their grandfathers, who went to those branches. So, and naturally the, the Austrian and the German, the Berlin, that finished in fact even before the First World War, so, it didn’t last all that long, either of them. But, the Paris one did, and that went on right up to 1940. And the manager there, who I did meet subsequently, a Mr Johnson, and he sent a telegram, we’ve still got it, to my father saying, ‘I must evacuate.’ [laughs] And across it, it said, ‘Censored’. But my father was still given it. And of course the poor man had to rush out of Paris, but he made it, he came back to England all safe and sound.

[End of Part 1] Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 9

Part 2 [Tape 1 Side B]

Can you just tell me a bit more about why you would have taken a cutter with you to Paris?

Well, as I profess that I never, I don’t feel that I’m a, a craftsman, I’m more, I suppose more of an administrator than a craftsman, though it was quite right and proper for, for me to learn the, the basics of, of our trade. And though I, I could manage by making chalk marks on the, on the suits, and I would then come back to London and discuss the faults with the cutter. But it was...and then it would be the cutter that would re-mark it, and, I have to admit that it did work, because, subsequently the business did grow. So, I must have been pleasing some Frenchmen. But I, I never felt fully confident as a cutter, and so I was very thankful when it was decided that a cutter should come and, and help me, and as I say, stopped some of these poor men having to wait while I finished off with the, with the previous customer. And thinking about it, I mean my...Henry Poole himself must have been an expert cutter and fitter and, and he’d built up the business. His father, James Poole, I would have suspected to have been a real craftsman. He was a military tailor, in fact he made tunics for officers in the Napoleonic War, that’s really how the, how the firm started. But then when my, Samuel Cundey was general manager of the showroom, so I suspect he was more a salesman than a, a cutter. And my grandfather openly admitted that he had never held a needle, he’d never picked up an iron, he’d never held a pair of shears. He did regret it, but, he undoubtedly was a, a brilliant administrator. In those days we employed about 300 sewing tailors and fourteen cutters, so, the business was really quite substantial. And we were taking orders all over the world at that time, we used to go to Moscow to see the Tsar, and, and of course we had the Emperor of Japan, and... So it really was a substantial business. And not only did he run this business, but he, he basically ran Savile Row, because, he was president of the, the trade association, he was treasurer of one of the charities, and president of the, the tailors, the actual sewing tailors’ charity. And once or twice they had tailors’ strikes, and it was my grandfather that had to settle these, and, he was always chairman of the, of the trade association. So he was quite a formidable character. But as I say, his skills at actually tailoring were, were nil. And, I think, my father could certainly measure customers, but I think that’s as far as he got really. I don’t think he could do more Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 10 than actually take a set of measures as we say. So I was a sort of stage further than that.

Do you think your father wanted to do more, given how he felt, or the way in which he had had to join the company?

No, I think probably, even more than, or less than me, was he, you know, sort of good with his hands. You’ve got to be, obviously to sew you’ve got to be particularly good with your hands, and, and a cutter. A cutter is a sort of artist in his way. And, so I, I think he would be the first to admit that, that he wouldn’t have been able to do that, and, even taking a set of measures. Because it doesn’t end there, you’ve got to summarise how the man stands, and what are his faults, if he’s down right, or one shoulder is lower than the other, and... But having said that, I know he successfully, one day was, went to the Japanese Embassy in Paris, and measured about ten people, came back with thirty-three orders, which was quite an achievement for a, a sort of two days’ travelling. But he was very keen that I, I learnt more than he did. And I think to a certain extent, my time was cut short, because, very sadly, I was in the cutting room, and sadly in 1959 my father caught TB. And he was in hospital for a considerable time, and I know he was away from the business for about nine months. And in that time of course I found that I was coming out of the cutting room more often to meet customers who would have otherwise seen my father. And I think that was sort of, the start of the, me having to spend more time on administration, and, and less time in the cutting room. So it was probably my father’s illness that, certainly started that trend with me. I’m glad to say that, my son now is in the business. It’s a whole different ball game with him, because at the age of twelve he was very interested in clothes, I don’t know if I approve of them, but, he used to look in shop windows, and, and wear strange garments, and it always seemed so that he, he wanted to go into the family business. And so, when he left school at seventeen, I then sent him to the London College of Fashion, and he did a three-year course there, and ended up by making himself an overcoat and a blazer. After that I sent him to Chester Barrie, the very high class ready-to-wear company, but they do a lot of hand work, up in Crewe. And he spent, I think three months there. And, from there I sent him to Huddersfield, and he worked in, in a mill, Taylor and Lodge, for, I think four months. And I had great difficulty in getting him away from there, he loved it so much. And Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 11 he could in fact use what’s called a Dobcross loom, which is a very old-fashioned loom, and he could actually weave cloth. And, he still quite often, in fact he’s going up to Huddersfield on Friday, on Good Friday, on the way to his sister, my daughter, in Glasgow, and he’s visiting the mill on the way. Having spent four months with Taylor and Lodge, I then sent him to Paris. That was really to learn French, because he went to the Alliance Française, and in fact, when he was at the Alliance Française he met this German girl, who he subsequently married, and I, I don’t think he learnt any French, he learnt quite a lot of German. [laughs] And perhaps as a punishment, when he had finished I sent him to Japan, where he spent, again I think four months, which must have been hard work I must admit. But we have a franchise business in Japan, and, and that’s still very successful, and in fact, looking back it was a very good move, because, now he, he can, he meets people that he met so many years ago, and he periodically goes out there now instead of me. And, so I think that laid the foundation for a, a good rapport with the Japanese, which perhaps we didn’t have to the same extent before that. And then after that of course he came into the business, worked in the cutting room for, I suppose about four years. And then our American representative became ill sadly, and in fact then died of cancer, and so with, with the suggestion actually coming from our four senior cutters, that Simon, my son, took over the American business. But rather like me in Paris, we do it another way by sending two out, a cutter goes as well, and Simon has the selling, he takes one room where they do the selling, and another, well they take the hotel suite, so that they have two, two adjoining rooms, one is the fitting room and the other’s the selling room, and... And now as I say, he’s... He phoned me just before you came to see me from New Orleans, he’s coming back tomorrow. But he’s had a, thank goodness, a very good trip. I think the Americans are, at the moment, rather friendly to the British...[laughs]...as a result of our participation in the Iraqi war, and it’s certainly helped business that way. But, at the same time, sadly the Americans won’t travel to London, and so we have little business coming through the showroom at the moment, well not as much as we would like. But, as I say, we’ve slowly I think, from the sort of management side, we, between us we have slowly learnt a bit more as the generations go on, and, my son has now produced two, two sons of his own, and he’s named one Henry, and the other one James, James being Henry’s father, so I’m assuming that he thinks they will both come into the business. And it may well be that they will really learn how to do the skills that the trade requires. Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 12

And do you discuss with Simon which cities in the States to visit, or, how does he do that?

Initially I did, but now, basically I, I leave the whole thing to Simon. I think it’s done him no end of good, because there was a certain amount of friction, inevitably a youngster, he felt he knew it all, and, there were one or two times when he not only upset me, but one or two members of the, the senior staff. But suddenly, when I gave him this responsibility of taking over our American business, it all changed, and, obviously initially I had to suggest at any rate cities that they went to, but now, it’s very much the reverse, he comes back and tells me where he is going next time, because Mr so-and-so has made such-and-such a proposal. And in fact, since we’ve been going, well since Simon has been going, we now make green jackets for three different golf clubs, which he has managed to obtain, and one of them of course is the, the Augusta, the Masters that was on, on the television at the weekend, in fact he was there by invitation of... Which is a, a miracle really, because, it’s so much a closed shop, the Augusta golf club. At any rate, he was invited there with our cutter. And we make the actual green cloth that the winner in the end wears. And then he also goes to the Bahamas, to a very upmarket holiday island, which he’s, again he’s done that himself, and, we now go to New Orleans, which we didn’t before. So, I think, it would be true to say that, you know, he, he now runs the show over there. And of course it still accounts for, probably forty per cent now of our business, it’s still bigger... We have more customers in New York than we do in London. And I found that out because, as I said, we published this, this book, and we sent copies, complimentary copies to many of our customers, and, we sent more to New York than anywhere else.

And those customers, who...what sort of range of professions would those customers in New York be involved in?

Yes, I think, I think it would be true to say they sort of all come from Wall Street, coupled with, you know, we have presidents of most of the big banks out there, we have many lawyers. It’s...it’s... We have in fact doctors and surgeons. I think they’re paid more than...[laughs]...surgeons and doctors in this country. But it’s the sort of Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 13 professional that, customer that we have in America. And I suppose it’s, it’s certainly going that way throughout the world. I mean, in England we still, thankfully, have some of the old aristocracy, the sort of, sixth or seventh generation is coming to us, but they are fewer and fewer. So I suppose it is the, the entrepreneurs in the City, and... And of course there was a time a few years ago when we had some youngsters coming who, who were in the IT, and had made a lot of money in computers and so forth. We haven’t seen so many recently, but, no doubt they’ll come back. But again, it is, it is bankers and heads of industry and, that make up the bulk of our sort of customer today. In fact I’ve got a little story. A very prominent banker, American banker, came in one day to have his fitting, and I had the audacity to ask him, ‘Why do you come to Henry Poole?’ So he said, ‘Oh well that’s very simple. I fly over, stay the night at Claridge’s, have breakfast, a very fine breakfast at Claridge’s, then I walk from Claridge’s to Savile Row. I arrive probably just after nine, and within twenty minutes your salesman has sold me five suits, fifteen shirts and so many ties. You then fit me in New York, and I just come up from Wall Street in my car, but again it takes about twenty minutes to give me the fittings on the five suits. Then I come two months later, back to my London office, and I pick up the suits. So, that whole episode has taken one hour of my time. Now the alternative would be to spend the whole of Saturday, probably with my wife, around Saks or Bloomingdales in New York where I would end up with a rather, several rather ill-fitting, designer suits.’ And, and I think that’s the sort of future of our company, where we can, we know exactly what a gentleman like that will want, the weight of the cloth, the...probably a fairly dark, town suit, though, having said that, we might try and persuade him to have something a little less formal for, particularly for summer wear. But we know exactly what his taste is, so that we can go immediately to five patterns and sort of, ‘Here you are Sir.’ And, and that’s, it will be in the end just what, what he wanted, and in fact needed. So if we can give that sort of service, and time is money to a man like that, I mean he’s, he’s earning more than a million a year, plus probably a million bonus, so, if you divide that by the number of hours in the day, that hour that he spent with us was, was quite a lot of money. [laughs] So if we can give this sort of service, I think there’s a good future for us. And, hence I’m happy that my son has come into the business, as I think he should have a good future here.

Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 14

Could you describe, perhaps using the American banker as an example, the sort of process of having a suit fitted and made?

Mm, yes. Yes, well he’ll have his breakfast as Claridge’s, and then, when he walks in, he will be greeted by our salesman. And, he would, the customer will probably make the first move by saying, ‘I want a couple of suits for business.’ As we have made for him before, we’ll have known, we will have all his details as to what he had before, what style of the suit and so forth. And so we’ll have a good start as to, be able to show him similar or, the sort of things he can wear in business. So, he’ll be shown cloth, and as I say, in the case of this banker, it will only be probably twenty minutes, but, I mean there are other times when it can take two hours just for a man, particularly again if his wife is there, to select one suit. [laughs] Except in fairness, probably the wife will like one, and the husband will like the other, so you end up selling two suits when the wife is there. We will then, either measure, if he was a new customer we would then, first of all the salesman will sort of select the cutter, and by that I mean, part of it will revolve around where the man lives, and which cutter goes to that city. Or it might revolve around, the cutter thinks that Mr so-and-so would, would fit the man better than one of the other cutters. So it’s a combination of, of salesman, and by the salesman, it could in fact be, used to be me, but, now it’s my son as well as our London salesman.

So when you say it would fit the customer better, you mean, in terms of personality?

Yes, well both. They all cut... We don’t.... We’re one of the few firms in Savile Row that don’t have a house style, we don’t have a rigid style of the house. And in fact we never have, even in Henry Poole’s day. We would try and give, give the man what would be most suitable for his size. Because remembering that even in sort of 1850, we had American bankers coming then. And we also had in 1871 the first Japanese here, coming to London. So you can imagine the different figure of a Japanese and an American. So, our cutters have always had to adapt to the different nationalities, and even a Frenchman is different to an Englishman. And so, the salesman and... You would somehow be able to tell which cutter would, would be best for that particular customer.

Angus Cundey C1046/03/01 Part 2 Page 15

But what...sorry, what would be the difference between a Frenchman and an Englishman? You mean in terms of body shape?

Mm, body shape really, yes. They’re sort of a bit stockier. The Englishman anyway, with obvious exceptions, but the Englishman is, usually a little taller and slimmer than the, than the Italian or the French, and that’s why the Italians cut a rather boxy shape, a more shapeless coat than the English cut. Because I suppose the English cut originally was, what would fit the English figure, tied in with, either based on a military garment or a, or a horse...you know, something for riding a horse. And that’s why we have these, we put more shape into our garments than most other nationalities. Though saying that, I mean, you get, fashion for men changes I suppose every ten years very minutely. [laughs] And, at the moment, even the Italians are cutting more an English style than they were, say, in the Eighties when they were making a rather straight-hanging box, boxy looking jacket.

And was this something that you realised when you first went to Paris to...were you aware then of the sort of different sizes, shapes?

Oh. Yes. Well I certainly could see the style that Paul Portes and Lanvin were cutting, how it differed, even with my inexperienced eye I could see the difference. And of course they were very intrigued with the suits that I, that my father had made for me to take out to, to Paris, that there was a subtle difference. I mean, the wonderful thing is for Savile Row, not just Henry Poole, that all over the world there are many men who like the English cut. I mean the same way as I have to admit quite a lot of Englishmen, it would seem, who will go to Bond Street and buy Italian styles, Italian made garments, they will usually be off-the-peg, ready-to-wear, so the comparison isn’t quite the same, but, we do, the business we have in Paris, undoubtedly the Frenchman like, or the French people we have, they like the English shaped coat as opposed to, you know, their local produced less shaped coat.

[End of Part 2] Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 16

Part 3 [Tape 2 Side A]

Would you say that... Well, could we possibly for the moment go back to your background?

Yes.

Had your grandfather died before you were born?

Oh yes. No no, my grandfather died in... Oh, well in fact 1927, so over ten years before I was born. And sadly he died before my father married, because my father married in ’30, 1934. So, that was, that was sad. And the same in fact with my grandmother. My grandmother on, this is on my father’s side, she died four years later than my, after my grandfather died, and the doubly sad thing about that was that, my grandfather left the business to my grandmother. And so, we had in those days what were called double death duties, and this very nearly crippled the company, because, part of the inheritance of course was Henry Poole. And in fact, when the war came we were still paying back a very large loan to, I suppose to the Inland Revenue, or the...I’m not sure, because I was only a little boy. And then, after the war, we did incur some further debts, mainly because Henry Poole himself gave up being regimental tailors, though we still made for the generals and the field marshals, but we didn’t make for the majors and the lieutenants. And so, the First World War was not very good news for the company, unlike some of our competitors who were regimental tailors, and of course the war is, perhaps profitable to them. For us, the Second World War was not, not good; we had some very wonderful customers, including General de Gaulle, but, as I said, he was a general and we didn’t have the bulk of the French that were over here in London during the war. So after the war we had some further debts, and, I still think it was very unwise that my father and uncle were persuaded to sell the freehold of, of the wonderful building that we had in the other side of Savile Row. And then, it was I suppose, today it would be termed a leaseback, because we stayed there for twenty-one years, but at the end of twenty-one years it was compulsorily purchased from the property company to whom we had sold it, by Westminster City Council, to build a car park of all things. [laughs] So, my father saw the demolition of this wonderful building, and I think it, he was never the Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 17 same person after this demolition, which was in, well it was soon after you see, his TB, 1961, his TB was in ’59, so he wasn’t a strong man. And then to see, you know, the sort of family inheritance being bulldozered, must have, well I’m sure it upset him no end. And, whether, I mean looking back, whether we could have remained in this wonderful, ornate building, I don’t know, because it would have cost a lot to keep it going. And, so it may be Westminster City Council did us a favour. The other way of looking at it is, one of my competitors, who I became very friendly with, a tailor up the road, I was saying this to him, wasn’t it, wasn’t it sad that our family no longer owned what would have been quarter of an acre of Savile Row, to which he said, ‘Well I don’t think it’s sad, because, had you owned quarter of an acre, I don’t suppose you would have become a tailor; you would have been some sort of property developer, or, you may have ended up in retirement in Monte Carlo, but would have probably been the end of, of Henry Poole.’ So, he and, I think he’s right, thankful that I didn’t have that. [laughs] And Henry Poole have still survived.

So are you thankful as well then, is that your feeling?

Yes, I think so. I mean, you know, a large...it would have been a very large sum of money, which sounds wonderful, but, undoubtedly I think the firm would have disappeared, and... I like to think that...I am, if we include the Henry Poole part, I am the sixth generation, and Simon will be the seventh, and I like to think that, even though we’re not experts at cutting or making or whatever, perhaps we’re not experts at business, but we have sort of continuity, and Simon I’m sure will continue the business as I have tried in the forty-odd years that I’ve been here. And maybe his children will continue it. But I mean, looking around, we are the only tailors left in Savile Row that are still the same family running it, and really the same, what shall I say, the...the same wish to keep Savile Row going, and not, you know, trying to make a lot of money and then get out and leave the firm, whatever, in, in difficulties, or... You know, the fact that we have, we’ve gone through some very difficult times, but despite that we have survived, and I’m sure this is simply because, you know, there’s been this continuation of the same family, that... Certainly my staff, whenever the sort of subject has come up, and of course it does come up in a big way in this book that we’ve just published, because it’s based on the sort of continuation of the, the seven generations, certainly the staff, you know, they’re sort of imploring me now not Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 18 to go yet and retire; they like to, to have me around, even if it’s only three days a week now.

How do you think those values, of feeling part of the sort of larger tradition, not only family but the Savile Row one, how do you think that was inculcated in you?

Well, that’s an interesting question, because obviously it wasn’t until I was summoned into my headmaster’s office. And I suppose it was a combination of being in Paris, and the respect that they had, the French tailors had for English tailors and Savile Row, that...I’d certainly got that feeling. And I think, after that, when I came back to London and after my National Service, and stint in the, in the cutting room, I was then invited to join the trade association, the Federation of Merchant Tailors, and I think that did me an enormous amount of good, because I was meeting other tailors. And I’ve always felt extremely fortunate that Henry Poole does have a, a wonderful reputation in the trade, and this sort of, rubbed on to me I suppose from my activities in the, in the trade association. Then of course, I felt obliged, but that’s probably not the right word, I took over from my father and my grandfather, in the two charities, and I’m heavily involved in, well I’m president of the Master Tailors’ Benevolent Association, and that was actually founded by my grandfather. And then the Tailors...I’m treasurer of the Tailors’ Benevolent Institute, which, which looks after the sewing tailors. And in fact that was founded by John Stultz, who was Beau Brummell’s tailor, and he very kindly left his property to the charity. And, well I suppose about ten years ago we sold the property, and we’ve managed to invest quite a large sum of money in the charity for future tailors that perhaps fall by the wayside. But I suppose it’s a combination of all, all that. And I suppose customers themselves. Again, I refer to the book we’ve published, and now given, we’ve distributed, I think I said, 2,000 copies right across the world, and I have a, I haven’t counted, but I have a file downstairs of all the thank you letters that we’ve received, and the, the wonderful things that customers are saying, many of them sort of relating to when they first came here, and, and how they’ve never gone anywhere else, and they’ve still got clothes that have, that they had twenty years ago, and they’ve either handed them on to their son or still, or are still wearing them. So there’s a, a terrific sort of tradition, and, I just hope, you know, we’ll be able to continue, and Savile Row will remain the sort of Mecca of bespoke tailoring. Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 19

Did you ever come here as a child with your father?

Yes, I’ve been thinking of that, because of course this story about going, wanting to go into the RAF, I came up with the author of the book. So I have thought about that fairly recently, and, I mean in the war, we, the company remained open all through the war, and I can vaguely remember coming up. But I think I was probably a menace, running round the...because it was a pretty massive showroom, and, in and out of bales of cloth. I didn’t really pay attention to, to what was going on. Strangely, when I became older, my mother used to bring me up, because then we lived in Surrey, and, she used to bring me up in the train to take me to Liverpool Street station to go to Framlingham. And, on the way, we would come in to the, into Henry Poole, and I sort of, I think I was a bit awestruck by it, and, again it never, I just felt it was my father’s place of work, and, had little connection with, with me. It’s, it’s odd, I think about it today as to... I’m sure, I hope it was very different for my son from when he came up on occasions to the firm here; by then it would have been in these premises.

Different in what way?

Well I... I think... I mean, there was my uncle and my father, and I suppose in business they were rather old-fashioned, and though, you know, my father would obviously say hello to me, I wouldn’t feel at all welcome, because, he was busy or concentrating on the business, and I was, I could have got in the way. And so I wasn’t...I wasn’t sort of made welcome, or introduced to anyone. So, and whereas, you know, I, I’m sure when Simon used to come in, you know, the staff would know him and sort of say ‘Hello Simon,’ and, ‘how are you getting on at school?’ and so forth. I think, I don’t think that really happened, it was a different sort of atmosphere in those, in those days. I mean, I’m not saying it against my father, because he wasn’t like that at home, he was very friendly and, and we’d both had an interest in old cars. And, you know, so had a lot in common. With my mother of course I had a great interest, rather the total reverse of my father’s, my father was a Londoner, and even Surrey he thought was too far in the, in the sticks I think they say today. Whereas my mother was, well, having come from Aldeburgh in Suffolk, and brought up in the Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 20 country, she loved the country, and she loved gardening and so forth, and, I’ve inherited that from her, because I basically don’t like London at all, the quicker, you know, sort of half-past five comes tonight, I’ll be in the train, waiting to see that sign that says ‘Suffolk’ on it, and the wonderful fields all around. But, as I say, my father, he never really liked the country. But despite that, as I say, I had a very good relationship with him. So I, I think it was just, it was a very... The showroom itself in Savile Row was much more like a London club. It didn’t have a shop window, it had big leather chairs, which, we have some of them today, and it was a very sort of foreboding atmosphere, which, at the time it was the right thing to have, you know, a gentleman would go to his tailor and, it would be very, how shall I say, he would spend a lot of time there, and, use it to a certain extent like, like a club. And he would, if he didn’t have an appointment, he would stay and read, we always used to have the Times, I can remember, on a great big sort of, a stand, and he would stand there reading the Times until it was time for him to go off for lunch or something. So, the atmosphere was totally different to, to now, when we have a shop window, and, I like to think a sort of, friendlier atmosphere. And in the case of my son of course, I think my father would be horrified, because, many of his American customers actually call him Simon, whereas, you know, that was unheard of for, even in my day, that, a customer would not call you by your Christian name, and you in turn would religiously always call him Sir, and... But in Simon’s case, one or two customers, he will reply to their Christian name, and he will always, much more often, say, ‘Oh hello Mr so-and-so,’ instead of, ‘Hello Sir.’ So it is a, an ongoing changing world.

Do you consider that home in Surrey to be the house where you grew up?

Yes, well, very briefly, we went to this, we had this little house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and I think by five...we were there about five years, and then we moved to Putney, during the war we lived in Putney, and I then had a sister, who is what, eighteen months younger than me.

And what’s her name?

Jane. And she has, she has two children, well they’re not children now, they’re grown up, one has a baby. So we lived in Putney. And then, it was my mother who Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 21 pressurised, I think it would be true to say, my father, to move out further, and so we moved to, to Kenley, which is near Purley. And in that time, and this would have been the end of the war, so just before my...because I then have a brother, who was born just after the war, and he was certainly born in Kenley. So I suspect we moved there about 1944. And in 1944 Kenley was pretty, pretty rural, not nearly as built up as, as today. And we had a, a large garden, I think, sort of three-quarters of an acre. How my father managed that, I think he used to, he would cut the grass and my mother would do the, the weeding. And I used to have a little garden of my own, I can remember. And I put a pond in it, I made a concrete pond, and it promptly leaked, and my father very kindly got a professional gardener to come and re-do it. And, then I could put goldfish in it, and so forth. And then we were there for quite a long time. And, in about the Fifties my father managed to buy a car, and in those days, even that time, after the war, not, not that many people had a motorcar, so I consider ourselves extremely lucky. And, we were out driving on the Surrey-Sussex border, and I, it was me that said, ‘Oh that’s a nice house up for sale,’ and my mother said, ‘Shall we go and have a look?’ And, typically of my mother, she, we stopped the car, and she barged in, and, without any appointment. And we looked at this house, and, my father and mother made an offer, but it, even in those days there was gazumping, so we lost that. But that was to our advantage, because, this must be the time that I was doing my National Service, yes, because, they found this lovely house near Horley, near Gatwick Airport, but again before the airport was built, and that had three acres. And I lived, that’s the house that I can remember most. Though, I mean a lot of the time I wasn’t there, I was doing my National Service, and I had a flat in London, and... But I always, as I’ve told you, I hated London, and so, when the weekends came, if I wasn’t going off with some friend, I would make a beeline back to, to Horley, and help my mother in the garden, and... So I can remember that, that house. And then when I got married, I went and lived sort of down the road in Lingfield, and, so I, you know, I never came back and lived, lived in London. I think my son is rather the opposite, though he does love, he has his little garden, and he likes gardening, but he’s, he lives in Wandsworth, and, and he’s very happy there, and, has not made any noises about moving out to the suburbs.

So when you say that, that house is the one that you remember best, could you just describe it? Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 22

Yes. It was a, to begin with it was down a little lane, an un-made-up road, with about six other houses down this lane. And it had, as I say, about an acre of cultivated lawn and so forth, and then a paddock, and right at the bottom of the garden was a tributary of the River Mole, so we had this little river at the bottom. So it really was a lovely, a lovely property. The house itself was quite substantial, it had, I think five bedrooms, only one bathroom, but it was a pre-war house, and that was how, how they were built. The one thing I can remember is that, it had a, a large Nissen hut in the garden, that had been presumably bought after the war from the Army, and, that was given to me. And it was in this Nissen hut that I rebuilt the old car, the vintage car that I still have today. And I was what, well it was during the National Service that I, that I bought it, I can remember that. So I suppose, this house in Horley, you know, does bring back, you know, I can remember it so well.

And did, did your parents have staff in the house?

No. No, my mother was a very capable person, and... No, I mean unlike my grandfather, they had nannies and chauffeur and.... That was in the real affluent days I suppose of, of the company, the peak, the peak of the company in, well the turn of the, sort of, 1900, even up to his death, he still had, had staff. And for a while my father and his brother and, he had two sisters as well, they all had a governess before he was sent to St Paul’s School, and a nanny would take them into Hyde Park, so... [laughs] But, no, I think, I suspect, I suspect the war put an end to... Because, before the war, when I was born, I know my mother had someone called a cook general. [laughs] And this dear old lady that, you know, that I can quite well remember, I think she used to sort of do everything, and help my mother in the house. Well of course after the war, things were not that easy, and, so all that went by the board.

Do you know why you were sent to Framlingham?

Oh, yes. As I told you, my, I think I did, that my mother lived in Aldeburgh, because my grandfather on my mother’s side built a retirement home in Aldeburgh, and so she was there with her father until she married in ’34. So that’s eleven years she lived in Aldeburgh. And she loved Suffolk. And, I don’t... Well I, I think it was my, Angus Cundey C1046/03/02 Part 2 Page 23 probably my grandfather who suggested that I went to Framlingham, being the, to him the local school. And of course, they came and saw me what, twice a term I suppose. And we would then go and, you know, see my, my grandfather. And we used to holiday there. In fact we were even evacuated to Aldeburgh in the war, so that’s another sort of, reason I suppose for being involved in Suffolk, and I’m certain it’s, it’s because of that now that, you know, I just feel that, that’s going to be a nice place to retire, so, how long ago was it? six years ago, I bought this little cottage, and, we then, when we left...as a sort of weekend cottage, and, then it all became a bit complicated to run two places, and so... And as I was getting that much older, we took the plunge and, that’s my permanent home, and we’ve had it extended, and, quite a lot of work done to it, so it’s a nice comfortable sort of, two-and-a-half-bedroomed cottage.

[End of Part 3] Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 24

Part 4 [Tape 3 Side A]

I’m Angus Cundey, of Henry Poole and Company.

Lovely, thank you. Could you describe your cottage to me?

Yes, it’s a, it’s a semi-detached, well originally it was a farm labourer’s, one up and one down. And then on the other side it was the same thing, one up and one down. And, a whole family apparently would live like that. And in fact the fireplace that we now have in our lounge was where the range used to be, and, and apparently at the other end of the, the one room downstairs, would have been a metal bath, and on top of that they would put a plank of wood, and that would be both the bath and dining- room table. And then there was a very small staircase leading up to the, the room above, which again was just one large room. And then there’s, there still is, the outside toilet, and sort of, bathroom as well I think, which was shared by the people the other side. And the lovely story is that, in this little village or hamlet of Milden, there’s a wonderful hall house, a very large house where the squire, now the local farmer, lives. And it had a wing, and in about 1550 this wing burnt down. But all the remaining timber that survived the fire made three farmers’ cottages. And that’s how our...so our cottage has been built from the timber of the hall, and, I’m told that it was completed and became habitable in about 18...1685, that’s right, 1685. So that, that part of it is very old. During, just before the war, all these properties, meaning the three, or six as they were semi-detached, were condemned by the local council, and the local council bought them. But then when the war...just then the war came, and, they put land girls into these cottages, and so they were soft of resurrected. And then after the war, firstly ours was extended, and what is now our dining room, and I think then it would have been a kitchen, was added, and a room above. So there were then two, two bedrooms. And then at a much later date a sort of, extension was put on at the back, which became the kitchen, and a bathroom and toilet upstairs. So, that made it very habitable. And when we first saw it, we, both of us fell in love with it; I fell in love with it because it has about an acre of land, and my wife just loved the, the atmosphere of t his funny little cottage. And, when eventually we sold our flat in Clapham, some of the proceeds, we were able to extend further, so that we now have a much larger kitchen, and a conservatory, and, and it really is a, you know, we really Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 25 do love this funny little cottage, which, as I say, in 1938/39 had been condemned. And that went for all the cottages. The other side, they at some stage built on considerably, so they have I think three bedrooms. And then the, the couple opposite, they, they’ve extended and they’ve made a nice little house for themselves. And then, the third cottage, that has been combined and made into one, and by doing that of course they haven’t had to extend very much, they’ve simply broken through in the middle, and formed a very nice little detached cottage.

What sort of people are your neighbours?

Well the dear couple opposite are, he’s a retired farm manager, and in fact he was, he was the farm manager to the hall that I was, I was talking about. And he’s lived all his life there, and in fact he’s lived all his married life in the, in this little, little cottage, so, and he’s now seventy-two, seventy-four, so, I don’t quite know when he did get married, but, he’s obviously been there for, certainly fifty years in that same little cottage. On the other side of me, up until a year ago, we had the local garage proprietor living next to us, a true man of Suffolk, and they had this wonderful, the wonderful dialect, and I used to love sitting in the garden hearing them talking with their Suffolk accent. Sadly they moved away last year, but we, we still have the young couple that have taken it. The girl in fact comes from Lavenham, so... But the husband, I think he, he was London-based, or he may still be. And then, I...I suppose our greatest friend, I mean it’s a tiny little hamlet with, I think a maximum of eighty people, spread in, spread over a large...because it’s all farmland, and our two greatest friends that have welcomed us to the village, one is the brother of the, the man that owns the hall, and he’s an apple farmer, and the other one is a wonderful joiner, in fact a cabinet maker, and they, he and his partner have this wonderful two-acre garden which for two years running has won the, you know, it’s come second in the, in the BBC Radio Suffolk’s gardening competition, and he periodically opens these gardens in aid of the Red Cross, and we often...I never bore go to look at his, or their, splendid garden. So that’s, that’s Milden. Plus the fact that, I suppose the only other thing to say about our little hamlet is, we don’t have a pub, we don’t have a shop, the school went long ago. So what we do have is a flourishing church, and two weeks ago I was elected to the Parochial Church Council, and everything hinges around the church. And we don’t, as we don’t have a village hall, it amuses me that very often after Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 26 church service we, we have sandwiches in the church, and wine, red and white wine is served, and, the church then becomes the, well the focal point for the village, and... And I suppose, we have a congregation of around thirty to forty, so that’s half the, half the village comes to the church, which, which is very good.

What are your duties on the parish council?

Well you’ll have to ask me that in a few years’ time, because this only... [laughs] I think the main thing is, very sadly our, the rector of what’s called a benefice, because, there are these five churches that are served by, by one rector, and sadly he retired the end of last year. So that now we do not have a rector. And we have visiting priests who come, most of them are retired, and, we’ve now got to find another rector. And one of my duties will be to interview and help with the decision-making of which rector we have. But I’ve already put my foot in it, because I’ve suggested that, why can’t we have a lady priest in a sort of Vicar of Dibley. [laughs] And, one of the churches is very High Church, and disapproves totally of lady priests, and, sadly, even though they are the smallest parish, they seem to have the most clout. And so I was told in no uncertain terms that, never would there be a lady priest in this, the Monks Eleigh benefice. So... [laughs] We shall see. I believe it’s going to take a year before we can actually have, it will take that sort of time to, to find a replacement.

How do you go about looking for a replacement?

Oh, I think, I think from what I’ve been told, the bishop makes suggestions, and the church wardens first interview him, then from the church wardens it goes to the councillors, the parochial church councillors. And it is a long, a long process, and, I suppose we should, we’re thankful that we do have these elderly retired priests around us, several based in Lavenham, that’s a sort of, retirement place for...[laughs]...elderly priests, and that’s only down the road, so, as I say, we don’t have a, too much of a crisis in having someone to take our services.

Do you watch The Vicar of Dibley?

Oh yes, I love it. [laughs] Yes, it’s one of my favourite television programmes. Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 27

Did it influence you in joining the parish council?

[laughs] I... No, I don’t think so. I have been rude enough to compare our parish council and our church meetings with...[laughs]...with the Vicar of Dibley’s council meetings that she used to hold. I can’t remember the man’s name now who took, who was the chairman, but, we have people like that as well. [laughs]

When did you move into the house in Milden?

Well, as I say, we lived in Clapham, and, as time went on I got more and more dischanted with not having a garden, and just a little yard with little boxes of plants. And, we decided that we would go and find a holiday home, so, a weekend home. And as my childhood had been in Suffolk, I was able to persuade my wife that that would be the place to look. And she did agree with me on the basis that, Suffolk is still unchanged. They say it’s fifty years behind sort of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. And, my wife knew, in fact she came from Worthing in Sussex, and we did spend a weekend looking at property in Sussex and Kent, but very quickly found that there were more cars, more tourists, everything was stressful-making. Whereas when you get into Suffolk, it’s still... Well you can go for three miles without seeing another car, and if you do see a car, they wave at you, and, certainly they do, they give way if, if you’re going up a hill and they’re coming down the hill, and it’s a narrow lane, they will, they will give way, which certainly doesn’t happen any more in, in London or the, Surrey or Sussex, whatever. So, we then found, eventually, we looked at many, we took a whole year finding this little cottage, and... So, we moved into it when it had a, a very old coke Aga, which we had to light when we arrived on a Friday night. And, and then we had a... And I used to light the Aga, and my wife used to light the wood-burning stove, which heated the radiators. And we...that went on for two, nearly three years, and it was then that we decided to live there permanently, we liked it so much. And, I was able to sort of semi retire I suppose from Henry Poole, to the extent that I started working only a three-day week, and, coming up in the morning at sort of eleven o’clock. Having said that, I was still, I’m still nowadays the last to leave in the evenings, but... And then of course we, that’s when we did the extensions, and made it all habitable, and, sadly we don’t have the Aga any more, Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 28 because we did, we did like it when it was alight, but, it was a, it was a lot of work. And so we now have oil-fired central heating, and, we only use the wood-burner when, when it really is very very cold. But it’s, it’s now very comfortable, and... And I think it was in 19...yes, 1999, that...no, 2000, that’s right, the year 2000, that we actually moved down there permanently.

How did you decide on the interior decoration of the house?

Well, on the whole, the previous owners had, had done quite a good job, so, there wasn’t major...well obviously where we extended... My wife really took care of that. And I can remember, well it’s happening now in fact, first of all, we wanted to change the colour in the lounge, but as it has these wonderful old beams and, because it is an old timber-framed cottage, well it’s not easy to find the right colour. And, we ended up with a sort of creamy yellow, but it took about a week of discussions and putting up samples on the wall to get it right. And, so that, that was...so that was quite, once we’d settled on it, that was fine. Upstairs it’s all white, so, there’s no argument or... [laughs] And that seems appropriate, again, with old beams, I think white is a very good colour. But it’s strange you should ask that now, because at this very minute our dining room is being, the chap down the road is doing it for me, but it’s taken, I think a month to get the colour right. And, we’ve tried about three different paint sources, and, I think I put up six samples on the wall until we found exactly the right one. Again, it has mock beams, they’re not, they’re not structural like the ones in the old part, but it has these mock beams, and, with a white ceiling, and, and we wanted a sort of... But it’s a very dark room, and the problem was, we wanted to have it green, antique green, like the National Trust use, but it’s, as it’s such a small room with a small window, it’s very dark, so we had to find a, a sort of, more a pastel green so that it, it wouldn’t be too sombre.

Could you tell me your wife’s name?

Well it’s Myranda, but naturally it’s now been shortened for years to Mandy. [laughs]

And who shortened it?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 29

I think in fact her mother. Yes, I think, I think... But she likes to be called Myranda, but, I’m afraid I’m so used to calling her Mandy that, it’s not to be.

And how did you meet?

Well that’s, that’s a long story, because of course, Mandy is my second wife, but the amusing thing is that, when I was an apprentice in Henry Poole, one day my father told me to go to a company called Jacqmar. I don’t think...they may still be around. They certainly, I think you can get Jacqmar scarves for ladies, and... But any rate, this is way back in sort of 1959, 1960. He wanted me to go and fetch some patterns from Jacqmar for a customer’s wife, a very important American I subsequently found out, I think in the, something like the Foreign Secretary of America. And when I went to Jacqmar, I obviously got lost and went to the wrong place; I didn’t go to the showroom, I ended up I think on the first floor. And, this girl came out and said, ‘I’ll fetch someone for you. In the meantime, here’s a chair.’ And she brought a chair out of the office, and plonked me in the, in the corridor. And then, I went off with the patterns back to, to the company. And I, even today I can remember going to our head cutter and saying, ‘I’ve met this very pretty girl, I don’t know her name. What can I do?’ So, he said, ‘Well when your father goes out to lunch, go into his office and phone up Jacqmar and see if you can speak to her, and then, and then you must invite her out for a drink.’ So I did, I went and used my father’s phone, and I, I said, ‘I was round there an hour or so ago, and someone gave me a chair. Do you think I could speak to that young lady?’ And somehow they traced... So Mandy came to the phone, and, with great trepidation I, I asked her if she would have a drink. And so the following night, after work, we both met. And I can remember we went into Regent’s Street, into Verrey’s, which, that’s sadly no longer, but it was a, I suppose today we’d call it a wine bar, but, it was obviously the right place, I took her to the...having been advised by the head cutter to go there, it obviously went down very well with Mandy, because, we then used to see each for several years. And in fact, there is a, as you know I have an old car, and at that time it was my only car, and, and I took her to a vintage car social gathering somewhere near Bagshot. And on the way home I, I think it was rather wet, we had the hood up, and, and I skidded into a lamppost. And in fact I broke my arm, and Mandy hit her head on the hood stick, and she had concussion. And so we were taken off to hospital, and the car was taken away by Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 30 some friends of mine, thank goodness, who had been following. And, we, I stayed in hospital for several days, but, Mandy was all right the next day, and in fact she then went and spent a week recovering with my parents. But we then drifted apart, and, and I went my way and she went hers. And then, what, ten, nearly ten years ago, we happened to meet, or, I think I, I found out her telephone number and phoned her. [laughs] And then we met and had lunch, and it, things took off from there. And so, you know, after twenty-eight years, we’re back together again. But now... And then we married about eighteen months ago. [intercom] Oh dear.

Could you repeat that again?

Yes.

You married ten...

Yes, we, that’s right, we married, what, eighteen months ago. And, hopefully we will live happily ever after.

Why do you think you drifted apart?

I think if I’m totally honest, Mandy met a very good-looking man, and, I sort of felt that, it was too much competition for me, and, gave up. And in fact, I think for, for many years Mandy was very happy with, with him, and produced three, three daughters, who, obviously I now know very well. But then they, in fact they drifted apart, as I did with my first wife, and, I think we happened to meet just at the right, the right time for both of us, and, as I say, thank, thank goodness we’re now very happy together.

Can you remember what you wore on your first date with her?

Well I can only think that it was a, a typical formal suit, which...[laughs]...I’m sure, I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but... I suppose over the years, I have always worn rather traditional, not very striking sorts, sort of suit. I don’t like to be too flamboyant, though I like to, obviously show off our wares. But I suppose, you Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 4 Page 31 know, sort of, what I’m wearing today, a blue stripe or a blue herringbone. I like grey flannels very much. But it’s that sort of, sort of garment that I’ve worn I suppose all my life. Even when I was at Framlingham College, in those days we used to wear every day a grey, a light grey herringbone jacket and trousers, it was our uniform, so, from the age of thirteen I’ve been used to wearing what today would be considered quite formal dress.

[End of Part 4] Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 32

Part 5 [Tape 3 Side B]

.....remember what Myranda was wearing?

No, not then. But after, after she left Jacqmar, she worked for Alexon, which of course is still going today, and, she, she became a model there, a house model, so she always looked extremely elegant, and... I can remember always being very proud, because, when she used to walk into our, our old showroom, and, my father and uncle would, I think, look very kindly on her, because she was, you know, a very elegant young lady. And then after that, she became sort of the showroom manager of, I think it was Young Set. And then it was after that that we parted company. But from, from what she’s said, told me since, she, she carried on, after she’d got married, in the, in the rag trade as she likes to call it, and it’s, I think she finds it amusing now that when she meets people at our, the trade functions, she’s able to reminisce with members of the trade about her career, and they in turn remember many of the people that she speaks about.

Could we go back a little bit to your parents’ house. What sort of furniture did they have?

Well, of course I can remember the one, the final house, or the, the final family house, more than the, the one in Kenley. My mother inherited a lot of furniture from the grandfather that lived in Aldeburgh, and he had some very fine, I suppose it was more Edwardian than Victorian, but it was all... There was very little sort of, what I would call the Thirties, it was before that. The sad ting was that, when eventually they...we had all left the nest as they say, and they decided to buy a cottage in Lingfield, they simply asked, what would he be called? a sort of , house clearance person, to come and give them a pittance for the surplus furniture. So, so much of it disappeared that, you know, none of the three of us, that’s my sister and my brother, there wasn’t much for us to inherit, which was very sad, because I can remember there were dining room, the dining room table, and the chairs, which in fact I think came out of my father’s side, so they would have come from Queen’s Gate, they went, and some wonderful bronze horses by someone called Coustou I think, they disappeared, and... And I can remember pictures and so forth that, though we have between us, we all have some, Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 33 but there were many that, that simply got cleared out. I’ve spoken about this to several people, and, that my sort of father’s and mother’s generation, I don’t think they had, well shall I say, the respect of antiques that, that we have today, and I suppose, perhaps it’s because of the, The Antiques Roadshow on the television, and... And of course the, the enormous value of antiques today has given a whole new concept to, to antiques, and in their day, if they wouldn’t fit in the house, and, I suppose some of the pieces would be quite large for a cottage, you simply sold them to the, to the local dealer, rather than an antique dealer, or give them, hand them on to your children as pieces of antiquity. So that’s rather sad.

Has that influenced you in your choice of furniture?

Yes, I think it, it’s true to say that, Mandy and I do like, well I suppose, old-fashioned or antique furniture. We both have the same tastes, and, and we love browsing round the antique shops, and there are many in Suffolk, so we’re lucky. Not that we buy very much, because we’re in the same boat as my, my parents were, that our funny little cottage, there’s not much space to, to have any more furniture. So there have...even when we left Clapham, we had to, I was able to give some to my son and daughter, and then we gave, gave one or two pieces away, simply, again because we didn’t have the, the space in our little cottage.

What’s your daughter’s name?

Sarah.

What do you wear when you, when you’re down in Suffolk?

[laughs] Other than when we go out, for dinner, for a dinner party or, or a cocktail party, because, it’s very nice, down there people dress up more than they did in London, in Clapham, now, because I think it’s, it is a rather old-fashioned place to live. But, we all wear, certainly jackets, if not suits, when we go to church, when we go to people’s houses for dinner. So I’m, that’s what I do on, when it’s a sort of formal occasion. But, I don’t...I don’t like it known that I’m a tailor the rest of the time, when I’m in the garden, and, I don’t wear jeans, I don’t...I don’t find jeans at all Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 34 comfortable, but, I certainly have my gardening trousers and my gardening shirts and pullovers. And, if I dare suggest that we go shopping with, and I’m wearing these clothes, Mandy makes me at least go and change the, the gardening pullover. [laughs] She won’t be seen with me, wearing my gardening clothes. But I, I do love it, to get out of my suit into an old sweater and slacks. [laughs]

What are they made of?

Oh, oh they would still be wool, or cotton, yes, wool, and then I have some cotton for summer. But, you know, they are, they don’t have any crease down the front, or, you know, they, they’re sort of, splattered with mud, and... And I really, you know, I love wearing them. But having said that, as I’ve said so many times when I’m interviewed for the press, that, there’s a, there’s a time and place for...and I wouldn’t dream of coming to work wearing a pullover and a pair of jeans, as some people have tried on, particularly on this dress-down Friday. I’m dead against that, and I’ve...that’s what I’ve said, I wouldn’t come to work in my, my gardening clothes, and equally I wouldn’t wear a Savile Row suit sitting on my, my little tractor. [laughs]

Could we go back a bit now and, because we haven’t really talked about where you first went to school.

Ah. Well I think I told you that, we lived in, when I was a young, sort of five years old, we were living in Putney, at the end of the war. So I went to, I think it was Putney High School. Because of course, that age, boys and girls up to the age of eight, it was common for them to go to the same school. And then we moved to Kenley, and again, I went to Eotheo...Eotheo...what ’s it called? Eotheo...Eotheothean[sic], that’s right. Which was the girls’ school in Caterham. And they would take boys up to the age of eight. Why I went there, I don’t know, but I, I know I, I misbehaved myself there, and, I think they were very pleased to, to get rid of me when I became eight. And, from there I went to a preparatory school called Downside in Purley, and I stayed there until I took my, my Common Entrance at thirteen, and, and that’s when I went to Framlingham in Suffolk, and, which I can, I can remember quite well, my days in Framlingham. And, and I enjoyed my school days there, I think particularly in the last year, when I was a senior, and, had a bit Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 35 more freedom, and... And in fact I wasn’t bossed about by, by my elders, because I, because I suppose I was one of them. And I can remember, only once a term I would have an exeat. Most of them had four exeats a year – a term, but I, because I suppose my parents lived, well, in Surrey, and, and most of the boys at Framlingham I suppose were Essex, maybe a few from London, and Norfolk and Suffolk, so, it was quite easy for their parents to come and take them out on a Sunday. But my, very often it was, my father and uncle would come down in their old car, and, I would be taken out to lunch in this old car, and the whole school used to come out and have a look at this old car when, when it drove up the drive. And then we would go and have lunch in Aldeburgh or, I know we went to Felixstowe once, and Orford. But that was the big treat of the year, or the term rather. And what else can I remember about Framlingham? I was very keen on rugby, and I played in the second division for, for rugby for the school. I hated cricket, and whenever I could I used to go and swim instead. And then we played hockey, again which I didn’t really enjoy, in the spring term. So it was really the autumn term with rugby that I really enjoyed. And I certainly wasn’t very clever. I ended up with I think five GCEs as they used to be called in those days. But it would have been enough to get into the Royal Air Force, which, you know, that, as I think I said before, I didn’t end up going there, except for my National Service.

Were you ever homesick?

I don’t think I was. No, I can’t remember... I can’t remember. I mean I used to, there were people, young, particularly the youngsters on, on the train from Liverpool Street, crying their eyes out as they waved their parents goodbye at the station. But I’m sure I didn’t. And, I mean my mother used to come and take me, my father would still be working, and my mother would take me across London to Liverpool Street. I can remember simply waving at her, and I think my sister was there as well, and... But no, I don’t think, I don’t think I ever was homesick.

And was there, was there bullying at Framlingham?

I suppose... Yes, I suppose there was, but I was lucky that I wasn’t one of those who were got at. [laughs] I... Yes, I, I don’t...I don’t think it was a big feature of the Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 36 school. I think on the whole... I mean sadly, the boys that were homesick would probably be the ones that would be at least verbally bullied for being, you know, such silly little boys. So it’s rather sad that it was the weaker ones that, that would be bullied.

And was there a fagging system?

Oh yes, yes. [laughs] Not a very big one, I mean you had to be a, I was going to say, a sort of head of house, or, high up in the sort of, the prefects, and they would have their, I would have to clean their shoes, and tidy their, they would have a study, I can remember. So I can remember that. And they, they’d sort of clap their hands, and, I’ve forgotten what they used to yell out now. ‘Fag’ I suppose. And we would all have to come running, and, one of us would be selected to do such-and-such a task. But, again it wasn’t...I should imagine it was, there was much more fagging at some of the, the sort of Eton and Harrows than at Framlingham. And I think, by the time I, I think it’s true to say that by the time I became a senior, I think by then most of the fagging had, had died out, and so I wasn’t able to enjoy someone cleaning my shoes. [laughs]

Were there any significant teachers at the school, that influenced you in any way?

Yes, there was my housemaster, a Mr Haigh, and, you know, I used to, when I became a senior, I can remember sitting at the lunch table more than the dinner, the lunch table, he would be at the head and I would be next to, next to him. And, I suppose he, he did. I don’t think any of the other masters did particularly, other than of course the headmaster who, who persuaded me to go to Henry Poole. But... And he may have done it on the instigation of, of Mr Haigh, because I used to quite freely talk to, to Mr Haigh. But I can’t remember, I... I can remember we had a master that I particularly didn’t like, and he didn’t like me I don’t think, and that was a Mr Borred, who, I believe he was a very famous squash player, he played for England I believe, and I always found him...and that’s probably why I didn’t like him, because I always felt he was very pleased with himself, and... [laughs] So we didn’t get on. I think he was the geography master. But on the whole, I wasn’t the best behaved boy there, that I, I know was true, but... Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 37

What did you get up to?

Well I can remember on one occasion, and looking back, I can’t believe that I did it, and that was, two of us borrowed two of the maids’ bicycles, and we went off on their bikes to a local pub, which was totally out of bounds, as well as stealing a maid’s bike. But I mean we did bring them back. But unfortunately, we were caught, and, my father was contacted, you know, with a threat that, if it happened again I would be expelled, which I can, looking back, I can quite understand; at the time I, I think I thought it was rather a joke, and, and I suppose my fellow school mates, they thought it was funny as well, but, looking back, it was a, a very unwise thing to do. As I say, pubs were very much out of bounds, and let alone taking the girls’ bikes. [laughs] I think that was the worst thing I did, I’m sure there were other things that...

What did your father say to you about the incident?

Actually, not, not very much. No, I, I was surprised that he, that he didn’t sort of remon... Because I had to phone him up and speak to him about it, and, I think he, I think in some ways he was rather lost for words, how to, how to tackle me. Probably shocked by what I had done. But, no, he didn’t, surprisingly, remonstrate with me as much as I expected him to.

Did your mother mention it to you?

Well I think so. I think it was, yes, I mean, eventually when I came home for the holidays, you know, I think there was a, a session at the dinner table when it was, when I really was told off, and, told I was very irresponsible if nothing else.

Who were your friends at Framlingham, what sort of boys did you make friends with?

Well we were, there were four houses, and, so you had a house room, as well as house dormitories. So, you were confined very much to people in your house, other than of course during the day, you would all go to different classes, depending on your ability and your age. So there was a bit more mixing then. And of course on the, on the Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 38 rugby field, we were all mixed up. But, in the dining room we had our tables, belonging, for the...the house tables. So, it was very much a sort of close-knit, I suppose, in each house there would be what, sixty, sixty boys. And of course you, you became friendly with, you know, your sort of age group, it’s...you were very much, because you, you go there when you’re thirteen, and you mix with thirteen- year-olds, and, and then you move up year by year, and you don’t sort of mix, certainly you didn’t sort of mix too much with the, the eighteen-year-olds when you were thirteen. Sadly, I haven’t kept up with, I was going to say any of them. I met... I mean the lovely thing was, when I went, when we went down to live in Suffolk, we suddenly found that an old Framlinghamian was living up the road. And we struck up a wonderful friendship, and then, the poor man had a, a brain haemorrhage and died, which was, and he’s about the same age as me, so, that was very sad, just as we had got to know each other and his wife. And, the other amusing thing that happened just recently, I went to, I’m trying to think, yes, it was at Christmas time, with the, being on the livery of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, at Christmas time we go to, we have a church service, and then we have a sort of buffet lunch in the wonderful hall that Merchant Taylors have. And, while we were waiting to go into the hall, we were having drinks on the, in the, in the garden there. And, suddenly this priest came up to me, and he said, ‘Hello Angus. You don’t remember me.’ And I hadn’t got the foggiest idea who he was. And then he suddenly said, ‘I’m Malcolm Johnson, and we went to school together.’ And he was, you know, as he reminded me, forty-eight years ago, he was one of my best friends, and... And he, his father had an oilskin factory in Lowestoft, very famous, Johnson’s of Lowestoft, and they would make the oilskins for the lifeboatmen and that sort of thing. And I assumed that he was going to go into his father’s business as ultimately I went into mine. But obviously he, he didn’t, he went, he became a priest. And I, I understand that the business has now, either disappeared or been sold, and amalgamated with another oilskin manufacturer. But any rate, the nice thing was that, in the conversation that we had, though it was a very, not a very long one, because...but apparently he was the chaplain to the master, the then master, and the master I knew very well. And, I got round to telling him that we were writing this book about Henry Poole, so, and I said I would send him a copy, which I did about a month ago, to which he’s, we’re going to meet for lunch in two weeks’ time, that’s right, he’s taking me out to lunch to catch up on what we’ve been Angus Cundey C1046/03/03 Part 5 Page 39 doing for the last forty-eight years. It’ll be...I’m looking forward to finding out how he became a priest, and, you know, what exactly he’s doing now.

Could I just ask you, before I forget, what kind of vintage car your father had.

Well he also had this Frazer Nash, because that, I’ve... The story there is of course that I was doing my National Service, and, and I ended up in Norfolk, and, I had, I used to have a forty-eight-hour pass I think once a month. And so I used to make a beeline for going home. So Norfolk, all the way down to Surrey, would cost me too much on the railway, so I used to cadge a lift with a, a young National Serviceman who had a, I can remember, it was a white van. And, he would drive me to Clapham Junction, and then I would take the train from Clapham Junction down to Horley. Well eventually I said to my father, ‘This can’t go on, I must have a little car of my own. And I’ve got, saved up £50, and, can we go and look at an MG?’ And so off we went, and looked at MGs, and, and you could...you could buy quite a nice MG for £50 in, in what, 1956. But my father said, ‘Do you really want an MG? Why don’t you buy a proper car?’ And the reason he said this was that, he was a very good driver with Frazer Nash cars when he, well before he got married, and he used to go to Brooklands and, and he also, he was very good at what they call reliability trials, where you would drive from London to Exeter, London to Land’s End, London to Edinburgh, over a weekend.

[End of Part 5] Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 40

Part 6 [Tape 4 Side A]

He used to do these reliability trials, and one, one year, in 1929, they gave him a gold, well they called it a gold, which meant that he had got a first class in London to Exeter, another weekend he’d got a first class London to Land’s End, and finally London to Edinburgh. And I suppose, one of the wonderful things I have at home is a silver signpost with the three, and then it says, ‘S.H.H. Cundey, Gold’ and then it says underneath, ‘Car’, because you could also, I suppose, do it on a motorbike, but, he did it in his Frazer Nash car. And so he, he was very keen, with my uncle, because my uncle also had a Frazer Nash before the war.

And his name was Hugh?

Hugh, that’s right, yes. And, so they both sort of dissuaded me from buying an MG, and I would have to save up another £50 to buy the Frazer Nash. And, the amusing story there is that, I had to put an advertisement in one of the motoring papers for, ‘Wanted, Frazer Nash car.’ And, my father would open the letters, and we had several letters, and I think it was about the fourth letter, he phoned me up at the RAF camp and he said, ‘You must have a thirty-six-hour pass this weekend, because, you’ve got to buy this car.’ So I managed to swap, or, whatever, to get a thirty-six- hour pass, and I came up to London. And I can remember it to this day, my father driving me to Hemel Hempstead, just outside Hemel Hempstead, was this bungalow down a little lane, and there was half the car in the garage, the other half was in the greenhouse, and there were various bits in the man’s bedroom. And I said, ‘This is no use to me, I can’t drive this.’ ‘Oh you’ve got to buy it, it’s a very famous car.’ And, they, well they persuaded me, my uncle was there as well. And, and I had to borrow, I had to pay £100 for this car, and I then had to borrow £12 from my uncle to hire a lorry to go and fetch it in all its bits. And, it then subsequently took me, I never had it for my National Service, and, and it took me two years to rebuild it. But by then, I got to know people in the Frazer Nash car club, and one of them lived, well two of them lived fairly near me, so very often on a Sunday they would come over and help me. And the one, one of them, Alistair, he still lives near my old home, near Horley, and we are the greatest of friends today. And in fact what happened after that, I had the car, and I took Mandy in it, and smashed her up, and... [laughs] And I used to go Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 41 racing in Silverstone and Oulton Park, and, and I was very active. And in fact I then became secretary of the Frazer Nash car club, which is, which my uncle was secretary before the war. And, but when I got married, well, because of the constraints on having to buy a house and so forth, thank goodness I didn’t sell the Frazer Nash, but it ended up in the garage on blocks, and it sat... I never really used it the whole, the whole time of my marriage. And in fact, there was a boom in the values of vintage cars, I think about 1988, and, I remember my brother took me to Le Mans in France, and, driving there, I saw lots of little houses for sale, little French cottages, and I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to, to have a little property in France, and I could do it by selling the Frazer Nash. And I wrote to Sotheby’s, and they wrote back and said, well, they could get me, I think something like £100,000 for this car. [laughs] And I could have bought about three cottages with it. But my son told me, on no account was I to sell the Frazer Nash, and, various other people said, ‘You mustn’t sell it.’ And in fact, then Alistair[ph] approached me, and said, ‘I could go and buy a car like yours,’ he’d already got a much older one, a much slower one, ‘but instead of that, what happens if I share it with you, have full use of it for the rest of my life, and I will sort of rebuild it, and repaint it, and...’ Which is what’s happened. And now it’s absolutely immaculate, and, we, and he’s got it actually at this moment at his house, and, I think in July I’ll go and fetch it and I’ll have it at home for the whole summer, and, and enjoy it. So it’s sort of got the best of both worlds now, with this old, old car.

Why was it a special one?

Oh, yes, because, it was built for the proprietor of Frazer Nash cars, who in fact was a very fine driver, a chap called H.J. Aldington. And, Aldington drove it in the 1932 Alpine Trial, and he won a Glacier Cup, which is the highest award you can get. A few weeks later, the car went to, to Ireland for the TT Race, and, I don’t think...I think it came first in its class. And then at the end of August, so, and about three weeks after that, it raced at Brooklands and went for a whole hour at an average speed of eighty-six miles an hour, and won the award. So in the course of a month and a half it had done all those things, and it was sort of written up as the most famous Frazer Nash of that sort of period. And I think my father, my father and uncle saw it at Brooklands, and they can remember it, because it was a darker green than British Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 42 racing green, and it had always, they had always remembered, you know, what a fine car it was, and they were determined that I should have it. And, and in fact, when I offered it to Sotheby’s to auction it, without, I simply gave them the registration number, and they immediately knew the whole history of the car. I was, I was amazed. So, that £100 has, was obviously on the advice of my father and uncle, very well worth spent. But it’s not worth that sort of money today, even though it’s been done up, the value of vintage cars has gone, unlike houses, they’ve gone down, rather like the Stock Exchange. [laughs]

So when would they have seen it at Brooklands?

Oh when it did eighty-six miles an hour for one hour, they would have been there, and actually have seen.

No, I meant what date would that have been roughly?

That, that’s 1932.

Oh 1932.

The whole... Yes, so, it was the Alpine Trial in July, then the TT the beginning of August 1932, and then the end of August at Brooklands, and all happened in that one and a half months in, in the year of 1932. So the car is older than me.

What colour is it now?

Oh, it’s still green.

The same green?

Yes. I think they call it Connaught green, which is one shade darker than British racing green. So we’ve kept it. In fact there was a lovely story, because, Aldington then sold it to a Mr Brooke of Brooke Bond tea, and, Mr Brooke then, subsequently sold it at some date. But I was in my showroom, it was here, so it would have been, Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 43 some time in the early Eighties, suddenly Mr Brooke turned up in our showroom, and he said, ‘I think this belongs to you.’ And he produced the, the searchlight, I say a searchlight, it was a, a very large light that you would use to shine on a signpost, and obviously in, driving in the Alps you would need this light. And he said, ‘I found this in my father’s garage, and, and I found out that you now have, have this particular Frazer Nash.’ And so, I thought that was amazing, that... So now the car I think it would be true to say is totally original, in its, certainly in its specification, not, not perhaps in all the sort of new bits that have had to go into it, but, its outward appearance is just as it was in the 1932 Alpine Trial.

What happens when the Frazer Nash society meets, what goes on?

Oh, a combination. I mean it’s, it’s part of, the Frazer Nash section as it is now, it’s part of the Vintage Sports Car Club. And, that’s when we have these races and hill climbs, and socials of course, once a month there’s a social, not that I have the time to go. But it’s very very active. And, and then we have a Christmas party in December, when sort of, 250 of us, at the moment we’re going to down to Hereford, to a hotel there, and, we all get together. So it is a very social club, and I’ve met some, some very great friends in it, and, with Alistair[ph], there are several others that are still very much my friends.

And what’s Myranda’s view of, of the Frazer... [laughs]

Oh, well that’s... [laughs] Well she... Yes. [laughs] Well she doesn’t like going in the car, and that’s, very seldom she will go in it. Which I can understand, because it’s very much a racing car, it’s very narrow, and, you very, you get very windswept, and, and it’s not... I find it comfortable, but she certainly doesn’t. So it’s not really a car for a, for a girlfriend. In fact, when it was first built it didn’t even have a door on either side, and it still doesn’t have a door on the driver’s side, but, a door was put on at a later date.

So how, how do you get in?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 44

Well you have to sort of jump in. [laughs] Yes, I mean it’s like getting into a modern racing car, where you sort of, ease yourself in. It’s the same thing with a... But as I say, it was at some later date that a door was put on, so at least girlfriends over the years have managed to, have managed to entice them into the car. But, no, it’s not really a, a ladies’ car. But having said that, she’s very good about it, and she certainly joins in the, the social events, and she’s got to know many of the people that, that are my friends.

And what do you wear when you’re driving it?

Oh I suppose usually a sports jacket, and I always have to have a cap, I wear a tweed cap, because, you do get very blown about. Years ago I had, Henry Poole made me a most splendid tweed overcoat, an Ulster, with a big collar that you could put up, and I had this splendid coat until the moths got it, and, I just, I had to throw it away. And I keep thinking that I should have another one made, but, I don’t drive the car now as much as I used to. I mean, at one stage as I’ve said, it was my, my only car, and, and it would come out in all weathers.

What were your feelings about doing National Service?

Oh I think... I mean I’d left, I’d left boarding school, so, you know, I was quite used to being away. And also, of course, you know, just been with, with boys or men. And so, it, it wasn’t a shock to me, as it obviously was with a lot of, a lot of youngsters. And in fact, I would say the first year, I quite enjoyed it, you know, the square bashing and... [laughs] Learning to drive lorries and ambulances, and that sort of thing, because that’s where I ended up. Surprisingly, they didn’t put me in the sort of clothing department or anything to do with... I became a, a lorry...well an ambulance driver in the end. So while that was going on, I did enjoy it, on these courses, to do, to learn different things in the RAF.

Why didn’t you learn to fly? Was that an option?

Oh, it would have been an option if I’d signed on for longer, but they, they wanted at least... It may have been only three years instead of two, but, I just, wouldn’t do it. Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 45

And, I think the fact that they were going to teach me to drive lorries and so forth, that was, that was enough. And then, it wasn’t really until I got to Watton, which would have been the last sort of, nine months I suppose, that I then became, found it becoming very boring, simply because there were too many of us doing sort of, one man’s job. I think if they had been like, say, Switzerland, where you just do eighteen months, that would have been much, much better than the two years that, that I had to do. It was, it was about, I suppose, too...six months too long. And, so when it, when it came to the end of the two years, I was delighted to get out, which, in...was sad in a way, because as I say, certainly the first year I really enjoyed, and I think it did me a, did me a lot of good, and, in a way I think it was wrong that they stopped it, and I think it would do youngsters a lot of good today to, to have a year of sort of discipline in the, in the services.

What about your brother, how was he educated?

Ah well that’s a, that’s an amusing story – well... [laughs] I can’t...I... Because by then we were living in Horley, because he’s what, nine years younger than me. I in turn was doing my National Service, or I was, I had my year in Paris, then I had a flat in London, after, after my National Service, off and on, I lived in London. So I, I wasn’t at home very much during my brother’s education. But what I can remember is that, poor Simon went to Framlingham, and, and he was, I think extremely homesick, and he stuck it for a year...

Sorry, your brother’s name is Simon?

No, Martin. No, Simon is my son.

Sorry, you said Simon.

Oh did I? I’m sorry. No no. No, Martin. Martin became, I, I suspect homesick. I think, probably because he was, there was my sister in the middle, and then he was the youngest, and, you know, very much my mother’s sort of spoilt baby. So I suppose it was a bit of a shock to him, to, to be thrown all the way down to Suffolk. And, after a year he phoned up my father and said, ‘Unless you come and fetch me, Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 46

I’m going to run away.’ And, and obviously my father took him at his word, and went and fetched him, and, he then went to a cramming school. And then, and then in fact he went and worked for the local motorcycle shop, because he liked motorbikes, and my mother bought him a funny little motorbike, I can remember. And then, sensibly he realised after about a year that he couldn’t...that wasn’t his future. And in turn, my father had been quite hard on him, and sort of, in so many words, told him that there was, there wasn’t a place for him in Henry Poole, there was only, it would only stand one, one of us.

Why do you think he said that?

I don’t know, I’ve never, I’ve often wondered. Because of course he worked there with his brother, with my uncle, and it worked very well. It may be that he, he could perhaps see that, perhaps Martin and I wouldn’t get on. Which may have been so, I’m not sure if, if either he could work with me, or I could work with him, but... As I say, a big age difference. By then of course I would have been much more senior to him, because of that age difference, whereas my uncle was only eighteen months difference. But any rate, in so many words, he told Martin this. So he went off and went to the careers centre, and took a job of, in an estate agent’s in Reigate, where he was the sort of tea boy, and licked the stamps on the letters at the end of the day, and... And then he was headhunted to another estate agent’s, and he became the manager of that branch. And then he suddenly realised that he had quadrupled the turnover of that branch, wouldn’t it be better if he worked for himself? And, which he did. He found a little office in, locally, in Lingfield, and really, he’s never looked back, because, now he’s got four offices in the area, and he’s got a very nice house in Kent, he’s got his twin-engined aeroplane, he’s got a Porsche, and a house now in Alderney. So he’s done extremely well, and, and I get on very well with him, not that we see each other very much, probably, twice a year, that’s about all. But then he’s got his, he’s very busy, I mean he’s a real workaholic, and works three Sundays out of four, and then it’s on the fourth that he goes off to, to Alderney. But, you know, as I say, he’s been very successful, and, I think his ambition now is, he’s what, fifty-six, to sort of retire, certainly before he’s sixty, and sell up and, and go and live in Alderney, and probably have a little boat and his aeroplane, and, very nice retirement. Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 47

Has he ever talked to you about how he felt about not coming into Henry Poole?

Only that, he doesn’t think he could sit at a desk all day. So, which of course I suppose he doesn’t. You know, he has to go and value houses, measure houses. So I suppose, perhaps my father did the right thing, that... I mean saying that, I haven’t spent my life sitting at a desk, because of course I’ve travelled all over the world, and, jumped up and down to customers coming in, and, it’s only in the last, oh, ten years I suppose that I have sat here, and got rather bogged down with paperwork, and... But, I can see what he means, that he, he jumps into his car and goes off, half an hour he comes back again, and writes some notes at his desk, and then has to go off and see another house. So, I suppose it is a very different life to what he would have had if he’d come, come here. But he’s undoubtedly very happy now, and, as I say, he’s made a great success of it.

What about your sister, how was she educated?

Well she went to, when I was at preparatory school she went to a girls’ school just up the road, in Purley. And she stayed there the rest...that took her right up to when she was eighteen. She then trained to be a nurse, but after about two years she couldn’t... She didn’t like the responsibility I think, that was the... Even in those days, they sort of, made her a probation nurse in charge of a ward, you know, at night, and, and she couldn’t stand that. Which I can understand. And then she became a dental nurse, until she got married, and then, you know, she produced two children, and, she’s been a housewife for the rest of her life.

Would there have been a place for her at Henry Poole?

Oh I don’t think it was even then, in those days, considered. [laughs] No, it...that certainly never came into the equation. It would certainly be different now, I mean if my daughter, Sarah, had said, could she come and work in Henry Poole, I, you know, we would have, I’m sure, found a place for her. But it didn’t, that didn’t arise either, simply because, I don’t think she would want to, and secondly, of course she married a Scotsman and, has ended up in Glasgow. Angus Cundey C1046/03/04 Part 6 Page 48

But what, what would you have found for her to do, if she had wanted to come in?

Well... She could have, I suppose, I mean if she, she could...she works now for British Telecom, as well as bringing up my little grandson. So she can work a computer, so, I suppose she would have, you know, gone into the office, and, she could have gone into the sort of finance part of it. I don’t...I can’t imagine her in the sort of selling part, though there’s no reason why we can’t have lady sales, sales persons, but, I think, we certainly could have found her a place with a computer. As my brother has, one of his daughters is in charge of the sort of computers, and, if any of the offices have a problem, she’s off in her little car and, and sort of mends it, or whatever you do to a computer. So, I suppose there would have been a place for her.

[End of session] [End of Part 6]

Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 49

Part 7 [Tape 5 Side A]

.....your name.

Oh yes. Yes. Angus Cundey, Savile Row tailor.

Lovely, thank you. Could you describe what happened when you left National Service, and came back to Henry Poole?

Well in fact, I didn’t come back to the company, I was sent to the Tailor and Cutter Academy, which was in Gerrard Street, and it was, it was a very famous place for learning the tailoring trade, it was both, they had a cutting school and a, a sewing tailor’s school. And my father by that time decided that it would be better for me to learn more about cutting, and so I went to the cutting school. And, and I was taught by a Mr Wife I think his name was. And I was there, I suppose, for, six months. And at the end of it I, I was given a diploma for saying that I had passed the, the exams as a cutter. Very sadly, a few years after that the Tailor and Cutter Academy, and the Tailor and Cutter Magazine, closed down, and, I think it was 42-44 Gerrard Street, it’s now a, a Chinese restaurant, as the whole of that part is, is Chinatown of London. Having spent this time learning to cut, I was then put in Henry Poole’s cutting room, where I became a, an assistant cutter. We actually call them strikers, we still do. And I used to cut out the cloth from the...and chalk round the patterns, and the patterns had been drafted by the, one of the senior cutters. And in fact, it was a Mr Brentnall who taught me while I was under his wing. And, and I suppose, after about two years of working with Mr Brentnall, I was then allowed to measure and cut trousers. And so I would go into the fitting room, take the measures, and then subsequently fit the trousers, and then Mr Brentnall would come in afterwards, fit the jacket and check that the marks that I’d put on the trousers were correct. And, that went on till, I suppose it was the middle of 1959, which is when my father developed TB, and ended up in, in the Whitechapel, I think the London Hospital in Whitechapel. And, I mean sadly as far as my career is concerned, I was then forced to come out of the, the cutting room, and help in the showroom, and, and on the administration. I still, I’m still saddened by it, because, I think I could have learnt a lot more in the cutting room, which would have been benefit for me, because, in 1963 my father decided to Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 50 resurrect our French business, and wrote, he wrote to all our old French customers, most of which went back to before the war, saying that his son would come out and take orders and take their measurements. And so in 1963 I went to Paris, and, well I think from memory I took, oh I don’t know, ten orders or something like this, and, measured, remeasured customers. And that was the start of our European business. But of course, the big happening to the company was before that, because, due to the difficulties that the company was under after the war, we sold our freehold, and, suddenly in 1961, we got a lease back for twenty-one years, and in 1961, Westminster City Council put a compulsory purchase order on the whole premises, a quarter of an acre site. And so we were forced to move out of Savile Row, and there wasn’t sadly a place, any premises we could find in the Row, so we ended up by going to 10-12 Cork Street round the corner. And I can, I can still remember it well, because, I was given my first sort of, what shall I say, the, my first administration, my first, duty I suppose as a future manager, because I had to work with the tailors, and sort out exactly where they were going to go in Cork Street. Because we had half the first floor as workshops, and they were smallish rooms, and so, I had to persuade tailors to go into the various small rooms. And, I can remember... And then fit in the work benches, and the sewing machines, and... Then I remember having to persuade, I think five ladies, the tailoresses, to go and work, all five of them in one room, whereas before they had always worked beside a tailor. But it was, it was much better that they all worked, making buttonholes and sewing in linings, and we had the tailoressing room where the tailors would bring their coats for, what we call finishing. And so, I was given my sort of first managerial position when we moved to Cork Street. But sadly, as I say, by then I had stopped working in the cutting rooms, and I was, I was much more involved in both the office and taking orders in the showroom.

Can I just ask you, why did the tailoresses before sit with the...

Tailor.

Mm.

I suppose, when I first came to Poole’s, the ladies used to do a bit more than just what we call finishing, which is sewing in linings, making buttonholes, sewing the edges, Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 51 sewing round the pockets. They would also be a little involved in mark stitching, that’s when the...that’s putting the marks in where the chalk marks are, but they do it with a, with a cotton. So they would in fact do a little of the actual construction work. But, as times change, as it works now, we have these finishers, and they’re confined to just doing, I have to say, very importantly, a handmade buttonhole is a mark of a Savile Row suit. But it was much, much more expedient to, to have them just doing the finishing, and having them all in one room, it was easier for the tailors to bring their coats to be finished, so that you could swap girls round to, to, when one was, no longer had a, was not busy, she could take the coat and then the next time one of the other girls could take a coat. We did, in fact we did several new things at that time, and we had what was called a basting team, and that was a team of tailors that just made for the first fitting. And then after the first fitting, it would go to one of the finishing tailors. This was an excellent method of production. Sadly, we went through a, a bad period, as firms do. There was a recession, and the order book went down, and therefore... [intercom] And therefore, we, we had to disband the, the base team, it was, it was a sort of, extravagance when we weren’t so full of, full of orders. But there was a period when the Cork, being in Cork Street worked extremely well. But I suppose, by the time...my father retired in 1974, and then my uncle took over the management of the company, and then he retired in 1978, and that’s when it all fell on me.

Could I just ask you, these, the finishers have traditionally been women, have they?

Oh always, yes, I’ve never, I’ve never met a, a male finisher.

And were would they... Sorry, where would they come from, where would they be trained?

I suppose in those days, they would probably be trained at school, as a needlework, seamstress, a needlework. In those days you used to learn sewing at school. And this was a stage further, and you would probably be taught by a, an elderly finisher how to do the buttonholes. Whereas now of course, we have finishers, but, most of them have taken some sort of course at a college. But we still, I suppose on our books Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 52 today we must have about eight or nine ladies who just do buttonholes and sewing in linings.

And are they based here?

We have three on the premises, and then, the other five are home workers, they take the work home and do it at home. It’s a very...I think it’s a very good job for, for a lady, particularly if they have commitments with children and, you know, they can work flexible hours, and, I think it works very well for... And it’s quite, comparatively well paid for doing that, that work.

Are they paid per buttonhole?

Per coat. [laughs] And they get slightly more if it’s double-breasted, if it’s a double- breasted coat it will have slightly more buttonholes in it, and so therefore they get a little more money for, for doing a double-breasted coat.

And how many buttonholes are there on a single-breasted coat?

Well there’s always, if it’s a town suit, you always have four on each cuff, two of which will open and two are dummy holes. And then you’ve got two, two lapel holes, and, no one lapel hole, and, either three in the front or two in the front, or if it’s a very formal garment, like a dinner jacket, it’ll just have one on the front. And that, that will take a girl I suppose, one and a half hours I should imagine to do just the buttonholes, and then they’ve got all the linings to sew in. So they spend about four hours actually working on this one coat, sewing in all the linings, doing the buttonholes and sewing the edges, and... So at the most, they might manage two a day, but that’s, that’s unusual, I think it’s more like one and a half coats a day. That’s if they’re full time, but as I say, many of them work at home and it’s a sort of part- time, part-time job.

And how do they receive the coat?

Usually they come in, they come in and fetch it from us. Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 53

And at what stage are the buttonholes made?

Oh right at the end. It’s, it’s basically the last operation, before the, the coat is finally pressed. But, no, it’s the last... By which time the tailor, the coat maker, has actually, he’s done all his bit, and, the tailoress finishes by putting, by, as we say, she’s a finisher. And that’s... And then it goes to the presser for a final press.

And is that here?

Yes, the presser is here, yes, indeed.

And where do the buttons come from?

Well that’s a good question. I’ve never... I mean they’re meant to be buffalo horn. I suspect that many of them are cow horn. [laughs] Though I suspect that quite a lot of them are buffalo horn. But they are, obviously the buffalo doesn’t come from England, but, the buttons are actually made in, I think in Birmingham. But it is a mark of a, certainly a Savile Row suit, or a good suit, that you have a horn button, a real, what we call real horn, as opposed to the sort of plastic buttons that the readymades use.

And, have you always dealt with the same button supplier?

Yes, I think the answer is... You see, a Savile Row, generally a Savile Row tailor deals with merchants, middlemen I suppose. The reason we do this is so that we can get a bigger variety, rather than dealing direct with one manufacturer. And this, this we do both for our cloth, we don’t, we seldom go direct to a mill, we go through a merchant who buys from several mills, and where there you can get a much larger range, and, and I think an assured quality. And the same thing works with what we call trimming merchants, and the trimming merchants will buy linings from, it used to be Courtaulds, but sadly Courtaulds are no longer; some of our linings now come from Italy, some still come from England. And therefore, it’s the trimming merchant who goes around and collects the trimmings, and then supplies it to the tailor. So Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 54 he’s, the trimming merchant is the person that actually goes to the, the supplier, the maker of the buttons, or the, or where the linings are actually made.

Are you involved in the selection of cloth and trimmings?

Not so much now, in fact very little now. I’ve purposely sort of handed this over to the younger people in the firm about, I suppose five years ago. I did this purposely because, you know, I felt it would be a good experience for them, I would still be around to, if anything did go wrong. And also, I felt that I was perhaps getting a bit old and jaded, and, and it would be better to let the younger people bring in some new ideas. So it included Simon, my son, our salesman, they choose the, the ties for instance. And then I have the cutters and their assistants choosing the trimmings, and the linings, the canvases, and so forth. And I think, it’s, it’s now worked very well. I think we’ve got a, a very well balanced stock of trimmings, and we can cater for all the different weights of cloth, and, and the sort of firmness of the suit. Because over the years our suits have become more pliable, softer, than they used to in my father’s day. And, I think the cutters have helped to achieve this. I think partly because customers have asked them to make a, a softer coat than, than I used to wear twenty years ago.

So what have been the changes in cloths then that enabled these suits to be made?

I suppose the biggest change is the weight of cloth. My father used to wear a wool that would be about eighteen ounce. I, when I first came, I suppose I wore, sixteen ounce was the normal weight. Of course, because of our very large American trade, Americans have always used much lighter material, and so slowly as a company we’ve been forced to go lighter and lighter in weight. And at the same time, I suppose if, if I’m truthful, there’s been a sort of Italian influence in this period, and the Italians, though they make a rather boxy, shapeless coat compared to Savile Row, they do make a comfortable, softer coat than we used to. And I suppose we’ve now followed this, and we are making a, a softer coat through the...mainly because of the, I think the Italian influence. Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 55

So does the cloth come from Italy?

No, not if I can help it. [laughs] No, we still pride ourselves that the top end of the woollen trade is still made in England, and in fact that must be so, because the Italians are one of the biggest buyers of British cloth. The worsteds come from Huddersfield.

And what is a worsted?

A worsted is a, is a combed, the yarn is combed, so it’s long strands of wool, and it’s, it’s... Most town suits are made under, with worsted cloth. It amuses me, because worsted is a, it all started in a funny little village in Norfolk, not so far away from where I live. And in the church there they still have some of the old looms, the old worsted, the worsted looms. And of course that was part of the history of the woollen industry, that, it all started predominantly at any rate in East Anglia. And that’s where the worsted formula was started, making worsteds. And that’s...and basically, East Anglia prospered on the worsted cloth. It might be mixed with linen. And then there was Kersey, which is a funny little village where they would make cloths for breeches and that sort of thing. But predominantly East Anglia mad the worsted yarn, and it was not until the spinning jenny and the automated looms came in that needed very high running, fast running streams to, to run these machines, and that’s why the whole industry sadly for East Anglia got up and went up to Huddersfield where there were the, the wonderful streams coming off the, the hills there.

Are you wearing a worsted suit today?

Absolutely, yes. Yes, no this is, this is worsted, and it’s... I mean the obvious way to define it is to look at a tweed, and if you look at a, a Harris tweed for instance, and that’s wool, just ordinary wool, not combed, and it’s much harder, it’s sort of fluffier, it’s... I mean, even...and flannel again is not, not a worsted, it’s not combed yarn, and that, that is simply wool without, without this combing process.

So when did this changeover to lighter fabrics begin, do you think?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 7 Page 56

Well, even before the war, we were making, I suppose about twelve ounce, but putting that in perspective, we’re now making seven, eight ounce, so... So before the war, the twelve ounce, there was a very famous lightweight cloth called, or, twelve ounce cloth, called a Solaro, which was considered a tropical suiting, and safari jackets and things like that would be made out of, would be made in, with this Solaro cloth. And of course before the war, there were linens used for summer wear, or, not so much summer wear but in Africa or India and so forth. And I suppose, certainly with us as a company, it was after the Americans, or during the war when the Americans started coming to us in a big way, and we travelled there in 1946, that slowly the weights of both cloth for Americans, and even for the English, began to reduce. So that by, I suppose by the time we were, we were in Cork Street, so the mid-Sixties, we were making mohair and wool, which was, was about nine ounce; we were making, certainly twelve ounce, ten, twelve ounce, which would be a winter suit for an American; and in England, by that time we had come to about fifteen, sixteen ounce for winter wear, and thirteen ounce for, for summer wear, and that would be London and Europe.

[End of Part 7] Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 57

Part 8 [Tape 5 Side B]

But as time has gone on, and, it’s a fallacy to say that cloth isn’t as good as it used to be, some of the older tailors love to say that, but in fact, the looms now are vastly superior, and they can turn out this very fine wool, very find cloth, and that’s how we can make suits in, I suppose a third of our production now is tropical, which would be about eight ounce. And in fact at this moment we’re doing, we are promoting a super 120 wool mixed with about two per cent cashmere, it’s a worsted, and it’s seven, eight ounce. And, we’re having quite a success in selling it.

Were there different skills required for using different fabrics?

Oh indeed. Generally, the lighter the cloth the more difficult it is to make, generally. So our tailors have had to... Again, you hear the old tailors saying the tailors today are not as they used to be, but the tailors before the war, if they had been confronted with a, an eight ounce cloth, they wouldn’t have been able to use it, they couldn’t have made. Nowadays, our tailors have, not only are they craftsmen, but they are sort of engineers, and, and they have to watch, they alter things, alter the machines and alter the way they sew, adapting to this new lightweight cloth. And then they have to move on, you know, if we suddenly give them a, you know, a heavyweight cloth for an Englishman, their technique has to change to do that. So, the tailor today has become much more of an expert than his pre-war predecessor.

But why is a lighter fabric harder to deal with?

I think the main reason is that it won’t...you can’t manipulate it, it won’t...it’s much firmer, so you can’t put in the same amount of fullness. In the old days, with a, a sort of twenty-ounce cloth, it’s rather like a blanket, the tailor was able to press away any sort of puckering that had occurred, partly due to his inexpert way of, say, putting in a sleeve, it didn’t have to be accurate, because he simply pressed away, pressed away the extra fullness. Now, with an eight-ounce cloth, you can’t press anything away, it won’t, it won’t move. You can’t shrink it away. So you have to put it in absolutely correctly to the measure, so that you don’t get any puckering or... And as I say, you can’t, you can’t shrink it like you used to the old, sort of blanket wool that my great- Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 58 grandfather would wear. In fact I’ve got two pictures of my grandfather wearing a frock-coat, and, it was a mass of puckering and bubbles, and, today you just wouldn’t get away with that, that sort of thing. Though cutters I have to admit were very skilled, because they could cut such a variety of garments, which perhaps our cutters today can’t do, and nor can the tailors make frock coats and all the different garments that a coat maker could make in the late sort of 1890s. But the actual quality of the workmanship is much finer today, and, the main reason being, as I say, because of this lightweight cloth, or the lighter weight cloth.

What about differences in fitting somebody for a lightweight, a lightweight suit and a heavyweight suit?

Yes, there is a... I man, again, the cutter has to be more wary when he’s cutting a lightweight suit, because again, you can’t shrink the cloth, you can’t, if you put too much shape in it, you do, you get this puckering which you, you can’t, you can’t get rid of it like you can in a, well say a suit like I’m wearing today, which is about fourteen ounce I suppose. So the cutters have had to alter their methods. So there’s been quite a, a revolution I suppose since about 1950 onwards, tailors have had to adapt and the cutters have had to adapt to new methods with this new cloth. And some of the cloth is, when it gets into a very find yarn, like 150, a Super 150 wool, again it’s, it’s got a wonderful handle, it feels like sort of, silk, wool silk, but in fact it’s not easy to make, and, it’s not easy to press, and not easy to sew. And all these very fine yarns from, mainly from New Zealand and Australia, merino wool, and that’s only come over to this country I suppose since about the Sixties, and as time has gone on, it’s, it used to be just Super 90, and then it became a few years later Super 100, and then a Super 120, and now it’s, I think you can go right up to about Super 180.

And that’s per square, per inch, or, what does that mean?

Square, square... I’m not so certain now, I lose track of whether it’s a metre or a square yard. But it’s the number of weaves in that, in a, I think a square, probably a square metre today, because, we have to work in metres and not yards like I knew it, like I know. Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 59

Yes, I was going to ask you whether the people are fitted metrically or, or imperial.

No, that’s...I don’t know when, I don’t know when this is going to change, it’s a real anomaly, because we have to buy our cloth in metres, so, where we used to buy three and a half yards, was average, we now by three metres twenty, which is a sort of average suit length. I think in fact now that we have to work so much with Americans, it’s more like three metres thirty, because they’re a little bigger than the European counterparts. But after that, we then cut in inches. But I do wonder how long we’re going to get away with this, because of course the young, the youngsters come from school now, and they don’t know what an inch is, and so they have to learn when they come here feet and inches. And it can’t go on forever, so, there will come a stage I suppose when we will have to go over to centimetres and, and metres. It will be after my time I think. [laughs]

Is there a hierarchy between cutters and, and all the people working within, within Henry Poole, would you say?

[voices outside room]

Well, yes...

Could we close the door?

Oh yes.

[break in recording]

Yes, I mean, the cutter is the, really the most important man in the company, the whole, everything revolves around the cutter and the head cutter. A firm like ours wouldn’t survive without very good cutters. So they’re the sort of pinnacle of the, of the trade. Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 60

And who...how many cutters would you have?

Well now... In the heyday of the company, I say that, when Savile Row didn’t have competition from readymades and, in my, certainly my great-grandfather’s day, or Henry Poole’s day, we would have about fourteen cutters, but then we would also have 300 sewing tailors, but it was long before the days of factory, the clothing factory and so forth. Nowadays we are still one of the largest firms in Savile Row, but we now have four, four cutters, and then three assistant cutters. But, at the same time, a really good coat maker of course helps to make a cutter. If he, if the cutter has a really good coat maker, he can sort of get by with, you know, one or two faults of his own, so, the two really go together. Though having said that, it is the cutter that, he’s the man that measures the customer, sees the customer all the time; he then sees his staff, the coat makers and the trouser makers. So he really is, as I...he’s the sort of hub of the firm, that, everything comes from the cutter.

And, where would he come from, where are your present cutters, where have they come from?

Well that, that’s simple, because, we still get them from being tailors, they’ve always, all our cutters have got experience in, in making. And I, certainly when I interview a cutter, it’s a sort of question I asked, ‘How long were you on the board?’ as we say, actually sewing, and... Because in many instances, he, the cutter will have, will instruct the sewing tailor, the coat maker, if there’s any problem or difficulty with a particular customer, and what we’re making for him. So he has to have knowledge of sewing as well as being able to cut. So he will probably spend, probably not his, not the entire five years that it takes to learn how to be a coat maker, he would probably by the fourth year then go on to cutting as an assistant cutter, but it would certainly take another three years before he could actually be left alone with a customer without any... In other words, he would have his own board as we say, we always talk about it...or a cutting book, means that you have your own customers who you attend to, and, you don’t need assistance from a senior cutter. So really it’s, if you’re sort of twenty-six, twenty-eight years old, and you are a cutter, you’ve done quite well. And in fact it’s one of the worries of today, because, youngsters are, encouraged I suppose Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 61 the word is, to stay at school much longer, to take, not only O’levels but A’levels, and then go to the college, where instead of simply learning basic sewing, or basic cutting, they are encouraged to become designers and take a, a degree in fashion. So that means they don’t come to us until they’re about twenty-four years old. And that’s why at the moment we have three, and certainly two, two assistant cutters who are twenty-nine, thirty, and they still haven’t qualified, and it does create rather a problem, because, one of them has now got married, and has produced a child, and he’s still not a qualified cutter, and yet he’s thirty years old. Whereas in the old days, you would probably leave school at seventeen, you would go to the college, and by twenty-four you would certainly be a qualified sewing tailor. And you might even be, I mean our head cutter, Philip, by twenty-six he had his own book, and he married and had children and, there was no problem, because he was a qualified cutter, he was travelling for the, for the company, and... So I’m not sure what the answer is today, because I suppose it’s a good thing to have sort of higher education, but, a lot of it, a lot of it is probably wasted, certainly the designing part that...[laughs]...we don’t... We do design, but it’s all part of the, part of the cutting. So, I think in fact, there is already a movement. And I’ve heard the present Government talking about trying to get away from, some youngsters at any rate, following that path, and learning a skilled craft trade right from the beginning. I mean I...the amusing one is of course that, there’s a lack of, a lack of plumbers today that, unless we’re very careful, we won’t any of us be able to have our central heating repaired, because there are no plumbers around to do it.

But from what you were saying about a cutter having to get on with clients, how...how can a young cutter learn how to behave with clients?

Oh, because part of his training, like the three I have in our cutting room, they are helping the senior cutter, they’re cutting out, but they will go in with the cutter to watch a fitting, or, or help, initially of course it’s to help a customer on and off with his clothes, and, he slowly learns how to, how to talk to the customer and get on with the customer. So that’s sort of, that happens straight away, that he goes into the, the fitting room. And of course, of course a cutter, that’s part of, one of the things, I’m sure he, he wants to be a cutter, because of the contact he has with the customer. And in a company like ours of course, the cutter spends quite a lot of his time travelling, as Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 62 this week I’ve got three, including Simon, in, they’re in New York at this minute, the three of them there, Philip the head cutter, Simon, he will be there as the salesman, and then Alex, who’s the assistant cutter, and he’s learning. And in fact probably he’s, like me, he’s probably fitting the trousers, and then Philip can come along and do the jacket and check that the trousers have been done correctly. But he would be having, Alex will be having a lot of contact with the customers.

You mentioned last time that your father would have been shocked by Simon’s American customers calling him by his first name.

Oh indeed. Yes. Well initially, even I was. I don’t think... They’re beginning to, I have to admit, I get the odd letter now that says, ‘Dear Angus’, and the customer signs himself ‘Terry’ or... But this has only happened, I suppose in the last two or three years, to me. So I suppose it is, it is a changing world, but, I, I...I very very seldom would write back, ‘Dear Terry’; I would still say, ‘Mr so-and-so.’ Usually when, when the man phones up, I say ‘Good morning, good morning Sir,’ or, I always... I use ‘Sir’ more than anything else. Whereas Simon is, he would, he would certainly never say ‘Sir.’ He goes up to the customer and says, ‘Hello Mr so-and-so.’ He’ll know his name. And, as I say, occasionally he will even call him by his Christian name, they’re in that sort of... And they go out to dinner together, and, it is very much a, a changing world, which I think to a certain extent has been so in America, it’s probably, it’s probably me that, because I never travelled in America, I was always travelling in Europe, so perhaps I’ve never picked up the, the American way of doing things.

Because how would you describe your relationship with customers?

Oh, well I suppose as time goes on... I mean I can remember, when I first came into the trade, there were certain customers who, you know, they would certainly, they would come in and, not even say ‘Mr’; they would say ‘Hello Cundey’ or, ‘Cundey, where are you?’ And, you know, this... [laughs] And you would have to come running. But, over the years it’s, it’s changed a lot. And then there’s a certain lord, he was in the Government, and when he comes in, we, we chat as if we were sitting down to lunch together I suppose, and we talk politics, we talk about the state of the Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 63 trade, and, ‘Where have you been on holiday?’ and, you know, it’s a sort of friendly... And he’s a very prominent parliamentarian, now in the House of Lords. So it has changed enormously. I suspect, knowing a bit of the history of the company, I think, probably Henry Poole himself became more friendly with his customers than, say, my father did. I think my father purposely would keep them sort of at a distance, and he never encouraged me for instance to go out for lunch with a customer. I could go out with the woollen merchants, and it was very unusual to, to go out with a customer. Whereas now, it’s certainly changing rapidly, and in fact, we take out customers for lunch, we actually suggest it, ‘Come and join us for lunch.’ So, I suppose we’ve become a much more egalitarian society I suppose, we’re no longer sort of treated as tradesmen, as, as perhaps we were twenty, thirty years ago.

And where would you take them for lunch?

Oh, well, it would... [laughs] It wouldn’t be, you know, to the café on the corner. No, I mean there’s, there’s places like, Green’s or... I took a customer the other day to the Ritz. So no, we, we would take them where, to the same sort of place that they would probably take us. But I mean, that’s particularly so with American customers, where we wish to show them, you know, a particularly good restaurant in London, and that’s a sort of excuse to show them what we’ve got in London. And, and from what I gather from Simon, he frequently goes out for dinner with some of our customers in America.

Why do you think your father didn’t want to socialise with his customers?

Well I don’t know, because he went, you know, he went to a public school, he went to St Paul’s, and, he had a very good education, and, out of business, you know, he would mix with, you know, wealthy people. So, I think it was sort of considered not the thing to do, you didn’t mix pleasure with business, I think that was the... Whereas today, it has altered enormously, and customers will chat to you about business, and, how are you finding things, and, and we would, if he’s a businessman, you know, we’d compare notes about his business, and, and ours. And, and I think, nowadays, in many ways we are more respected than perhaps between the wars, that, you know, we Angus Cundey C1046/03/05 Part 8 Page 64 are, we are a craft, and, we’re giving a service, and we’re trying to run a business like some of our customers are running their businesses. So, I think it’s a totally different sort of generation that, that is now coming to us.

[End of Part 8] Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 65

Part 9 [Tape 6 Side A]

Well the simple answer is, yes. [laughs] Inevitably, if you’re paying £2,000 for a suit, you expect it to look something very different from what you buy off the peg for, sort of £500. So immediately you’ve, you’ve got this problem, because, at the end of the day, there’s a limit to, to what we can achieve to make the perfect suit, and it’s probably never been done. We try and get to sort of ninety-eight per cent I suppose. But yes, there are, I mean there are one or two customers that, I say we’ve been unable to fit, I think if we’re truthful, we’ve been unable to fit his mind, that, what he, what he wants, we haven’t managed to find out, or if we have, it’s too late. I mean, thank goodness it doesn’t, it doesn’t happen often. But I can remember, about ten, fifteen years, fifteen years ago, an Arab customer of ours gave me a cheque to go and buy a spanking new Rolls Royce for him. So I went to the Rolls Royce showrooms that, at that time used to be in Conduit Street, and, as I was buying this car I was summoned up to the, the managing director’s office on the first floor, and having done the deal, and given the order as I’d been instructed by the Arab, we then started talking about our respective jobs. And, listening to him was very similar to, I think what he heard from me, because there was he supplying the most expensive car in the world, and I was supplying, I suppose one of the most expensive suits in the world, and our customers were very similar in their demands, and... And we had to agree that, as they were paying, that’s partly what they were paying for, and, they were entitled to be difficult. [laughs] But certainly some are more, more difficult than others, and... As I say, a lot of the time I think we’re, we’re having to interpret more what the customer’s thinking and wanting than the actual fit of the suit. It’s, it’s sort of, seventy per cent fit and thirty per cent what the customer wants, and, at the same time of course he wants to be comfortable as well as elegant, and, it can be difficult, particularly if he’s got a, a rather, a rather bad figure. [laughs]

Yes, because I was going to ask you whether, whether customers can be vain about themselves.

[pause] On the whole I, I don’t think our custom... I mean, the majority of our customers come to us because it’s, strangely enough, it’s quick, because, we know what, vaguely at any rate, we know what they want, we know where they live, what Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 66 they do. Therefore we know the weight of cloth to show them; if they’re working in a bank we know that it’s no good trying to sell them, you know, some rather bright, what we call a fancy worsted, it’s probably got to be sort of, dark blue or dark grey. So we can, within probably twenty minutes, we can sell him, if need be, sort of, five suits I suppose. And then, and then, if he’s an American, we will fit him in America, which, and I suppose five jackets and one...because we only fit the one pair of trousers. So again, that be done in twenty minutes. And then he comes back again to his London office, and collects them, has a final fitting, another twenty minutes. So in one hour of his time he’s taken five suits, and probably fifteen shirts, and he’s set up for the rest of the year. So that, for just one hour of his time, for the rest of the year he can get on with banking and making his millions. And that’s the sort of, I think that’s the sort of mentality of most of our customers, that, they come to us to be made to look elegant, and comfort, and, and be wearing the, the right clothes.

Why would every coat have to be fitted but only one pair of trousers?

[laughs] Well it’s a good question, but on the whole, trousers are easier to fit, and they sort of go together easier than, well better than a coat. And even if you cut five coats to the same pattern, which, which you would do, partly I think because of the cloth, which we’ve already talked about, there will be the odd discrepancy showing up at that first fitting which will need to be attended to, and, and that’s why we always fit the jackets, but usually only, only one trouser. But then the trousers, they’d all be fitted at the final fitting of course. And then, again with trousers, they’re easier to alter, or just, if there’s some small adjustment required, than a jacket.

So, if we could now perhaps go back to when you were at Cork Street, and you had your first sort of experience of managing the tailoresses.

Mm. Mm.

What other, what other sort of things did you have to do when Henry Poole moved over to Cork Street?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 67

Oh, well I think it, there was a certain amount of having to redesign the showroom and work with the, the builders, which, you know, I worked with my uncle, and, the two of us did all that, which was a wonderful experience for me. But by then, as I say, my father, though he had recovered from TB, he was not a very strong man, and so I remained on administration and selling. And of course I would write letters and answer the, some of the correspondence, and, which very often, again was a good training for me, because my uncle used to, he was very meticulous, my uncle, he was a chartered accountant, and, perhaps that explains all, that he was very meticulous, and he used to correct my letters, and, which, I’m told that my letters are quite good now, and I suppose I must thank my uncle for, not my schooling I don’t think, but my uncle, for showing me how it should be done.

And what would the correspondence be about?

Oh. [laughs] Well, I suppose not the sort of correspondence I have today. Mainly about, ‘When will my suit be ready for a fitting?’ ‘When are you going to come to Paris?’ Because of course, by 1963 I had started to take on the European business, starting in Paris, and, there I was extremely lucky, because, there were several youngish customers, though, not nearly as young as me then, so, in other words, they had been pre-war customers, but they must have been very young when they came. Because in those days, before the war, we had a Paris branch, and, they were customers of the Paris branch. And, some of them, some of these young, younger type customers, were extremely supportive of me coming, and they would introduce me to new customers, and, fairly quickly I managed to build up quite a substantial business in Paris, and, I was all on my own, I had to cut – not cut, but I used to fit, and then take the garment back to the cutter and explain to him what marks I’d put on, and we would sort of discuss the fault, and... But it seemed to work. And it suddenly, after about two years, the business got so substantial that I had to have help, and so, in fact the head cutter then used to come out with me.

Was that Mr Brentnall?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 68

No, that was a Mr Mitchell. He came to the company in 1937, then he, he was a policeman during the war, guarding Buckingham Palace. And then after the war he came back to us, and, I became extremely friendly with...he took me under his wing.

Was he older than you?

Oh yes, considerably. Yes. You know, I was, twenty-four, and I suppose he would have been, fifty. I mean I... Nowadays of course, I don’t consider anyone of fifty at all old, but, when I was twenty-four, I suppose a fifty-year-old... [laughs] But I suppose, yes, he must have been, may have been a little older, even a little older than that. But we used to travel together, and, and we used to go by car, and I used to drive, which of course I liked. And then, we then started to extend the trips from Paris, we then used to drive to Brussels and then from Brussels we used to go into Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. And then from Frankfurt we’d drive into Switzerland. And we would be away for about three weeks. And as I say, our European business became, yes, comparatively important, which was a good thing, because we were probably too dependent on our American business, so this was a good policy I think that my father introduced to get back some of the European trade. And, and it’s been like that basically ever since, until the wretched euro came in, you know, just two or three years ago, when, sadly we’ve lost a lot of our business, because the euro immediately devalued the German mark or the French franc by something like twenty-five per cent. And so our price suddenly shot up. And at that level it’s, it’s a bit too much for a customer to accept, and I don’t think they fully realised that it was the devaluation of the euro and not me putting up my prices. So, sadly we’ve got back to being I think too dependent on America, and I’m hoping that something’s going to change. I mean the euro has gone up again, up at last, and it may be we’ll get some of our customers back again who thought we had gone over the top with our, our prices. But, I mean even today, Europe is still important to us, but, as I say, we’ve certainly lost quite a lot of orders from there in the last two or three years.

Was it Mr Mitchell who advised you about phoning Jacqmar?

Yes, absolutely. Yes, it was. [laughs] Yes, oh yes, and, suggesting I went to Verrey’s, and... Yes. [laughs] Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 69

Were you, or do you see any difference in the way that different nationalities treated you as a tailor?

[pause] Yes, I... Yes, thinking about it. When I first came into the company I have to admit there were some very horrid Englishmen, very arrogant, snobbish, really nasty people. They were elderly, and... But as I say, they used to come in and sort of say, ‘Cundey, where are you?’ and, and they’d even speak to my father a bit like that.

And, would they be...was there any sort of, common characteristics, or were they people from the city, or the aristocracy, or...?

I think some, some were from the aristocracy. I mean, I’ve got to be careful what I say, because equally, as I’ve said, there’s this, this lord. I can remember very sadly, I’ve just had to write a letter to his widow, but, last week the now Duke of Bedford died, I knew him when he was the Marquis of Tavistock, and he is about, well he’s two years younger than me, so, we were basically the same age. And he was, throughout his life, the most charming, friendly person you could meet. I suspect the customers that we, that used to sort of look down on us, if that’s the right expression, I know one of them was in steel, he had a steel works, and I suspect we would call him sort of nouveau riche, and... [laughs] And in fact he came a cropper in the end and had to... And of course he sold out when steel got nationalised. But I... I mean, being realistic, it’s only the sort of odd, odd one that you would get like that, but, I have to admit that there were some, particularly English that spring to mind, whereas the French I met in, in France, without exception I think, treated me, well, I would say as an equal, even, even the French Prime Minister, Monsieur Balladur, he was most friendly, and, we would...we would have to go to the Matignon to fit him, but he would produce a cup of coffee for us, and, as I say, be most respectful, as obviously we were to him. And on the whole I suppose generally speaking the Americans are not arrogant and snobbish. And I hasten to say, I think nowadays we have very few Englishmen who are, who you could say that about any more. I think, I think it’s partly because people respect now, you know, what we do I think, truthfully, that, you know, I’ve had customers say, ‘I must give you a cheque today because, otherwise you’ll have cash flow problems and I’ll never have, I won’t have a tailor again.’ So, Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 70 you know, they want us around, and, and I think they respect us, and, you know, very often sort of, treat us very much as an equal.

So are you saying that, that you weren’t sort of paid as readily in, in previous times?

Oh, if you look at... [laughs] If you look at the history of the firm, the tailor undoubtedly was the last to be paid. That has certainly been... I mean, again, not in every case, but generally, the tailor was, well, down the list of, of being paid by, I don’t know why, but... I’m going back now to Henry Poole’s day, because, in fact when Henry Poole died, he had these magnificent homes, but so much was, money was owed to him that, he was pretty well insolvent really. And, I think through his wife, his widow and his sister not drawing money out of the company after he had died, and presumably the work of my great-grandfather, we pulled the company through. But, we lost equally quite a few customers, because, we had to go after them for money and they didn’t like it. [laughs] And, I think throughout history, if I look at some of the accounts, we, you know, it used to take, well Queen Victoria took two years to pay us. [laughs] But in, nowadays, it has changed enormously, and, the worst we get nowadays is, for someone really to go bankrupt I suppose, we get a little of that, an entrepreneur comes to us having made a lot of money, and, suddenly his business and he go down the pan, and so do we with...we lose money. That’s, that’s what occasionally happens now, more than people not paying us.

Do you have female customers?

Oh, well yes. [laughs] Way back, part of the history of the firm of course is that, we became very famous for riding clothes and, and we started making habits for ladies, and... And we had this very famous young lady as a customer, her name was Catherine Walters, and she, her name was, her pet name was ‘Skittles’, because she used to work in a skittle alley, but she was, became a very very fine horsewoman. And, one of her friends was a customer of Poole’s, one of her men friends, and, and he used to buy habits for her, and then she would ride down Rotten Row in these immaculate clothes, and cause quite a, a sensation. And obviously did a lot of good for Henry Poole, and very subtle sort of publicity I suppose. Of course he was a very fine marketing man, and that’s what Henry Poole excelled in, the more you learn Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 71 about him, how brilliant he was. And rumour has it that he heard that the Prince of Wales, that’s Edward VII, was going to the theatre, and so he, he got hold of the principal actor, and made him the garment for this particular play. And in fact the garment had to be, sort of, with tears and things in it as a... Whether he was a sort of tramp, I don’t know, but, that’s how it looked. But the Prince of Wales could see how well it was cut, and after the, when he sort of met the actor at the end of the play, he said, ‘Where did you get that garment from?’ and so he said, ‘From Poole’s,’ and, and that’s in fact how we got the Prince of Wales as...and we became his largest tailor, you know, his most prominent tailor. And in fact, that story was told by the subsequent Prince of Wales who became the Duke of Windsor, he actually wrote this in a book, how Henry Poole made this actor’s... And, it was spied upon by the... So he was a very clever marketing man.

But what about female customers now, do you...?

Yes. Oh, yes, I hadn’t sort of finished. Because then, another famous lady we had was the actress... Hm, I can’t think of her name now. Oh, a very famous mistress of Edward VII. Oh it’ll come back to me in a minute.

Lillie Langtry?

Lillie Langtry, that’s right. We had her. But, I think we had, in those days we were making, particularly riding clothes for ladies. Recent, in more recent years, because some men’s fabric is so beautiful, some of the cashmere jacketings that we have, ladies wouldn’t, that quality doesn’t seem to reach the, the ladies’ trade. And, some, very often we have, particularly customers’ wives, whilst their husband is being fitted, they come across this cashmere and ask their husbands if, if they could have a little jacket made from it. So we do that sort of thing, and we make blazers for ladies I suppose. I suppose... Probably accounts for, five per cent of our production I suppose. At any one time I should think we have about five garments for ladies going through the, through the workshops, so...

And is there a particular cutter who deals with ladies?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 72

[pause] Yes, I suppose Philip does more than, than any of the others. But having said that, the others... No, they can all do it. No, they... A few years ago we had a very senior cutter who had been with us for many many many years, and he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t entertain it. [laughs] But he, he retired what, two years ago. But I’m sure, yes, that, the four cutters we have now, yes, all four of them will undertake work for ladies.

I wanted to ask you about all those paper patterns that are, that are hanging downstairs.

Mm.

Who do they belong to? What would they be for?

Well, each customer, the first thing we, well the first thing we do when a new customer comes, we in fact show him cloth, and he then selects, if it’s a suit, a length of suiting. And usually the salesman does that, or, like, we have Ian, Ian Warrington, or my son, and that’s in fact what I, I used to do more than anything else. Having selected the material, the salesman will then select the cutter. [laughs] Now I say that rather guardedly, because, usually it’s where the customer lives, is the main factor. Obviously if he lives in New York, it will be the cutter in, Mr Parker in fact, who will look after him. And if it was a Frenchman, then Alexander would look after him. But there is of course another factor, that, if, certainly I could do it and my, I think, even Ian Warrington can sum up a customer, and know which cutter would probably suit him best. So, you do get the odd customer that, even if he lives in New York, he may well have Mr Catchpole, our elderly cutter, looking after him, because it’s thought that he would suit him best. And then, he would cut for him and see him when he comes to London, but probably, Mr Parker would fit him in New York. So the main factor is, where the man lives, but, as I say, you do get a certain amount of selection knowing the sort of, summing-up the mentality of the man and putting him with the right cutter.

And at what stage is the paper pattern drawn up?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 9 Page 73

Ah well then... Yes, well then... Sorry, I... So then you would select the cutter, the cutter would then measure the customer, and he takes about, twenty-five different measures I suppose. And then, more important than the measures, he then looks at his figure, we call it the figuration, and that’s, if one shoulder is lower than the other, if he has a round back, or a large posterior, and a sort of, rather large stomach, all those sort of factors. And so he as subtle as he can, tells all that to the salesman. And then he goes away, and.....

[End of Part 9] Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 10 Page 74

Part 10 [Tape 6 Side B]

And then as soon as the measures are taken, the customer will then leave, and, probably within the next two weeks the cutter will cut a paper pattern from these measures. And that paper pattern will remain in the company until we hear the poor man has died. So what you saw downstairs were current patterns of customers who have clothes going through at the moment, you know, they’re coming to fit tomorrow, or... So they have the paper pattern handy, because, after the first fitting, any adjustments or alterations made to the jacket at that fitting is then altered, the paper pattern is altered accordingly. When the suit has gone home, the paper pattern is then taken to the vaults down...well under the road in fact, we have two, I think they were the coal holds, and we’ve cleaned them up and we hang, I suppose about 6,000 patterns of existing customers. So that when they re-order, say a year later, we go down to the vaults, pick out this paper pattern, and... And in the meantime, probably the salesman or the cutter will have checked the measure, just to make sure he hasn’t put on weight; if he has, then the pattern is enlarged.

And is it one...how many patterns might one customer have?

Well, there’s what we call the fore part, which is the front of the coat, and then there’s obviously the back, the sleeve. And then there’s a waistcoat pattern and a trouser top side and a trouser underside. So there is a bundle of sort of five or six patterns, and that would make up a suit. But then if he’s ordered an overcoat, that will go in this bundle. If he orders a frock coat or a tail coat or a morning coat, all that goes. So you can get quite a thick, a collection of sort of a dozen patterns I suppose for one man.

And what sort of paper is the pattern make out of?

I’m sure it’s got a proper name. [laughs]

Yes, it looks like graft paper.

Yes, it is, it’s expensive, I know that. [laughs] Yes, I’m sure it is. I mean, it probably has some code number that... It’s a long time ago since I bought some, my Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 10 Page 75 secretary organises that now, very efficiently too. But yes, I’m sure, I’m sure you’re right. I mean, my little story is that, when we moved to Cork Street, I was, as well as given the task of helping to organise the workshop, I was also given the task of clearing out and selling what I could of the old Savile Row premises. And there were sort of old gas lights, which, I think I probably only got in those days £2 for each; probably today they’d be worth £100 each, but, things were different than in 1961. And there were all sorts of fixtures and, that I’ve managed to sell, and amongst them were seven tons of paper patterns. And I was offered £7 a ton, which was a lot of money, and it was, I then found out, because of the quality of the paper, that’s why they offered £7 a ton. So I went to my father and uncle and said, ‘I’ve just been given £21 for three tons.’ So they were delighted. I mean, it all helped the cost of the move, which I think was quite substantial, it was a big item for the company, and so, we had to count the pennies. And it wasn’t until afterwards that I realised what I had done, and of course I had thrown away Charles Dickens’ pattern, Livingstone’s pattern, Edward VII’s pattern, Napoleon III, Queen Victoria for that matter. And of course today it would be wonderful to still have, I mean the pattern for Charles Dickens I’m sure, the Dickens Society would love to see, and... [laughs] But I, I, you know, threw all of them away. Mind you, I did it on the instructions of my father and uncle, but, I do, I do regret it now.

Yes, how, how... I can’t imagine the volume of seven tons of...

Well, of course, the Savile Row premises, the old premises, were far far bigger than this. As I say, we had the two houses at the back, 4 and 5 Old Burlington Street, and then we had, it was 36-39 Savile Row, and it amounted to quarter of an acre. And the basement was enormous. And, we had the pattern room which was pretty large, and it had selves and shelves with these patterns laid on them. We now hang them up. In those days they used to lie flat on, on shelves, and, it took me days to take them out of their shelves and string them up and give them to the waste paper merchant. [laughs] And how are they stored now? Are they stored by year, or alphabetically?

Well we have them... Oh yes, alphabetically. And numbered. Some. I mean, again the cutters are given a certain, quite a lot of latitude, they do it their way. So you have some cutters who will do it simply alphabetically, strict alphabetical order; others will Angus Cundey C1046/03/06 Part 10 Page 76 do the alphabet with a number, so you don’t have to follow such, so strictly alphabetically. And in the, in the old days, they would simply be numbered, and not alphabetical at all, and the cutter would have a book with the man’s name and then the number of the pattern. But that’s going back a long time, before my time, when we had a man simply looking after the patterns, and, he would take them up and put them away, and... His other job was to read the Times obituary every day, and if someone had died, he was able to take the pattern out and get rid of it. But he wouldn’t have got rid of Charles Dickens’, and, I know they were there, and... [laughs]

[end of session]

[End of Part 10] Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 77

Part 11 [Tape 7 Side A]

Angus Cundey of Henry Poole.

I wanted to ask you what memories you have of Tommy Nutter and the effect of him sort of opening up here on Savile Row.

Well that, it’s rather amusing in some ways, because Tommy Nutter, when he was a very young man, came and saw my father and asked for a job as a salesman. And because he had very long hair, my father was somewhat horrified, and the interview very quickly finished, and that was at that time the end of Tommy Nutter, with us. Subsequent to that, he, he did in fact join a small tailor’s in Old Burlington Street I believe, and then when we were compulsorily purchases and kicked out of Savile Row, and ended up in Cork Street, the new building, the car park building was put up with about eight little units along Savile Row, and one of those units was taken by Tommy Nutter. And, and he was probably the first tailor in those days to actually put a garment in the window and show that you were a tailor’s. And, we in fact followed suit in Cork Street, we had two very big frosted windows which we took out and put in clear glass and displayed garments in the windows. So we, we followed Tommy Nutter.

Was that your decision?

I think, I think, yes, I think it was. I think I was goaded by one or two of our suppliers, and a great friend of mine at that time, Peter Adams, who worked for Wain Sheill, the big woollen merchants, I think it was him, and he was near, very near the same age as me, and... Surprisingly, my father and uncle agreed without too much ado. And I remember we, we sold two military pictures, and that basically paid for this work to be done, to revamp the Cork Street showroom to modernise it. And, it went down very well, I remember the Times came, and gave us a write-up, and said that we were moving with the times and other tailors should follow. So... And of course since then, well every tailor has followed I think, we all show garments in our, in our windows. Now going back to Tommy Nutter, as time progressed, I began to, to know Tommy Nutter, and then, he and I were invited by one of the mills in Scotland Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 78 to, every other year, to put on a, a fashion show at the expense of this, this mill. And, wherever we went, Princess Margaret always used to come. And he used to, the mill would hire an aeroplane, and we would go to, we went one year to Venice, another year to Munich, another year we went up to Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. But on all those occasions, Princess Margaret would be the guest of honour. And I would travel in the aeroplane with Tommy Nutter. And of course he was in many ways better known to the press than I was, or, certainly as an individual, and he used to introduce me to members of the press, which of course was very useful and helped me perhaps put Henry Poole back again on, on the map as far as the media were concerned. So, I was very very shattered when poor Tommy then died and basically with it his company. And that was the end of that association. And in fact the mill by then had, I felt that they had to save costs I believe, and these wonderful fashion shows came to an end, which, I think was a great shame for the, the British menswear trade.

What sort of person was he?

Well, very...basically, he was a great friend, and, though he was, I mean his firm was so different to ours, but he respected what we did, and we certainly respected how he had built up this reputation and, and undoubted styling which even today people, people talk about. And, and of course he, he had the backing of Cilla Black and pop, and the Beatles, and, and he dressed the Beatles, and, and he’s still ‘mentioned in dispatches’ as they say as being the tailor who helped put the Beatles on the map with their, not only their songs but the way they dressed. And, I think, it helped to take away the sort of fuddy-duddy image that firms like Henry Poole had I think after the war.

Yes, I was going to ask you about, well, I don’t know whether it’s the right word, but whether there’s any kind of competitive spirit in Savile Row.

Oh, yes, oh undoubtedly, we all watch I think what each of us is doing. But on the other hand, I never consider a Savile Row tailor as a competitor; our competitors are mainly the, the excellent...they’re more outfitters than tailors in Italy, and that’s where our, our competition is. Particularly when we travel abroad, because we come across the, the Brionis, the Caracenis and the Zegnas, we come across them in, in America, Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 79 and some of our customers buy from us and buy from, from Italy. So, I think they’re our main, main competitor, not, you know, Messrs so-and-so down, down the Row.

So what would you say distinguishes Henry Poole from Huntsman for instance, what is...is there a difference?

Well, yes there is quite a big difference, because, Huntsman’s rigidly keep to a, what we call a house style, and they make predominantly a button one-fronted coat, it’s very slim-looking, it is undoubtedly very elegant. Whereas we, basically we don’t have a house style, we never have done; we’ve tried to adapt to the man’s figure, and what he in fact asks for, and of course what we’ve undoubtedly achieved, and that is making a garment that can be worn by a Japanese on the Ginza and, and a rather large American in Wall Street. And I suppose, that’s what we’ve tried to do, rather than introduce a rigid house style. So there is a difference. And our other competitors like Anderson and Sheppard’s, they have a very distinct style, which they try not to deviate from. And no, having said that, I was walking down Piccadilly a year or so ago with a friend, and I said, ‘I’m sure that’s a Henry Poole suit in front of us.’ And when the man turned round, lo and behold it was a customer I knew well, so I can tell a Henry Poole suit. But, as I say, it’s not...we don’t have such a rigid house style as, as I suppose our main competitors of Huntsman, Anderson and Sheppard, and, and of course Kilgour’s, they have a, well certainly had a very distinct style.

And what, could you just describe what theirs is and what Anderson and Sheppard’s is?

Well Anderson and Sheppard’s make a big play on the fact that they make a very soft coat with very little padding, and, I think it would be true to say that, when a man walks out of the shop you wouldn’t know that it was a spanking new suit, it... [laughs] But having said that, I’m sure it’s very comfortable, and, they have a very big following, they are a very successful firm. Kilgour’s are probably, though they’ve changed in recent years, but the original Stanbury family, Kilgour, French and Stanbury, they made very much a firm coat with padded shoulders, again that was recognised, well, I suppose throughout the world, and they were, again, in their heyday they were very successful with, with film stars, and, who...and you could see Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 80 in these old films a Kilgour, French and Stanbury suit. But as I say, I think more than any other firm in Savile Row, we have what’s called today a global market, and you know, we’ve had maharajas, we’ve had crown princes of Japan, and the Emperor of Russia, and of course our, our American customers, and that’s how we’ve operated, and in fact, I like to think we still do.

How could you tell it was a Henry Poole suit?

I suppose... Well, I suppose the shape, even from the back view you can... And in fact the other day, subconsciously a customer came to the front door after we had closed, and rang the bell, and nobody was here except me, which is quite common in the evenings. And, and I said to him, ‘I’m sorry Sir, we’re closed.’ And, and I looked at him and I said, ‘Is your cutter Mr Parker?’ So he said, ‘Yes.’ So I actually recognised the suit he was wearing, and I knew which cutter had cut it. And of course I was able to say, well, Mr Parker’s the early bird in the firm, and he had already gone home, but, he would, he could see this American at half-past eight in the morning if he wished, which, I think went down very well with that customer. But, it wasn’t until afterwards that I suddenly thought, there was I, I actually recognised not only a Henry Poole suit, but the cutter that, that had cut it.

And can Simon do that yet do you think?

Well he’s clever enough to probably know the customer and would know who cut; whereas my memory’s rapidly going, and, I, I can’t put a name to sometimes a face that I know, or even worse than that, that, if I saw him last month, I’ve totally forgotten, and...[laughs]...I have to ask his name, and... Whereas Simon is very good, he knows immediately the, the client’s name, and to that he can put, put the cutter.

That’s a different skill though.

Yes. Yes, whether he would actually recognise... At this stage probably not. But I’m sure it will come to him in due course. Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 81

Could I ask you to describe the structure of the company?

Well, as I think I have said before, that, that the hub of the firm is in the cutting room, and the cutters really are the, the top of the, the tree. Simon and I and my grandfather and father were sort of, are the owners, and that’s sort of why we’re there. But having said that, I mustn’t malign that, because, I think the continuity of the company, and the fact that it’s gone now for nearly 200 years, is because of the, the family influence, and the fact that we haven’t sold out or changed ownership. Then, I suppose underneath the, the cutters, the coat maker is the next in the line. A coat maker, ideally he can turn his hand to, to most garments. So he would be the top of his tree. I mean there are other coat makers that specialise in heavy weight garments, or light weight suits, I mean jackets. One or two specialise in body coats, that’s morning coat and dress suits. Another tailor that we have is very good with velvets, smoking jackets and... So you have varieties of, of coat makers. And then I suppose after that you have the trouser maker, he would probably think he was as important as the coat maker, but, I think, being realistic, it’s the coat that shows off a Henry Poole garment more than simply a pair of trousers, but, having said that, there’s a lot of hand work and skilled work that goes into the way we make our trousers as opposed to some of our competitors that do it very much on a trousers, a machine, much more than, than we do here where we, we still incorporate hand work in the, in the trousers.

And do they have buttons or zips?

[laughs] Well that’s an amusing one, because, they always used to be, the trousers always had a button fly, and it wasn’t until, I’m not sure the date, I suppose, probably between the wars, in the 1930s, that period, the zip, the zip, the zipper, was invented. And the tailor in fact at that time insisted on charging us more to put in a zip than making five buttonholes for a fly. And that’s what in fact happened, we used to have to pay slightly extra for zip flies, that was, when I first came to the firm in the Fifties, that was still so, but, I think that we’ve now...well we’ve certainly stopped it and now you get paid the same whether it’s a zip fly or a, a button fly. But I would say that ninety per cent of our trousers are with zip flies. It’s the, it’s unusual to have a button fly. Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 82

And would that be the customer asking specifically?

Oh indeed, oh yes, our salesman has a, I mean he can do it mentally, but when you first start being a salesman, you are sort of given a crib sheet of all the questions you have to ask, and you start off with the jacket, do you want it single-breasted, double- breasted? Do you want no slits, centre slit, or side slits, or vents as some people call them? Do you want flaps on your pockets? And, you get... And how many in-breast pockets do you want? And so it goes on with the jacket. There are some things that we don’t ask, like, ‘How many buttons on the cuff?’ because we have a sort of rule for that, that the more formal the garment, the more buttons you have. So, with a dinner jacket and a dark blue suit, you would definitely have four. In fact in principle, if it is a town suit you will have four buttons on each cuff. And for blazers and sports jackets, you would only have three. But of course at the end of the day, we are bespoke custom tailors, and if the customer says, ‘I want four buttons on my, on the cuffs of my blazer,’ that’s what he gets, and we, we do it. So... And then from the jacket, you start, you ask about the waistcoat, does he want a waistcoat, to start with. And then you get on to trousers, where you’re asking, ‘Do you want it cut for braces, are you going to wear braces? Do you want a zip fly? Do you want cuffs or turn-ups on the bottoms?’ And, so you, you have a list of I suppose, fifteen items you have to clarify. And sometimes the customer will say, ‘Well what do you think?’ And that’s very often the case with vents, and again we have the rule that, the more formal the coat, you don’t have any vents; if it’s a town suit, we would prefer two vents; and the sports jacket, either two vents or, if it’s a, a very shaped, sort of jacking jacket, then that would just have a centre vent. Going, this all going back of course to when people rode horses, and, long before the motorcar, and the centre vent was so that the man could sit on the saddle and, and it would sort of split down each side of the, the horse’s back.

When I was asking you about the structure of the company, I meant, because I’d read that when you amalgamated or bought up other firms, that they became directors of Henry Poole, and I just wondered how, how that worked.

Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 83

Yes, well we took... I mean, that’s not totally accurate. In 1938, we bought up the company of Hill Brothers, and none of the Hills actually joined the company. I think they... It’s a very sad story. Hill Brothers were a very very prominent company in the early 1900s, and they were probably our biggest competitor at that time. For a reason I don’t know, they moved out of Old Bond Street into, I think it was Bruton Street. And the moment they did that, slowly the business went down and down. I suppose it’s, it could be related to our twenty-one years we had in Cork Street, rather similar, though it wasn’t as disastrous as it obviously was for Hill Brothers. And so I think the, the directors of Hill Brothers were quite glad to give up the trade, I think, so they, they didn’t come into the company. But we did certainly take on their head cutter, a Mr Smith, I mean this is before my time, but I’ve heard my father talk about him. And we did take several senior members of staff from Hill Brothers. But I mean, again amusingly, my father said to me, one customer came in and said, ‘You may have bought my tailor’s, but you haven’t bought me,’ and promptly walked out again. I don’t know, thank goodness I have never experienced that. We then, we then took over a very small company called E C Squires, and Mr...that’s true, Mr Squires came and we put him on the, on the board. And we found him extremely valuable, and in fact, he not only looked after his existing customers that sort of came with him, but I can remember he ended up by coming with me to Germany, Switzerland...yes, and, Belgium... Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. And helping out very much with the Henry Poole customers. And then finally we took over Sullivan and Woolley, and that was a much bigger exercise, and in fact many, many members of our present staff originally came from Sullivan and Woolley. One of the reasons we took over Sullivan and Woolley was to gain and increase our European trade, and they brought with them a very comprehensive list of customers in Zurich, Basel and Geneva, which we were able to add to ours. And of course their French connection was probably bigger than ours, and during the war they made for the Free French in quite large numbers, as well as Montgomery of Alamein. So that was a much bigger exercise, and we welcomed the, the two owners, Mr Woolley and Mr Peterson, and they joined our board for I think a five-year period, and then after five years they, they retired and we sort of paid them off. And then the last company that, we didn’t actually take over but we took in their cutter, and that’s Mr Catchpole, who is still with us, and he celebrated his seventy-sixth, seventy-sixth birthday last week in fact, and, and he’s still absolutely marvellous, and what he’s so good at is teaching our, our three trainee Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 11 Page 84 cutters that we have. And he still makes a wonderful coat. In fact I saw William Hague, the, the Member of Parliament, in the shop wearing one of Mr Catchpole’s suits, and it really was a, a fine example of Savile Row.

[End of Part 11] Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 85

Part 12 [Tape 7 Side B]

So, who would you say runs Henry Poole now?

Oh, well I’m told that I still do, though I, I’m trying slowly to hand over responsibilities to, well both Simon and of course my managing director, Philip Parker. I mean, my son, he does look after the entire American market, which is particularly at the moment by far the biggest market, accounts for, probably fifty per cent of the business. But there are still areas that they seem to want me to look after, that is the, the negotiations for the continuance of the, of the lease, promotion and publicity. And of course the book that we recently published, that was all, well all down to me with the exception of, I suppose the final chapter where Simon had his input about what he’s managed to achieve in, in America, particularly with the, the golf clubs that he’s become so involved with. So... I think, I’m told at any rate that they, they certainly want me here until I’m seventy, so, that’s what, another four years.

How long have you had a managing director?

No, well that’s a good point, we’ve always, ever since the company became limited, which was in 1946, my father was elected chairman of the board, and there was my uncle, a director, and our head salesman, who was also given ten per cent of the shares of the company, Mr Mead. And so they were both directors. When... And it’s followed like that ever since, until we had to sort of slightly revamp the company, when my uncle retired, I was elected chairman and managing director. And then the sons of Mr Mead, sadly one died and the other retired, by which time we had already had Mr Parker and Mr Gamble on the, on the board, and, as Mr Parker had such an influence, much more so than any of the people in the cutting room, it seemed logical to make him managing director. And of course he’s very much in charge of training the future coat makers and cutters, that’s his forte, as well as doing more travelling than anyone else. And it seemed to fit in that he was, he would be managing director, and probably by the time I retire Simon will then become chairman, and it will be near the retirement of Mr Parker. But if it’s not, he will, he will remain as managing Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 86 director, and Simon will become the chairman. And they both know that, and, it’s, it seems to be agreeable.

And how often would the board meet?

Not very often, in fact, really only to discuss very major things. What in fact we try and do is enlarge the direction of the company, and so we have, I suppose every two months, cutters’ meetings, so the actual senior cutters, that’s the three senior cutters, plus obviously Mr Parker, so that’s the four senior cutters, attend the meeting. And our company secretary, who is also a director, Mrs Mooney, she will come, plus Simon, so we have, you know, about six of us sitting round this table, talking about future policy and, or any problems that there are. So, actual board meetings are, I suppose with our accountants, the annual general meeting. Oh I suppose the wage review that we do every March, and, and that’s really about it. I mean a lot goes on, because I suppose, as I’ve said, Mr Parker is in charge of training, so, he will come to me and talk about training, and Simon will come to me about plans for America, and so forth. So I suppose I, I listen to lots of suggestions, and then sort of, put them all together. So, I suppose it’s not totally democratic [laughs] because, at the end of the day, I suppose I make the final decision. But it seems to work, and, you know, I get very few moans about that sort of thing. I think they like to sort of leave it, I get the impression that they like to leave certain things for me to get on with. I mean the sad thing is now that, I no longer see customers, or very very seldom, only if I’m asked to leave my office and come down to the showroom, or if in fact I’m there and I suddenly see someone that I’ve known from ten years ago. But it’s something in many ways I miss. And of course I, I will be totally useless in selling a suit, because, we’ve now totally revamped the showroom, and that’s been done by Simon and our salesman, and so in fact I don’t know where anything is. So if a customer says, ‘I want a flannel suit,’ I would have to go and ask, ‘Where are the patterns of flannels?’ and... [laughs] So I make that as an excuse to hand over the customer to either Simon or, or our salesman.

So would the revamping of the showroom be something that would have to be agreed by the board, or...?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 87

No, I mean that’s a good example of where people have their responsibilities, and we work much more that way, so the salesman and Simon basically were given carte blanche to get, to go ahead and do it. And, I have to admit, for me, I find it much more difficult now than the old days where we used to hang swatches of cloth on hooks; now they’re put away in cupboards. I mean, segregated, so, I’m sure if I really look carefully, I could probably find where the, where the flannels are. But I know many customers have complimented them on it, and said how much tidier the showroom looks, and so much uncluttered as it was in my day.

Do you and Simon talk about the business outside of being here?

Well I suppose we did, but far less now, simply because, you know, I live in Suffolk and he lives in Wandsworth, and when we do meet, it’s with his children, who sort of, take over the proceedings, and our two wives, and, you know, they don’t want to hear us discussing business. We do discuss quite a lot at five o’clock, when the staff are beginning to go home, and we probably, we probably don’t leave till six. And so we will, we will have a chat, and it may well go on, walking down the road together before I go off to get the Underground to Liverpool Street. So that’s when... And occasionally he, he will phone me up, particularly when he’s come back from the States, he will phone me at home, and, and we’ll talk things through then.

But, do you also talk to your wife about, about your day, and the business?

Yes, until she gets fed up. And, yes, I mean, I mean I do, particularly if something’s interesting happening. And of course she knows the staff very well, in fact, tomorrow night twenty members of staff are going to a social evening at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. It’s coupled with our trade charity, the Master Tailors’ Benevolent Association, of which I’m the president, and, we’ve really, this is the second year that we’ve put on this social, simply to, to both entertain our staff, and they’re going to bring their wives or girlfriends with them, and also of course meet other people in the trade, and...

So how many people will there be?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 88

It’s exactly 160, which for our...and that’s predominantly Savile Row. There are one or two tailors from the City of London, but predominantly it will be Savile Row. One or two in fact bring customers; I take staff, and their husbands and, or wives. Whereas, as I say, I know there are going to be several customers of other firms there, as well as other tailors and their wives. But if it’s like it was last year, it will be a very enjoyable evening, and we have a, a six-piece band that plays in the courtyard of Merchant Taylors’ Hall, and then we have a buffet supper, and we try and organise it that we have, each firm has one or two tables, and so we keep together at least for, for the meal, but then socialise afterwards in the courtyard, and, with red and white wine. So, I’m looking forward to it.

And what will you wear?

Oh, that will be simply a lounge suit. Because we do... It all stems, this, from a formal dinner that we have in February, which my grandfather instigated in 1887, and other than once or twice during the two wars, this dinner has been held every year. And it’s partly for fundraising, and... But for that, you don’t normally invite wives or girlfriends, and it’s quite a formal occasion. Over the years it’s attracted some wonderful guests of honour, including Prince Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh, but it is a, as I say, and there we wear dinner jackets. When I first came, we wore white tie, dress coats, but, like, like on so many other occasions, these, that’s finished, and it’s now dinner jackets. But at least it’s dinner jackets, and, we haven’t got down to lounge suits, and as tailors, I hope we never do.

So when did that change, do you think, roughly?

What, when we went to dinner jackets?

Mm.

About the mid-Seventies I think it was. Probably because, certainly the younger staff, they used to have to go and hire a dress coat, and I think... Plus the fact of course that as, on the whole, ladies were not present, it always seemed slightly wrong that we wore dress coats, because of course, a dress coat is meant to, what shall I say, show Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 89 off the garment that the lady is wearing, and it’s really where ladies are present where you wear a dress coat. So it was slightly an anachronism that, that this occasion was only, only dress coats.

And as the president, who would sit either side of you?

The appeal chairman, because as I say, it’s for, to try and get funds for the charity, so every year we have a different appeal chairman, one year it’s a woollen merchant, the next year it’s a tailor. So I would, I would sit on one side of him. And then usually the appeal chairman invites his guest of honour, and that’s how years and years ago the tailor of Prince Charles invited, invited him to be the guest of honour. So I would sit, I would have the guest of honour on, on the other side, and then probably my wife would sit on the other side of him. And we have I suppose about eight people on the top table. But I, this is my third year, and I have to do it for five years, so, two years, two years more. And then hopefully, I can hand over to someone else. But I felt obliged to do it, because as I say, my grandfather was the founder of the charity, and, that seems right and proper that in my final years I’m the president.

Could you tell the tape also about your other honours, like being a Freeman of the City of London, and..?.

Mm. Well, yes, there’s a little story to that, that, we...when I first joined the company, I then became on the committee of the Federation of Merchant Tailors. And subsequent to that every, most, I think every year at that time when the trade was so much bigger than it is today, we used to have a seminar. And I remember Monty Moss, of Moss Brothers, was the president for that year of the Federation of Merchant Tailors, and, he knew all about livery companies, because he was a, a Carman. [laughs] I don’t know why, but he was, he was in the Car...the livery of the Carmen. And, he held this seminar at the, at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. And up until then, all I knew was that my grandfather was in the livery of the Merchant Tailors, but after that, no tailors were involved, and, as tailors, we knew very little about what was in fact our roots. And, so we had this splendid seminar in Merchant Taylors’ Hall, and at the end of it, I went to the Clerk of the Company and I said, ‘How can I become a Freeman of Merchant Taylors?’ And he, he looked at me and he simply said, ‘You Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 90 can’t.’ So, ‘Thank you very much.’ But he then turned to me and he said, ‘Do you have a son?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Well when he reaches fourteen, introduce him to me, and I’ll in turn introduce you to a member of Court, and your son can become an apprentice of Merchant Taylors’ Company.’ And this is what I did. And, so at the age of fourteen, Simon started a seven-year apprenticeship. Now during that, I met on some social occasion Barry Austin Reed, of, of Austin Reed’s, and, I think he was a, a Glover, yes, he was in the livery of the Glovers. And he said, ‘I would love you to be a Glover.’ So I went home, and I thought about it, and I, I don’t really want to be a Glover, I want to be a Tailor. So I wrote to the Master, saying just this. And I was so lucky, because the particular Master was very keen to have a tailor or some actual tailors in the Company, reintroduce where it all started. So I was then summoned down to the Court, and interviewed, and, by paying quite a large sum of money, it’s called redemption, I became a Freeman of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. And I with one other, who came with me, another tailor, so we became the first tailors since probably my grandfather of the, in the Company. And since then of course, I think in all, we have about twelve, at least twelve, what I call proper tailors in Merchant Taylors, and, and since then they’ve been very good to us, and, they help with our apprenticeships, and they give an award every year called the Golden Shears, which, to the best apprentice in the trade. So they’ve really, suddenly, in the last twenty years I suppose, they really have done a lot to bring back tailoring, or at least give support to the old, the old tailoring trade, as opposed to clothiers, I don’t think there’s any clothier, they only have encouraged, as I say, proper tailors to come in to the Company. So I feel very fortunate there that, that I was, well, the first since my grandfather, who’s up there, about 18, 1976 I think it’s dated, when he became a member of the livery. And in fact, I’ve subsequently discovered why, because very briefly, Henry Poole when he died, he left half the company to my grandfather as you know; the other half went to his wife and sister, and there was a trustee to look after their interests called Mr Bingley. And Mr Bingley I believe was a tailor in Conduit Street. And, when he died, his daughter continued the trusteeship, the...and she in fact married a gentleman who became Lord Mayor of London, Sir Reginald Hanson. And Sir Reginald Hanson, as well as being Lord Mayor, or, obviously before being Lord Mayor he was Master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, and he obviously invited my grandfather to enter the livery, no doubt the year that he was Master of Merchant Taylors’ Company. And then, Sir Reginald Angus Cundey C1046/03/07 Part 12 Page 91

Hanson either died or, any rate, by 1905 or 1907, my grandfather managed to buy out the whole interest of the, of the Pooles or the Bingleys and Sir Reginald Hanson, and became the sole proprietor. But it took him quite a long time, and with a lot of quite, I won’t say angry letters, but some quite forceful letters between Sir Reginald Hanson and, and my grandfather.

How much time do you devote to the Merchant Tailors and your sort of livery duties?

Yes, well, not... Not a great deal. I suppose, there are two livery dinners a year, and then... I devote more time of course to the, the two charities which I’m involved with, the Master Tailors’ Benevolent Association, and the other, the other charity, the Tailors’ Benevolent Institute. And of course, as we’ve just discussed, the MTBA, their two occasions are now held in Merchant Taylors’ Hall, as a direct result of my being, being a Freeman and then ultimately in the livery. Because prior to that, we used to go to Grosvenor House and hold it in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel. So it’s, it’s a wonderful venue, and, I think if we had carried on having it in the hotel, I think our.....

[End of Part 12] Angus Cundey C1046/03/08 Part 13 Page 92

Part 13 [Tape 8 Side A]

.....and its connections with the trade, not only do tailors and the woollen merchants like to attend, but on occasions we take friends and customers there.

Where is it exactly?

Threadneedle Street, opposite, nearly opposite the Bank of England. And of course they, because it goes back to 1300-and-something, they own much of the land in the area of Threadneedle Street, as well as almshouses in... I’m trying to think of where they are. But any rate, their almshouses in the near vicinity, on the other side of the river that they own. And of course owning, right in the heart of the City, they derive some considerable rents each year which of course puts them in a, a very good financial position to, to help worthy causes. And, as I say, we’ve been very fortunate in, in the last few years where the trade has benefited from the generosity of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. And, we are actually tapping the Master at the moment for some more funds for, trying to put together a, a sort of Savile Row apprentices’ workshop, where we can have several, a dozen apprentices at any one time, learning how to make a Savile Row suit. And we think the, as well as in fact in fairness the Government are putting up money for this, but we think we can also get Merchant Taylors to support it.

And where will this be sited?

I suspect... It’ll be in conjunction with the London College of Fashion, which is in, it’s at Oxford Circus, John Princes Street, but I think we’re going to try and keep it separate from that, though in fact the students will go there for part of their tuition. At the moment we’re thinking of somewhere in, in Soho, like Kingley Street, which is where, when in our heyday we had a very large workshop in King Street as it was called then. But that’s what we think. But it’s in its infancy but, we’ll wait and see how we progress with it.

Could you describe the events leading up to your realising that you could move back into Savile Row? Angus Cundey C1046/03/08 Part 13 Page 93

Yes, well that, that’s interesting, because we’ve talked about how, we took over the firm Sullivan and Woolley in 1980, and of course they came into Cork Street. And we were renegotiating our lease there, because it, it was going to run out in 1981. And, I had nearly signed a new lease with the landlords when Mr Peterson, one of our directors and one of the owners of Sullivan and Woolley, came back to me after a lunch he had had, and he said, ‘Would you consider moving the company back to Savile Row?’ So I said, ‘Well, there’s no building to go to,’ so, to which he said, ‘Yes there is.’ It was the time of a depression, and Hardy Amies was contracting and moving out of No.15 Savile Row and consolidating in No.14, next door. And so, there was in fact a small tailor on the ground floor. And, so that very evening, when nobody was about, so, I wouldn’t be seen, which wasn’t my, that wasn’t my policy but, it was the small tailor, I went, I think it was about half-past six in the evening, and looked round these premises. And of course, I then, I realised that it would have been a wonderful thing to do, to take the company back to its rightful home. So I had to sort of unscramble all the work that I had done to try and secure the lease in Cork Street. It was so fortunate because it was the same landlord, and I managed to persuade the landlord that Cork Street was for art galleries and Savile Row was for tailors, and, wouldn’t it be better for us to move back to No.15 Savile Row? And eventually the landlord agreed. But I can understand him not being too happy, because we got compensation for moving out of Cork Street. But having said that, the compensation then paid for the total refurbishment of these premises, and, I know I had to spend something like £30,000 on the roof alone to have the whole thing re- slated, and, so it was a very, it was a sort of three-year programme which took up no end of my time, and, I can remember going without holidays, and getting home nine o’clock at night, and... But it was all worth it. And of course the other nice thing was that, when it was all signed and sealed, I remember going to the hospital where in fact my father was dying, but before he died, three days before he died, I was able to tell him that we were moving, Henry Poole was moving back to Savile Row, which, at least produced a smile on his face.

So why did you get compensation?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/08 Part 13 Page 94

Oh, because, if a landlord wants to do some refurbishment, and that gives him a reason to actually kick you out of the premises, he then has to give you compensation under the Landlord and Tenants Act. Which, thank goodness, that’s really what he wanted to do. He was, our negotiations were in fact stop him from refurbishing or revamping the ground floor and basement. But as soon as I said we would move out, provided we could go to 15 Savile Row, he was then able to do his refurbishment, but of course that forced him to pay compensation. But at the end of the day, it was to his own advantage because of course we refurbished and put in central heating, and upgraded these premises with that money.

And who, who are the landlords here?

Called the Reverend George Pollen. Now the story goes that, in the seventeenth century a tailor called John Maddox bought ten acres of land behind Piccadilly. And, eventually he leased a large chunk of this land to the Earl of Burlington. And the Earl of Burlington of course built Burlington House. The second Earl of Burlington spent so much money enlarging Burlington House that he had to lease his garden to property developers who then built Savile Row, Old Burlington Street and Cork Street. In 1910 the lease went back to the Maddox family, who by then were, or the main beneficiary, was the Reverend George Pollen. And of course most of the properties in Savile Row, Old Burlington Street and Cork Street did belong to the old Maddox family, or subsequently the Reverend George Pollen. And that estate has kept intact ever since. So... Not all, I mean they have sold off some. And of course my, Henry Poole’s original establishment, that wasn’t the Pollen estate, because he, he eventually bought the freehold, and not from, not from the pollen estate. So obviously they did sell off part. But nowadays they, they still own a very substantial part of this area of London. And of course they’ve benefited basically from, from the tailors, which is what I keep telling them. [laughs]

When you moved here, how long was the lease that they gave you?

Oh twenty-one years. So, the crunch is going to happen in 2006.

And, when would you begin negotiations? Angus Cundey C1046/03/08 Part 13 Page 95

Well I’m trying to now. But inevitably there’s, you know, complications, and, I don’t think the... It’s probably a very good time for me to try and negotiate, because of course there is a, a glut of office space and so forth at this moment in, well more so in the City than, than in the West End, but, there are, I think three, yes, three properties empty in Savile Row at this minute, which is, as I say, to my advantage, and it’s probably why the, the landlord or the landlord’s agent is sort of trying to slow up his decision, and further negotiation. So at the moment, he’s rather biding his time, and... But I, this is fully, this is quite normal, and, probably nothing will happen until next year. But I hope we can obviously stay here, and secondly, can be secured before 2006. I certainly don’t want to leave it till the last minute.

And how do you choose your lawyers?

Well we have two... Well, there are two. First of all, not lawyers, but the main person that does all this is our, our surveyor, who, again that’s another little amusing story that, I was telling you about Cork Street and how we were renegotiating the lease there until we heard about 15 Savile Row. And, my brother is an estate agent, and at that time he had bought from this large company of surveyors the lease of an estate agents in East Grinstead in Sussex. And it transpired that they were round the corner from us here in Maddox Street. And so my brother put me in...he introduced me to the managing director, the senior partner, of, of this company. And, they were absolutely marvellous, I think partly, you know, because they’d got on, they’d managed to get, sold the lease of, I think it was a loss-making branch they had in East Grinstead, it was commercial, and of course my brother quickly turned it into residential, and, I think for him it’s worked very well since. So I’m glad, I think they were quite pleased to get rid of it, and... So I was given the senior partner to come and help us. And we stayed obviously with them ever since. And, so they do the initial negotiations, and, as I say I was on the phone to him only yesterday. And then we go to our solicitor, who of course draws up the lease with the solicitors of the landlords, and that solicitor, again, he used to be in Clifford Street, and he’s been with Henry Poole for, and he’s about the same age as me, so I suppose, I haven’t known another solicitor with the company. So he will, I shall go and see him again. Angus Cundey C1046/03/08 Part 13 Page 96

And, were they solicitors for your father as well, and uncle?

I don’t think so, no. I think, I mean it’s going, now we’re going back a long time, because this would have been... No, I think... I’ve papers... Oh wait a minute, yes, I think you’re right, it changed its name. I think it was the same company, and it was in Clifford Street, and it was called Finnis Downey[ph], and then it, they became, they became...they merged with another company in Caxton Street and became William Sturges.

[end of session]

[End of Part 13] [Tape 8 Side B is blank] Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 97

Part 14 [Tape 9 Side A]

It’s the 24th of July. I wonder whether you could tell me the difference between the Federation of Merchant Tailors, who spell Tailors with an i, and the Merchant Taylors’ Company who spell Taylor with a y. [laughs]

Y. [laughs] Well I will start in fact with the latter, because they’re the oldest. The Merchant Taylors’ Company is the, the old guild in the City of London, and they go way back to 1300-and-something. And it was the association of tailors, and in fact you could not practise as a tailor until you had served an apprenticeship, and then you had to be a member of the guild to be able to actually be a tailor in the City of London. And it went on with twelve other guilds, it is one of the twelve great companies they call them, and the Mercers were the first. And then, subsequently, in years afterwards, other guilds formed themselves, and I think today there’s well over 100 guilds, and of course you’ve got modern ones like the Airline Pilots’ Guild, and the, the chartered accountants and chartered surveyors, they all have their livery companies. But as I say, the tailors are one of the oldest, and they have a magnificent hall in Threadneedle Street. And I suppose, my great, no my grandfather, was probably the last proper tailor with an i[sic] to be in the livery of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. I suppose 100, more than 100 years ago, very few tailors were actually in the company, and it became very much a charitable organisation with typical City financiers and solicitors, lawyers, doctors, all became Merchant Taylors. And of course, today there are probably only five tailoring firms in the City; there are far more in the West End of London. And so, and I suppose because of the, the, the...when Mayfair was built, that’s when the tailors left the City, and presumably they left the Merchant Taylors’ Company. But I’m pleased to say that, we now have, including my son and myself, about twelve proper tailors in the Merchant Taylors’ Company, and, and I think they like to have us there sort of, what they say is, ‘We’re going back to our roots.’ And, they’re very supportive to us, in fact, every year they present a magnificent trophy, the Golden Shears, to the best apprentice, and this year it’s going to happen in October. And they also are the greatest benefactor to both our charities, and they’ve been giving generously to, out of their charities committee, they’ve been giving I think over £1,000 to each charity each year for fifty-odd years, if not more. So, they are very generous. That’s the Merchant Taylors’ Company, the Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 98 livery company of Threadneedle Street. We had, I say had, because very sadly it’s disappeared literally in the last five years, we had for many years the Federation of Merchant Tailors, and that was strictly our trade association going back to about 1880 I think. There was the National Federation of Merchant Tailors, which covered the whole country, and then London had, or, not just, not London but the West End, had the Association of London Master Tailors, of which my grandfather was the president of it for many many years. And that eventually amalgamated with the National Federation of Merchant Tailors. And it was very active, and certainly when I first came into the trade, I enjoyed the meetings of the trade association. And why in the last five years it’s fallen by the wayside, I don’t know, and I’m still puzzled about it, and, and in fact concerned about it, because there are trade mattes that we should be discussing. There are, I have to say, certain horrific things that are coming from Brussels about the employment of workers and so forth that really, as a trade we should be discussing it, and trying to master some of the things that are, that are being thrust upon us by, by the European Commission or whatever.

What sort of things are those?

Oh, the employment or, not so much the employ...the using of self-employed outworkers, and their rights, and, it’s employment law and, I don’t know, there’s a...[laughs]...all sorts of things are being thrown at employers at the moment. Much of it is, is coming from, I think from Germany, and then from Germany through into Brussels, and then it comes, I suppose Common Market law, and, and we, we have to abide by it.

[break in recording]

So how would the Federation be revived, do you think?

I’m actually in discussion at this present moment with four of the prominent firms in Savile Row, particularly with Gieves and Hawkes, who, they’re very keen to introduce a Savile Row association, and promote Savile Row, and, Huntsman’s, Anderson and Sheppard’s, and ourselves. And I think, something’s going to be forced upon us because of some of the legislation that’s coming from Brussels and, and in Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 99 turn from Parliament. And, and also, I’m sure there is a need to promote Savile Row, not just from the point of the, the fact that we have competition now from a new type of tailor in Savile Row, but also for the future of training bespoke cutters and tailors, and, there are all sorts of things that, that are beginning to concern us. And then of course we’ve got the rent and the rates, and the cost of actually manufacturing in the heart of London. And it’s much better to have a strong voice by having a trade association instead of trying to do it as individuals. So, I’m sure in a matter of months we will have formed some sort of association again, and, I certainly will welcome it.

Can I ask you just to move your tie?

Oh.

[intercom]

Sorry.

So who are the new type of tailors, what do you mean by that?

Yes, it’s very interesting, and, when it first started about, oh, ten years ago I suppose, many of us were appalled by what was beginning to happen. And that was that, designers as opposed to tailors were opening small shops, mainly on the other side of the Row, some of them in fact in our, what was our old premises, and... So, they do have the 39, 38, 37 Savile Row address, but they are, as I say, not professional cutters, but, they call themselves designers. And the main difference is that, first of all they sell predominantly ready-to-wear clothing, and secondly, all of it is made miles from Savile Row, probably in, some of it in Leeds, some of it in Goole which is near Newcastle. Another firm was using a big company in Strasbourg to manufacture, both their so-called bespoke, which, we would I think call it made-to-measure, and also their ready-to-wear collection.

Sorry, could you just explain the distinction between bespoke and made-to-measure?

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Yes. Bespoke as a tailor would mean that you cut, measured and cut, and fitted, all on your premises, and you would certainly have some of the making on your premises. You would also have a very large amount of swatches, patterns, cut lengths of material to show. And predominantly you would be supervising the making by having either workers on the premises or workers nearby who we call outworkers. Made-to-measure would be simply taking a set of measures, sending them off to a factory where a cutter would interpret them, and then they would be made under factory conditions. You might get a, what we would call a baste fitting, a first fitting; probably though it would be made straight to finish, and then it would be altered in a finished state, and that would be made-to-measure. And in fact over the years very famous companies have been made-to-measure tailors, like Burton’s and Austin Reed and, and they...but they didn’t call themselves bespoke tailors. But of course, these tailors that have come into the Row, they’re trying to use the cachet of Savile Row and bespoke tailoring to sell their goods. I personally did not mind this competition; my biggest fear is that they’re making Savile Row a sort of high profile street which is, will in turn encourage landlords and the local council to put up rents and rates. And eventually that could price out the manufacturing of, of our sort of tailoring, and our workshops would, would disappear. And ironically, if I think Henry Poole was to disappear from Savile Row, probably the tailors that had caused, the designers that had caused our demise, would find no longer Savile Row had the, the fame that it has at the moment, and they would want to move to Bond Street or Covent Garden, and that would be probably the end of Savile Row. So, there’s some sort of happy medium I think where we can work with these made-to-measure tailors, or ready-to- wear tailors, and hopefully without ruining the traditional firms, a firm like ourselves.

You were just, you were just being measured when I came in.

Yes.

And, actually I wanted to ask you, you know, how many suits you have, and how many you sort of have made in a year.

Well, I’d rephrase that, but, I’m often asked by the media how many suits should a man have? And my answer would be that, ideally if you were rich enough to lay Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 101 down five suits, a dining suit, a sports suit or a sports jacket, that’s sort of the minimum that should be in your wardrobe, on the basis that you change, you wear a different suit every day of the week, and therefore allow it to, the suit to rest for the remainder of the week. I mean many of our customers, thank goodness, have a far bigger wardrobe than that, and they reach a stage where they order, maybe one suit a year, because they’ve already got ten, fifteen in their wardrobe. And of course, it should be more than that, because you’ve got the different weights of cloth, and you’ve got your summer suit and your winter suit, and travel suit and so forth. So, nowadays, one suit a year is, is sufficient for me, because I’ve got, I suppose, ten other suits in, in my wardrobe. And, even though I’m quite hard on my clothes, many of my suits are more than ten years old, and, certainly something like a dinner jacket is probably twenty years old, though it’s had to be let out a couple of times.

Could you describe the suits that you’re having made now? There’s two.

Yes, I’m going to have two this year, because I didn’t have one last year, and the suit I had the year before, I’ve never been very happy with it, which is probably a surprising thing for, for me to say.

Could you say why you haven’t been happy with it?

Oh. I don’t know why, but, it was a young cutter who I gave it to, and, for some reason he made it, the jacket, one inch longer than it should have been, and I didn’t notice it until it was finished, and the trousers I find quite uncomfortable to wear. And for that reason it becomes rather baggy and it’s lost the sort of snappy, snap, or style that, that I, I’m used to having. So this, this time I’m going to our head cutter, and he’s going to make me a, a lightweight, because, the recent weather we’ve had, hopefully we’re going to have it again next year. So that will be a tropical, but it will be a, a blue, a fairly dark blue with a blue stripe in it in fact. And then the second suit is going to be a, also dark blue, that’s a sort of dark blue herringbone, which will then become my, my sort of, number one suit for weddings and funerals and, occasions when you need a fairly formal suit. In fact I’ve always told a young customer who’s seeking our advice about his first suit, and I’ve always said, a dark blue herringbone is the most practical suit you can have, because it’s, it’s both a town suit and a formal Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 102 suit, so when you go for your interview and, or go to, or even for your wedding, if you’re not going to wear a morning coat, dark blue herringbone is very practical. And I’ve worn out the one that I’ve had for many years, so it’s really a replacement.

And what about your shoes, where would you buy those?

Ah, well, that’s a simple answer. There are two firms that we work with, one is John Lobb’s, a very famous company in St James’s Street, and the other firm is Cleverley’s, who are just off Bond Street. And they both make bespoke shoes, and, and in fact ready-to-wear shoes as well. And, because we do a lot of work with both, you know, we, we can have a special, a special price for our, our shoes, in the same way as they get a special price for having a Henry Poole suit, a reciprocal arrangement.

And, why would you go to Lobb’s or, or Cleverley’s? Why would you choose one rather than the other?

Oh. [laughs] I don’t really know the answer to that. We work with both, we have similar customers, or same customers, and we meet each other in, in America, and, and Cleverley goes in fact to Japan, so I’ve seen his work there, and he’s seen ours. I don’t think it’s a case of one or the other, it’s just, you know, they’re two firms that we’re happy to recommend to our customers, and both of them we’re happy to work with.

And do you have any preferences in shoes?

No, I suppose I’m very traditional. I simply have... I have lace-up shoes, I don’t get on with, you know, a strap or a, a more casual shoe. And I simply have an Oxford for wearing with my morning coat or my dress coat or dinner jacket, and then I have a, a black brogue for, well I’m wearing it now, for, basic, for basically working. And then at the weekend of course I have a, a pair of brown brogue shoes. And that’s really it.

And why are they called Oxfords?

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I think you’ll have to ask a shoemaker that. It’s just a style, it’s a, it’s a plain shoe. [intercom] It’s the nearest... For a dinner jacket of course truthfully I should wear the shiny, I can’t remember what it’s called now, I haven’t worn them for years.

What, patent?

Patent, patent leather, that’s right. But I haven’t worn...and very few people do wear. I think if you were a professional dancer or something like that, but nowadays people just wear a plain Oxford shoe with their dining suit, and, just make sure it’s nicely polished for the occasion.

Because I heard that, that there was a period, and it must have been before the repeal of the laws against homosexuality, that only homosexuals wore suede shoes. Is that something you had heard?

I sus... Well, I had heard, I think it was considered a bit effeminate to wear suede shoes, though, there was a time when I, I wore suede shoes, and, brown, brown suede, at the weekends, and, they were very comfortable, and, and I enjoyed them. I don’t really know why I don’t have a pair now. I’m just happy with my brown leather brogues.

What is the Walpole Society?

Ah the Wal... Well it’s, it was the Walpole Committee, and then it’s simply called the Walpole now. Goes back to 1992, when Britain was getting a very bad world press, mainly because of the football hooligans of that time that would go particularly to Europe and cause havoc if England lost a match in the World Cup. And, about five prominent companies, one of them our bankers, Coutts, the Savoy Group who own Claridge’s, the Savoy, and the Connaught Hotels, Daks Simpsons, and about two other companies, got together and felt that they should do some sort of promotion to encourage foreigners to come back to England and, it wasn’t all full of hooligans. And so the... It was going to be called the Churchill Committee, after Sir Winston, but as there were firms trading using the word Churchill, we went a few years back to Walpole, the first Prime Minister, and named this committee after Walpole. Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 14 Page 104

[End of Part 14] Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 15 Page 105

Part 15 [Tape 9 Side B]

And, it grew, but we didn’t know very much about it. But one day our banker, Coutts, invited me to a seminar, and, this seminar was held at the Arts Club I think just off the Strand, and when I arrived at nine o’clock, I was confronted by lots of policemen, and, it transpired that John Major was going to come and address the seminar, to launch it. And he in fact made a, he was then Prime Minister of course, and he made a very good speech. But sadly he was then followed by the then director of the Design Centre I think it was called, who started haranguing Rolls Royce and Bentley, saying that Mercedes were much better. And then horrors, he said, ‘And of course Savile Row is so old-fashioned, and it should, it should go like, like this company.’ And he flashed up on the, on a screen, a picture of a, a very new company. [intercom] There was a, this very new, small company. [intercom] Well at least it shows that we’re doing some business. And I was absolutely horrified by this, because, they were an unknown company, they were not... I believe they were having garments made in places like Romford, and, certainly not on the premises. And so, I, when the interval came, I, I remonstrated with this gentleman, and I said, ‘Have you ever been to a proper Savile Row tailor’s?’ and to which he said, ‘No.’ So I said, ‘Well how can you make these disparaging remarks? You’d better come and, you can come and see my company if you wish.’ Any rate, I was about to walk out, but, having said my piece, when the...when questions and answers were part of the programme, when that was finished, I was so encouraged, because, several people came up to me and said, if I hadn’t said what I did, we would have said it ourselves. And in fact one of them was Lord Wedgwood. And then, again I was still proposing to leave, and not join everyone for lunch, but, one of the directors of Asprey came and said, would I come and join him at, at the table for lunch. And he told me in fact that this company had tried to call itself Asprey and Webb, that’s right, Asprey and Webb, after, presumably, Mappin and Webb, and they had been taken to court and, and they then changed the name to, something else. But obviously had made themselves extremely unpopular. And the amusing thing is that, six months later it was Christmas time, and we all came up, after the Christmas break we all came back to work, only to find that this particular shop was totally empty and they’d done a sort of midnight flit, and owing a lot of money to... So the Design...what presumably I’d said against the director of the Design Centre had proved correct. Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 15 Page 106

Was it the Design Centre or the Design Museum?

I think it was the Design Centre in the Haymarket, yes, I think so. And I can’t remember his name, and, I’m sure he’s not there any more. [laughs] But, I was then, the director of the Walpole Committee as it was then asked if he could come and see me, and he came in to my office here, and, with Coutts persuaded us to in fact become members, despite how upset I had been by, during their seminar. And, it’s now quite a formidable organisation. I suppose it’s based on the, the Comité Colbert of Paris, where all the big couture houses and people, the champagne houses, and, Louis Vuitton, the famous leather company, and, Hermès, they’re all members of this Comité Colbert. And, the Walpole is very similar. Except we don’t confine it to retail companies, and we have Jaguars in it, and Land Rover and... But they have to be British based companies, not necessarily British owned, but British based. Of course Jaguar’s are owned by Ford, but they are produced in the UK. And, a lot of what it does, I, we found very useful, in fact, my son, about four weeks ago when he was in New York, the Walpole had a special reception, and I think my son met about fifteen members of the American press, and was able to give them a copy of our book, and hopefully we’ll appear in either the newspapers or magazines in America. So, it is a very, it is a very prestigious and, we find, a useful organisation.

Because you were telling me that you often have television companies from abroad coming to, to sort of make films and interview you. I just wonder whether you could tell, tell me a bit about what sort of things.

Yes. I think, first of all, I believe that, because we haven’t altered the showroom very much from when it was first built in... [intercom] ...in Victorian, well in 1887, the media seems to attract, be attracted by our showroom, and so it is used as a background for, I won’t say films, but, certainly an example of a tailor’s showroom. But I suppose, thankfully we are known right across the, the world. And, so, periodically we get Japanese television. [intercom] We get Japanese television coming, the Chinese came very recently and did a, I think it was a sort of twenty- minute programme of which we, we had about ten minutes, which, going right across China, must have, must be good for us. And of course the BBC come and, come and Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 15 Page 107 do things with us occasionally. I mean we’re, I think it goes back probably to the days of, of Henry Poole, who of course was very outgoing and a wonderful marketeer; he certainly knew how to promote the company. Whereas many of our competitors, they don’t like the press, and they certainly don’t welcome advertising and promotion and that sort of thing. And it may be that we’ve got a reputation for being friendly to the, to the media, and, and that’s why they come, come and interview us.

Could you tell me a bit about opening up in Japan? I was reading about the, the department store and the line of ready-to-wear Henry Poole suits.

Yes. I... Have I not covered that? Oh right. Well it is an amusing story, because in 1936 the son of the proprietor of the Matsuzakaya department store group went to Cambridge University, and whilst he was there he came and had some Henry Poole suits. Out of the blue he suddenly turned up in 1959 as president himself of Matsuzakaya. And, I know we made him a tail suit, as well as several other, lounge suits. And as he left he said to my father, ‘I would like to have a little bit of Henry Poole in my store on the Ginza.’ And, my father was horrified, and said, ‘I don’t think so.’ And... But obviously, Mr Shuzaburo Eto[ph], that was his name, must have been very persuasive, because, by 1964 we had actually signed a contract with Matsuzakaya to initially do a sort of, bespoke operation using Japanese tailors, and one of our cutters went out there for two years. And it became very successful. And in fact, when I got a bit older, and, and I went out to Japan on the yearly visit instead of my uncle, I can remember, I, I went on a government-sponsored mission, and on the mission were people like Burberry’s and Jaeger, Austin Reed, prominent English company names. And we had a briefing at the British Embassy, and I was very embarrassed, because, the commercial attaché sort of put me up as a fine example of what could be done in Japan. And I then realised that, we had, we were one of the very first companies to sort of use our brand name in Japan, and we were there before most of the prominent brand names that are, that are there now. Eventually we went over to making more factory-made, but very high quality, ready-to-wear garments. And then recently we’ve reintroduced, well I have to be, having said that I’ve already said, it’s really made-to-measure as opposed to bespoke, because it is on a, more on a factory line, but there’s a lot of hand work in it. I suppose it’s sort of, the equivalent of Chester Barrie in Japan. And, and we sell in, I think eight stores right across Japan, Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 15 Page 108 and, and it’s been very successful. And in fact, we’ll be celebrating our fortieth anniversary of working with Matsuzakaya next year. And we’ve got to probably make a special cloth to celebrate the occasion.

And, have you had any thoughts about that cloth?

Well so far it’s been their suggestion that it’s a sort of plain blue, dark plain blue cloth, but in a very high quality, with a lot of cashmere in it. So it’s going to be quite an expensive sort of luxury cloth. That at the moment is the Japanese idea for us to think about, and... Also, as a result of publishing our, this book, and in the book we talk about the Henry Poole check, which is registered, so nobody else can use it, and several customers have asked, can we not resurrect it again, and, so maybe, along with this blue cloth, we can then also introduce the Henry Poole check again in a different weight, and perhaps in a lamb’s wool. And, whereas before it was a, quite a heavy Cheviot tweed type garment, this time it will be a, the sort of garment that amusingly, dare I say it, you could wear on a dress-down Friday and go to work in it, and then go to your, if you’re French, you go in the afternoon to your chateau in the country.

Or your mistress. [laughs]

Ah. Yes. [laughs]

Could you just describe the check a little bit?

Yes, it’s a, it’s a, a mid brown I suppose, and it has a blue and a red colour-way in it, and it is a, a Glen Urquhart check. And we plan in fact to, as well as reduce the weight, and make it in a lamb’s wool, but we also intend to reduce the size of the check. So instead of it being predominantly a weekend sports jacket, as I say, you can wear it to, you could use it as a travel garment as well as, maybe you’ll wear it on Fridays.

I was wondering about the, whether there had been any changes over the years that you’ve been working in Savile Row in the ethnic origins of cutters and tailors and people working in the tailoring trade. Angus Cundey C1046/03/09 Part 15 Page 109

Well, right from the start of tailoring in Mayfair, it has been I suppose considerably reliant on, on foreigners. Certainly Beau Brummell’s tailor, so we’re going back to 1790, turn of that century, his main tailor was in fact German, with a business in Clifford Street. Many of the companies, including Anderson and Sheppard, had a Scandinavian cutter start, to start their business. There were a lot of Scandinavians, Swedish predominantly, at the turn of the century. I suppose in recent years we’ve had Italians coming to work in Savile Row. So, we’ve always had, probably half our workforce of European or Middle European origins. And that, that still goes on today. In fact, I was asked by Radio Suffolk what, why is Savile Row better than anywhere else to have a suit made. And part of my reply was that it attracts the best craftsmen from all over the world, and always has done, and, which makes perhaps a superior quality garment. And it is the only street in the world specifically for men’s bespoke tailoring. And again that has helped, because, training can be, can be done in cooperation with other firms, whereas if you’re, well even in, say, Paris, you would have two, three tailors on the Left Bank, two or three tailors on the Right Bank, and they wouldn’t have the sort of village atmosphere that we have in Savile Row. So it has kept us in good stead. And as I say, it has attracted some of the finest craftsmen, tailoring craftsmen from throughout the world.

And how do you think having such a sort of diverse community affects the relations between people?

Well, on the whole I think, they get on. We don’t have too many disagreements within the firm. And of course they do end up at any rate by being quite English in their ways. The only problem we get from it is that, they disappear for, sort of five weeks in the summer to go back to their homeland and see their relatives, so, you go through a phase when, in the year, when your workshops are sort of only one third full. That’s I suppose the, the main disadvantage. But otherwise, it seems to work. I think, to be honest, in a workshop you have to concentrate on what you’re doing, and, thank goodness, I think we keep them busy, and they don’t sort of have time to argue about what was done in their country, and what is not done in this country.

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Because, did it used to be a tradition for Jewish people to work in tailoring, a sort of...is that sort of thing, well, not applicable to Savile Row?

No, you’ve hit the nail on the head. There are very, surprisingly very few Jewish people in, at our end of the trade. I think the sort of East End Jewish company was comparatively cheap, and, at the top end, the real quality end, you didn’t get so many. I mean there are, certainly one or two of our suppliers are of Jewish extraction, of the woollen side of the business. Facetiously, I think it’s because there’s more money in the, the cheaper end than there is in the rather restrictive top end, and, I think that could...[laughs]...be one of the reasons for us not having many Jews in, in Savile Row.

Could I ask you to just roughly tell me the kind of salary that a cutter would earn, and a coat maker.

And a coat maker. Yes, currently we pay our cutters between £40,000 and £55,000 a year. A coat maker, if he’s fully experienced, he certainly is around £30,000, £35,000 a year. Having said that, we do have a coat maker who earns something like £65,000 a year, because he can make about five coats a week, whereas the average coat maker can only make two and a half. So... And as they’re on predominantly piecework, he gets paid by the, the quantity, as well as, I say, his, his quality is equally very good, but he’s just a very fast worker. And he reminds me of, I think it was Super Hod, who in the building trade was, was earning more than the chairman of the building company, because he was so quick in doing his brick building.

[end of session]

[End of Part 15] Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 16 Page 111

Part 16 [Tape 10 Side A]

Henry Poole, 15 Savile Row.

Could you describe the room we’re sitting in?

Oh my little office. This was built in fact when the building was put up in 1887, and this was one of the fitting rooms. And, it’s now my office. And then a similar one the other side, also a fitting room, that’s where we have our computer and our, and my company secretary works. And we use this also as a boardroom, hence the rather large table down the middle of the room with my desk, which is always in a muddle, at the end by the window.

And could you just say something about what surrounds us?

Well there’s a, a lovely illuminated address I think you would call it, that was given to my grandfather when he finally retired from the Master Tailors’ Benevolent Association, and as he was the founder of the charity, they gave him that wonderful address in gratitude for what he did for the charity. I have a copy of Emperor Napoleon III’s Royal Warrant. I also have a picture of my great-grandfather, Samuel Cundey, and then my grandfather Howard Cundey, my father Samuel Henry Howard Cundey, and my Uncle, my Uncle Hugh. I have a picture of my Frazer Nash car, it’s a copy of a painting when it was doing the Alpine Trial in 1932. And then on the far wall I have my grandfather’s entry as a liveryman of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. And then a copy of my entry as a Freeman, and my son’s, and, I think my daughter’s. So the whole wall is the Merchant Taylors’ Company in the City. And then finally, behind me I have the splendid almshouses which have now been demolished, and they were in, I think it was, Muswell Hill? Anyway, north London. And it shows in the foreground the picture of my grandfather sitting with the matron. And then finally, pictures about our connection with Japan.

And who organises your files for you?

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Well because they’re in such a mess, it’s because I do it, and...[laughs] Yes, all the filing is done by me. Some of it’s reasonably tidy. But what I intend to do when I finally retire, I will take all the archives that I have in this room home, and tabulate it and tidy it up for posterity. Because even though we had a book written about us, it’s obvious that that’s probably only covered half of the story of Henry Poole; there’s so much more that, that has been sort of left out. So perhaps we’ll have another book written another time.

And who would have chosen the wallpaper and the furnishings?

Well, it’s when we moved here in 1982. I don’t suppose I... I’m sure I had a hand in the choosing of it, but, as it also is the same wallpaper as next door, I’m sure our company secretary and other members of staff chose it. But of course, it is green, and, we’ve used the company colour of green since about 1960, partly because it goes so well with gold, and so if you have gold lettering, green and gold go very well. And the sort of passepartout of our pictures is green, and, wherever we can we use various shades of green in our sort of company logo.

And what about these chairs?

They go back to when we redesigned Cork Street, and when we were in Cork Street we took the step of opening the front windows to display garments, which was unheard of at that time, frosted glass and that sort of, that was the mark of a tailor. But, I think partly because of my friendship with Tommy Nutter at that time, that, he opened his showroom, the windows of his shop, to display his garments, and I thought we should do the same, and so, between us we were the first tailors in Savile Row and the other streets in the Golden Mile as it’s called to display garments in our windows. And at that time we revamped the showroom, and I believe these chairs come, they’re Italian designed, but again they have a shade of green, and that was, it was in 1969, something like that, that, that we did this exercise, and brought in our corporate colour of green.

Because they’re very modern chairs.

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They were then. Whether...[laughs]...whether they are now, I... Yes, I suppose. But they’re a sort of modern that equally tones in with the sort of old pieces of furniture that we’ve saved and kept from the original Savile Row. Because in fact, originally these chairs were kept in our, in the showroom, as well as the old leather armchairs that we, we still have in our, in our showroom. And they seem to blend in.

Yes, I’m sure they’re probably collectors’ items now.

Yes, yes they are. I’ve forgotten the man’s name, but, he was quite a famous Italian that actually did the design for these chairs.

I think it’s somebody called Castiglione[ph].

It’s, yes, it’s a name certainly like that, yes.

Could I ask you also to describe floor by floor what actually happens in Henry Poole today?

Mm. Well if we, if we start right at the bottom, in the basement. The front part of the basement is our trouser workshop, and we have about five trouser makers, and ladies assisting them in that workshop. And behind... As they need daylight, as near to the front of the building with its windows as possible. Behind that is the, the main storage area I suppose where we keep our partly made garments, finished garments waiting for customers to come and fetch them, garments that eventually will be put in a trunk and sent to America or, or Paris. And then, right at the end of the basement is the packing room itself, where we pack up garments and do the dispatching on a daily basis. Above that is the ground floor, which is our main showroom, which was in fact built as a tailor’s shop in 1887 when the original building was demolished. And we’ve tried to keep the showroom just as it was in Victorian times. Behind that is, we have two fitting rooms. And then we come to the hub of the firm, the, the cutting room. And, alongside that of course we have the trimming room. And, also my son has his office there, which is, that was once my office when my father and... No, in fact, that’s wrong, my father and uncle never came here. But, we had sub-tenants who occupied this present office, so I used to be just off the cutting room. And in fact Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 16 Page 114

I miss it to a certain extent, because you can see exactly what’s going on all the time, and, my son in fact is inclined to berate me now because I don’t really know what goes on, which of course he, being in the position that he is, he can see what’s going on. But, well, old age has caught up with me. [laughs]

What goes on in the trimming room?

Oh the trimming room is where we store our linings and canvases, interlinings, buttons, everything that goes into making a suit with the exception of the cloth, the cloth of course is in the cutting room. But everything that goes into making a suit, and it’s something like ninety-eight different items, they’re all in the trimming room. And when the cloth has been cut out, it’s passed into the trimming room, where the lining is matched and cut, the canvas is, the correct weight canvas is selected, and the right shade of bone button is, or horn button, is selected. And then it’s all wrapped up in what we all a bundle, and the bundle goes either to the trouser maker, the waistcoat maker or the coat maker.

And who selects the trimmings?

Well I suppose in principle, the cutter, or his assistant. It’s one of the first jobs you learn to do when you come in to the cutting room, you learn to be a trimmer. And, so it’s the responsibility of the cutter that his assistant will probably do most of the actual, well trimming as we call it. We then go up to the second floor, which, we have the rear part, where we have two, two coat makers, and they in turn have apprentices. And then finally the whole of the third floor is workshops, and we have our large workshop where we have alteration tailors, coat makers in the front part, and then the back part is another trouser maker, the presser, and a coat maker. The fourth floor we sublet to a firm of art consultants I think they call themselves. And then on the... They also have the front of the second floor. And then the first floor we have our wonderful tenants who, who make and sell pyjamas, very smart pyjamas, to Harrods and Selfridges and, well in fact, all across the world, I think they sell to Japan, as we do. So that’s No.15 Savile Row.

And, there are two ladies who sit downstairs. What, what are their duties? Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 16 Page 115

Well one of them is, is basically my secretary, she does all my letters and, she answers the phone for everybody, and so she’s a, a receptionist as well as a PA. And the other one, that’s Linda, she does the, part of the accounts, she does all the wages and salaries. And again, she doubles up on answering the phone. And of course both of them, if our salesman, who sits in front of them, is engaged, they’ll always get up to welcome a customer and, and then go and fetch a cutter to, to look after him. So, they’re invaluable in the, in the showroom. And that...originally we in fact had two salesmen, and the ladies were in a, sort of an enclosed box. But partly due to their wish, we didn’t demolish the box, and had open planning, which they seem to much prefer.

And what about the lady who sits across from you here who you said was the company secretary?

Mm. Yes, well she, that’s Mrs Mooney, who, she’s a director and company secretary, and, she’s doing the accounts and all the sort of administration work, and, she’s a great...she produces our monthly figures, and tells us how we’re doing and how we’re not doing. And she also occasionally has to chase customers for their money, and...

How do your staff address you?

[pause] [laughs] Well it used to be... Well I suppose it depends on who they are. My... Our two ladies in the front, they always call me Mr Cundey. And in front of customers, generally people call me Mr Cundey. The senior staff call me Angus. And then, some of the tailors call me the, call me Boss, which goes back many many years, that, you know, the master tailor was often called, similarly, the boss, and... And I’m addressed sometimes as their...particularly the older tailors; needless to say, the younger tailors probably call me Angus, and, I’ve sort of got used to that.

And what, what did Mr Brentnall used to call you, when you were working with him?

Oh, oh he would have called me Angus, because he was older, considerably older than me. And I was a trainee cutter, under him. So, yes, he, he certainly called me Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 16 Page 116

Angus. As at that time did all the senior cutters. I was very much a junior. But I, I think, it is a slight problem, because, I think it’s...I like it that, certainly in front of customers, my staff call me Mr Cundey, because I don’t think it sounds quite right if they start sort of, calling me Angus in front of the customer, who’s calling me Mr Cundey. The problem is that, definitely things are changing, and, my son of course, everybody calls him Simon, and, customers are beginning to call him Simon, and, he very seldom says Sir to a customer, it’s usually Mr, Mr so-and-so, or... As I say, he doesn’t often use the word ‘Sir’, whereas I, I always say, I think, when...when they arrive, I say, ‘Good morning Sir.’ And then I may then call him Mr so-and-so after that, but, I suppose it’s, the changing times. And I think also, a lot of it has to do with my son working predominantly in America, and of course the Americans there call him Simon, and, in a few instances even Simon will call them by their, their Christian name, which I do find a very, very odd. [laughs]

And how does Simon address you at work?

Oh, al...yes, always Angus, he’s never sort of called me Dad or Father or... I say never, I think he did when he was much younger. But certainly in the firm, he now calls me Angus, and, I think he will then address me as, or, in front of a customer, he will talk about me as being, ‘This is my father,’ and... It seems to work. I think it’s always been a problem that... I think from memory I used to call my father Father; I didn’t call him Dad in front of customers.

And what did you call him at home?

[pause] I think I did call him Father, Father and Mother, rather than Mummy and Daddy. That sort of, seemed to change I think when I went to boarding school, that, it wasn’t the done thing to talk about ‘Mummy and Daddy’, you could sort of say, ‘my dad,’ or better still, ‘my father,’ or... But Mummy and Daddy was very sissy. Whether that’s changed today, I don’t know.

So, so how does Simon address you when you’re at home, when you’re away from work?

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Oh, he, he now calls me Angus, and... I think, I’m sure my father wouldn’t have wished me to call him Sam, but, it’s a different generation, and, I’ve sort of got used to being Angus. I mean my daughter, she calls me Angus as well. Very seldom does she say ‘Dad’.

And when do you think she started doing that?

[pause] Oh I, I suppose when she was in her late teens, but... She never called me Daddy, it was always Dad, and, and I think probably when Simon started calling me Angus, she followed suit.

Where did she go to school?

Oh she, I...yes, she went to the same school as Simon, but I’m trying to think now, it’s all...[laughs]...so long ago now, but... Yes, they went to Oxted County School I think it was called, and Sarah, yes, Sarah went there as well. And I suppose there was a very short time when they were both there together, but, as I say, it seems a long time ago now, that, so much has happened since.

So Simon didn’t go to Framlingham?

No. No, sadly, I, I couldn’t afford the fees. Which was very sad, because, I think it would have done him a lot of good if he could have gone there, but...

Why do you think that?

[pause] I just feel that, as it did undoubtedly a lot of good for me, it certainly didn’t for my brother, which we’ve talked about, but, it did a lot of good for me, and gave me responsibility, and... I think Simon would have found that had he gone to Framlingham, he would have found it easier in his sort of first few years of, either being here or doing his apprenticeship, away from home and, in Crewe and Huddersfield and Paris and so forth. But having said that, he did, he did it all, and, and survived, and, has gone from strength to strength. So, perhaps it wasn’t as important as I think it could have been. Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 16 Page 118

Because do you think you, apart from the sort of social change anyway, but do you think you have a different relationship with him than you had with your father?

[pause]

Given that you boarded.

Yes. No, I have thought about this, and I think looking back, the relationship I have with Simon in business is in fact very similar to how it was with my father. It’s a sort of thing that, I suppose because we are somewhat old-fashioned, traditional tailors, that, you have to follow a sort of regime that doesn’t change very much, and... So as I say, working with my father, I think, I suspect Simon feels the same, working with me. I think it’s a very similar sort of relationship. And as I get older, particularly in I suppose the last year since I’ve started to do only a three-day week, my son now has much more responsibility, and, I purposely let him get on with, with things. And in fact, in the last month he’s revamped half the packing room, and introduced, I think we’d call it a rest area for the staff to go and have their lunch. And, he’s introduced into the kitchen down there a microwave, and so that, the staff now have quite splendid cooked meals, and, sitting at a table, which in, either in my father’s day or in my day, I would have sandwiches, and my father, for most of his life, would go to Lyons Corner House and have a three-shillings lunch. And as I say, I think it’s rather splendid that the staff now sit round a little table and, either read the paper or talk about things other than tailoring, which relaxes them for an hour at lunch time. So he has introduced that, and redecorated the whole, whole area, and, I’ve heard from the staff how much they appreciate what he’s done, and how hard he’s worked at revamping the back basement area.

And... I’ll turn over.

[End of Part 16] Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 119

Part 17 [Tape 10 Side B]

Does Simon...where does Simon have lunch?

Oh in fact I believe, I think he goes down there and joins them, yes, it’s... And in fact I know he brings, you know, a great jacket potato and puts it in the micro oven, which as I say, in my day, I would simply have a sandwich which had either been prepared at home, or I would go out and buy it, and have it at my desk with a, with a cup of tea. Which again in my day had been made by, we had a tea lady who produce about three cups of tea a day for me. But, sadly that has gone, and for a while we had a tea- making machine, and it also did coffee. But the staff complained about it so much that, we’ve gone back to a kettle and teabags and a jar of coffee, and we all, we each go and make our cup of tea or coffee whenever we wish. So, I suppose when I arrive, after I’ve opened the post, I go and make myself a cup of coffee. If I’m lucky, perhaps one of the members of staff will go and do it for me, but, usually, usually I, I get there first, and, and I’m quite happy to make my cup of coffee.

And who would have made your sandwiches for you?

Oh, well going back, when I was living at home, my mother made me make it, make some... And after, after we’d had dinner, she would be doing the washing up and, and I would be making my sandwiches. And I can remember my mother having three little dogs, and they used to sit at my feet waiting for me to drop a bit of ham or whatever I was putting in my sandwich. Then after that, I suppose my first wife would prepare my sandwiches. But in fact, in later years I’ve walked down the road and, and bought them.

Where from?

Oh our little... Behind us we have this splendid, in Heddon Street, we have the, a splendid Italian restaurant, who also do sandwiches. And the amusing thing is, it’s known as the Henry Poole canteen, because, to begin with we use it quite a lot, we take customers there, or buyers. I always take my Japanese buyer there, and, and he has minestrone soup, to such an extent that they call him Mr Minestrone. And at Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 120

Christmas time he sends them a Christmas card signed, ‘Mr Minestrone.’ So, as I say, they, they, that’s where I go and get my, my sandwich.

What do you have, what do you like to have?

Oh it varies. I try and have something different every day. I mean there are times when I actually go in there and have a, if I feel that I want to get away from it all, I go in and have lunch in there, and, when I have a, a salad and a couple of glasses of wine. But I suppose most days I have my sandwich, which can be ham and some, prawn and, I quite like smoked salmon sandwich. And with it I have, I go and make myself a cup of coffee.

And where would you eat it?

Oh at my desk. And, usually reading some paper that, or magazine that, they’re asking us to take an advertisement, or, or a trade paper and...

Could you just sort of, for the tape just list some of the titles of the magazines that you, you might be reading for those purposes?

Yes, right. The...we have Draper’s Record incorporating Menswear, which we receive every week. I also, for instance today I was reading the, The Riding Magazine, because we are listed as making hunt coats, and, so there’s this, The Riding Magazine that is sent to me periodically. And then of course there’s people hoping that we will take advertisements. We’re doing one at the moment with Debrett, they’re bringing out a shopping, shopping guide for the autumn. We also, we’re also, we’ve been persuaded to, to take an announcement in the, I think it’s Price Waterhouse Creating Wealth, their yearly magazine they send to all their clients. And it’s... And then of course we have the Walpole magazine, and, that sort of medium, media for us to...where, as I say, they’re hoping that we will spend some money, and... But on the whole we, we don’t do that sort of thing very much, because so much of our business comes through word of mouth, much more than an announcement in, in a magazine.

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What sort of newspapers do you, do you look at?

Oh, well that’s simple. I take, at home I take the Daily Mail, which I read at breakfast, and then I leave it for my wife to, to look at. And here of course we have every day the Times, which, as long as I can remember we’ve had the Times. And in fact, in our old premises in Savile Row we had a magnificent, and the Times was sort of attached to it, and you stood up and read the Times at this wooden stand. It was far too big for us to take to Cork Street, and it certainly wouldn’t have fitted in here. So, what happened to it, I don’t, don’t remember. So I, as I say, with my sandwich I may well go and borrow the, the Times that’s in the, the showroom. And we also once a week we take Country Life; again we have taken Country Life for as long as I can remember, and customers love looking at the houses in there, as in, as indeed I do, sort of dream world. [laughs]

Sorry, can you move your arm?

Oh. And, so, there, in principle that’s what I, what I read. And then, at the weekend, again we take the Mail on Saturday. But just to keep up with what’s going on locally, I, I take the East Anglian Daily Times, just that day. My neighbours, you know, they would take it all the time, but, I find it, what shall I say, very colloquial, and, it very much caters just for what’s going on in East Anglia and not, not around the world in fact. It’s very limited. So I just take it on Saturdays. And then on Sunday I take the Sunday Times and again the Mail on Sunday. I read the Mail and get through that, but the Sunday Times, I sort of read one of their inserts every day for the rest of the week, either when I get home or early in the morning with my, my morning tea, my early morning cup of tea.

Because what time do you have to leave to get here?

Well now it’s rather leisurely, I don’t leave in fact until about half-past eight, and even then I don’t get in until half-past ten I suppose. There was a time when I used to have to get up and leave at sort of, quarter past seven, and even then I wouldn’t get in till after nine o’clock. But of course I’ve only lived in Suffolk permanently for what, the last four, about four years I suppose, or even, is it three? Three or four years. Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 122

Before that, living in Clapham, or before that living down in Surrey, I, I used to arrive here about ten to nine in the morning, and leave at sort of half-past seven I suppose. I was a bit younger. [laughs]

And what do you do now on the train?

Well, that’s a good question, because, when I...when I lived in Surrey, which of course most, that’s most of my working life, I was there for twenty-eight, thirty years, I used to in fact write to customers, I used to write longhand on the train, and I used to get through five or six letters I suppose to, to customers, which I could then hand to my secretary to type. And I was hoping that I would be able to do that from Suffolk, where I have a longer journey. But of course it doesn’t work out like that, because the first half hour I’m driving to the station, so I can’t work; and then the train takes only forty-five minutes, whereas the Surrey train used to take fifty-five minutes, but it’s taking forty-five minutes because it goes so fast that I can hardly, I can’t hold a pen in my hand, I can’t write, because it’s swaying and bumping and... So that, all I can do is to, to read, or, or either that or go to sleep. [laughs] Which, which I’m certainly, I certainly do in the evening going home, and sometimes I’m afraid in the morning. But that, that’s something I really miss, because I used to get through a lot of work actually on the train, but, I find it impossible with the... I mean the train is doing about ninety miles an hour, and, and the track nowadays seems so bad that, you’re swaying about and it’s just impossible to write.

And what would you read on the train?

Well going home, I buy the Evening Standard, and read that. Coming up in the morning, I sometimes go and buy another Daily Mail, having left, left our copy for my wife, or, the Country Life, which I’ve taken from the, after a week of course we get another one, so I take the, the previous week’s copy and have it in my bag. I read some trade matters, particularly like at the moment I’m doing the, the contract, the draft contract for, hopefully the work that we’re going to do in China. So at least I can read that in the train, but... I don’t find it as easy now to, to even do that as I did a few years ago coming up from, from Surrey, where the train didn’t go nearly so fast, Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 123 and stopped at most stations, and, so you could sort of put your head down and really get down to concentrating on, on the work.

And what’s the first thing you do when you, when you get home?

Well the first thing I suppose is that I drive in, I drive up our drive, and, by which time my wife has let out the little dog to, to come and greet me. And after sort of walking round the garden with the little dog, by then Mandy has produced a glass of wine, which seems to happen most nights, which is a very nice way of starting the, starting the evening. And then we have dinner together, and, eventually, I suppose I don’t get to bed until about midnight. And we, strangely nowadays we seldom watch, watch the television. We talk, and, might even listen to the radio. We do listen to sort of News at Ten, we make a point of watching the news, but, we’ve sort of gone off television a bit. We used to, when we were in Clapham, we used to take a train to the lounge to watch television, but, we certainly don’t do that any more.

Tell me about your dog.

Oh we have little Pippa. Now Pippa is a Jack Russell, and that goes back to the time when my mother used to breed Jack Russells, I suppose when I was in my late teens, just leaving school, we moved to this very nice house near Horley in Surrey, with a three-acre garden, and she, my mother became very involved with the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt. And, from the hunt she had, you know, certainly two Jack Russells to start with, in the end she had three, and as I say, she used to breed from them. And, I used to take them for walks in the evening and at weekends, so I got to know these little dogs, and... And I suppose when I was, well it’s now eleven years ago, because, Pippa is eleven, I bought this little dog from... In fact I think it was a cycle shop, but the, the dog itself came from the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt. I’m not sure where the bitch came from. And in fact I’m so thankful that the, the little puppy that I got looked much more like the dog than the bitch. But any rate, Pippa has now been with me for, it is eleven years, and of course, it was a time when I was with my first wife, and when we separated, shortly after the separation she insisted that I had the dog, which was a little difficult in a flat in Clapham, and living for the time at least on my own, and so I used to have to bring the dog on the bus and look after her here in the Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 124 office. Thankfully, you know, the staff enjoyed Pippa, and sometimes even now they say they miss her, that, she’s down in Suffolk, so, they very seldom see her.

So when, when did you get divorced?

Well it was 1995, yes. So the dog was only sort of, two, three years old then, when she had to travel... And she was very good, we used to go up on the top deck, and get out at Marble Arch, and then walk through Mayfair to, to Savile Row. It was a nice little walk for her. And, it was certainly all right in the summer and spring and autumn, but not quite so nice in the winter, when it usually rained.

How did you meet your first wife?

Well, in, as I think I’ve said, in 1963 my father sent me to Paris, and, and I started our European trade again after the war. And in 1968 I was in Paris with our head cutter, and we were collecting my car, having had dinner on the, on the South, on the South Bank in Paris. And, in the garage were these two girls, and they, they had a bet that we were English. So, one of them had to come and ask, ‘Are you English?’ to which we said, ‘Indeed we are.’ And then they invited us to, I suppose it was a sort of nightclub, which we went to, and, and one of these girls was, then became my wife. And she came from Sweden, Sweden of course, she was, she was Swedish, or they were both Swedish girls, and...

Why were they in Paris, in a garage?

They were, they were au pair girls, that’s right, learning French. And I suppose it was their night out, and again they had parked their car to go out, to this nightclub, as we were picking up our car having eaten. And, it went from there, that... Eventually she came to London, and then we got married.

And what was her family background?

Her father was some sort... I didn’t know, the father had already died when we got married, he’d been dead for some while I believe, and he was some sort of Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 125 shopkeeper, but, exactly...in the old town of Stockholm, that I did know. And I think, I think her mother was, what with...she was a housewife I think. And then my first wife, Gudrun, she worked for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the equivalent of, in Sweden, and I think it was during her work that they thought it would be good, first of all if she learnt English. So she, before I met her, she spent about a year in England as, as an au pair, and learning English. So her English was extremely good. And then she was starting to do the same thing in Paris, to learn French. But then I came along and that was the end of that. She got married and left the, the Government, and came and lived in England.

And did she ever go back to work?

Yes, she worked for...she was very keen on antiques, and she worked in the local, one of the local antique shops for, oh, quite a number of years. But of course, it was limited, much more limited than it is today, so most of the time she, she was at home looking after the house and the children. I say that, because of course my daughter has produced my grandson, little Cameron, and she still works for British Telecom, I think on a three-day week, and of course she parks the child with childminders or...and it sounds quite a big organisation, it’s a large house, and I think there’s about thirty...[intercom]...thirty little, little children there. And Cameron is only what, two years old, which I find quite strange, but, it’s obviously the way things are going today. And having met...Cameron came to see us two weeks ago, they flew down from Glasgow, and, he’s certainly very advanced, and, and it’s obvious that this playschool or, is doing him a lot of good, it’s, it’s advancing, it’s certainly advanced his way of talking and... So, I think it must be a good thing. But it’s, it certainly wasn’t happening in, twenty, thirty years ago.

How did your parents react to you marrying somebody foreign?

If I’m honest, not too well. I don’t think they ever took to, to Gudrun. There was always a certain amount of animosity. I don’t know why, because... There was no sort of reason for it. [intercom] But, you know, I, after we separated, and then subsequently divorced, you know, my sister and my brother have told me that, my parents weren’t over-happy about my marriage, and, and they did admit that there was Angus Cundey C1046/03/10 Part 17 Page 126 this coolness about, which was apparent when, when I would take the children there to, with Gudrun for lunch or dinner. Because we only lived two miles away I suppose from my parents. So I suppose that was rather sad, and, I think for that reason my son, Simon, and my daughter Sarah, I wouldn’t say there was a very good rapport between, certainly my mother, and, and my children, they, they didn’t like going there, particularly if we left them there to, for her to look after while we went somewhere, they, they were never keen to go there. So that was all rather sad.

Can you remember what you wore at your, at your first wedding?

Oh, well I... [laughs] I know it was a three-piece, typical Henry Poole suit. What... I suspect it was probably a dark blue herringbone, which, which is what I would sort of wear today at a, at a wedding.

Can you...

For my second marriage, which of course was not very long ago, I had a blue, and of course it was the end of May, so it was quite warm, so I had a, a tropical blue Glen Urquhart check suit.

[End of Part 17] Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 127

Part 18 [Tape 11 Side A]

Would you be able to describe what your wives wore?

[laughs] Yes I can. I can remember Gudrun wore a, a cream silk costume, a little, a jacket and skirt. Yes I can remember that quite well. And, and Mandy had a, quite a modern jacket and skirt with a big, big flower designs, which are very popular at the moment, you often see pictures of, or you see it in the street, girls wearing either this very floral skirt or floral jacket, but Mandy wore both, and, which in the depths of Suffolk seemed, went down very well, and... And again, my, my suit was not a dark blue, it was a, a light...yes, quite a light blue, which at the end of May, and as I say, in a little village in Suffolk, was more appropriate than, you know, a dark, a dark blue suit, or, or even a, a morning coat, which is what I wore at, at my daughter’s wedding up in Glasgow.

And when was that roughly?

About three years ago. Yes, three years ago. And of course, they all dressed up, I say ‘they’, the, much more than, than we old, old people did. Obviously my son-in-law wore a kilt, and a, a jacket. And there were several other frock coats or morning coats. I think most of them were hired. But I, I think this is encouraging, certainly encouraging for the future of tailoring, because it seems that youngsters today are very keen to be very smart at a wedding wearing frock coats, morning coats and formal suits. Much more so than in my day.

And what does your son-in-law do?

Oh he’s in IT, something in computers, and quite successful. He does quite a lot of travelling to companies, setting up I think programs in technology, and... As I say, I think he’s doing rather well. I hope so.

Who...who manages your IT and sort of electronic equipment here?

Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 128

Well I’m pleased to say really, my son’s in charge of it. And of course he learnt quite a lot of it at school, and he’s managed to bring it here, and... And in fact if something goes wrong, all the ladies will rush off to Simon to, for him to try and sort it out, or if he can’t, he’s the one that brings in the, the IT company to, to mend it. It’s a whole area that I’m afraid I, I have nothing to do with at all, and, it really is down to Simon who periodically comes and asks if he can update the, the hardware or the software, and... And he’s just organised a whole new program where, when a suit is completed, the documents are produced, both dispatch it to America or France or whatever, and at the same time it produces a, an invoice, so the customer gets his bill much earlier than he would have done in the past. So, that should help our cash flow.

Do you have a computer at home?

Not yet. I do intend to, to get a, a laptop, because then I can do emails instead of faxing. Though I have to admit, it works very well with me doing my longhand letters, and then faxing them up here, and, either they’re done and signed on my behalf, or, because I don’t arrive until about eleven o’clock, and I fax them at eight o’clock in the morning, they’re already typed and waiting for me to sign when, when I arrive. So I’m quite happy with my faxing, but I am told that I’d be much more efficient if I had an email. So I’m sure, at some stage I’ll have to learn all about that. I think I do miss out, and, you know, I’m not, I’m not able to look at websites and that sort of thing unless I get Simon to do it for me.

So who’s told you that you’re old-fashioned?

Oh, not... I suppose, not so much customers, but, people in the trade that I have to contact. As I say, on the whole, customers haven’t yet told me that; no doubt it will, it will come. I mean, our man in Japan can’t think why he can’t send me an email, instead...but he does fax me direct to home, sometimes even at weekends I’ll get a fax. But he thinks it would be much easier if he could send me an email.

Could I ask you to describe how the suits are packed for shipping?

Mm. Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 129

Or, transportation.

Yes. We, as long as I can remember, and I’m sure... Well the company where we buy the box, cardboard boxes from, they say we were customers of theirs 100 years ago. So I can only think that 100 years ago we were packing suits in boxes.

And where do the boxes come from?

Oh a company called Thomas Norman, I think they’re down in sort of Fulham, that area of London. Certainly London based. And as I say, we’ve been customers of theirs for, at least 100 years. And we have three box, three sizes of boxes, one for taking two suits, or three in fact, and then a one-suit box, and then a trouser box. And then we have a sort of carrier bag, which...

And what size...sorry, what size are the boxes?

Oh, well they’d be about three... I suppose about a metre by eighteen... I’m going to confuse this. A metre by eighteen inches, which...[laughs] So it’s three foot by eighteen. And it’s about nine, nine inches deep. And that will take up to three suits. And we pack them using tissue paper and, we put the tissue in wherever there’s a fold, so it doesn’t, we hope it doesn’t crease in transit. If it’s going abroad, we then wrap it in brown paper, waterproof paper. If it’s, if it’s for the UK we just send it in its, without the, the brown paper. But of course in recent years this is slowly changing, to the extent that, customers want us to give them a, a suit cover, that they can hang in their wardrobe. And, so when they collect now, we’re putting them in suit covers instead of in a box. So I suppose as time goes on, the box will...we’ll still have to use the box, because of dispatching to, by post. But I think it’s, it’s far less now than, than it used to be, because, as I say, we have these splendid suit covers that, that people can use at home after they’ve taken delivery of the, of the suit. And our porters walk about with them, they deliver them to hotels and, if the customer lives in London, they deliver, instead of a box, they take a suit cover. And it has a handle, and... And of course it’s also been introduced this way so you can take it on an Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 130 aeroplane and put it up in the, in the rack, or if you’re lucky the stewardess will come and hang it up for you.

And, what are they made of, the suit covers, what [inaudible]?

Sort of nylon. Not...we try not to have the plastic ones, though we... There are two varieties, one is a proper suit cover, and then we have a sort of plastic with a double handle and you, you halve it, and that, that’s much easier to walk about with, but of course, it’s not so nice to leave it in your wardrobe, so, the customers sort of have a choice of what... And of course it’s good publicity for us, because, we have our name emblazoned across it, both sides, so whichever way the customer carries it, there’s in large letters, ‘Henry Poole and Company’.

And who does the packing?

Oh we have a packer, yes, and, we have a porter and a packer. We have done for, well, again as long as I can remember. And it’s, it is a permanent job, it takes a long time... He will also, where we have outworkers, he will send things to the, to the outworkers, or the tailoresses, send it to their homes. He will also, we have workers in Soho, in Carnaby Street, and, Foubert’s Place and, and he will take work out to them from the cutters, or bring it back. So, it is a full-time job. The porter on the other hand, he comes at one o’clock and leaves at half-past five, and he’s delivering to, mainly to the hotels, to Americans who are staying at Claridge’s, and, and they’re going to take their suit home.

What does he wear when he does that?

Oh, quite casual, both of them. Well they wear a jacket. And of course, occasionally they, they do wear a suit, they probably, it’s one of, probably one of the misfits which they’ve, we’ve sort of altered for them. But, the days have gone that, you know, we would insist that they’re, you know, what they actually wear. I don’t...I don’t think it matters today. I mean obviously, it would matter if the cutter suddenly appeared in jeans, but, even then, when we used to open on Saturdays, we did allow what is called today I suppose dressing-down, and we did...sports jackets or blazers and trousers Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 131 were quite the order of the day. But now we don’t open on Saturdays, that, during the day at any rate the staff who meet customers at any rate, they wear their suits.

Would you recognise a bespoke suit?

[pause] That’s a difficult one, because if, if a man has a very good figure, like a sort of male model, he could probably go to someone like Chester Barrie and get a very good looking suit. Usually where...the first thing you notice is that, if it’s not made for him, it’s a ready-to-wear, it’s, usually the first thing you see is the sleeves are, the length of sleeve is totally wrong, it’s usually too long. But I suppose, where it does show is, thank goodness, most men are not perfectly built, and what we say, it breaks down in, a ready-to-wear would break down in the, particularly in the back. It’s got sort of folds of cloth, or, it’s too long in the back, or too short in the back. And also, nowadays you see so many, to my eye, very cheap looking suits in, they’re usually a plain weave, a dark grey or a dark blue, and you can immediately tell that, you know, they, I won’t say they’re badly made, but very cheaply made, and they just sort of hang on the, on the man’s body. Whereas a bespoke suit, the shoulders will be the right shoulders for the, for the customer, the width of the shoulder, the width of back. The length of the jacket even will, will be roughly half the man’s body, so you get as much, the same amount of trouser showing as you do jacket, that’s the sort of principle. And as I say, the sleeve length will certainly be right, and he should be showing about quarter to half an inch of shirt. And I suppose, the main thing is that, it will have this sort of subtle elegance, and also look comfortable on the, you know, the man is obviously comfortable wearing it. It’s a sort of, quiet elegance that, is I suppose what we try to achieve. And, and at the end of the day of course, the man will look right walking down Wall Street or, or the Ginza or Bond Street.

What about the handmade buttonhole, how could one...could one tell?

[pause] Yes, I...I attach less importance to that than a lot of people sort of think, but, that’s a... I always think, I mean, it’s nice to have beautifully handmade buttonholes, but, you can have superb buttonholes on a, on a readymade Italian designer suit, but if it, if it doesn’t fit, the suit has been made for sort of anybody, as opposed to one person, so the buttonholes are of less importance than the, the actual fit. But having Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 132 said that, it’s, again it’s not just the buttonholes, it’s the canvassing and the role of the lapel, and that’s the sort of thing that I notice with a bespoke, a made-to-measure suit, as opposed to the sort of fused jackets that, that are coming off the production line, sadly now probably in Morocco or Middle Europe, not even English factories, and they just sort of hang, and they sort of stick out like a sore thumb when... [laughs] But then, I suppose you get what you pay for, and they’re probably a quarter of the price of one of our handmade and hand-constructed garments.

I think you have said, you have sort of mentioned the price range before...

Mm.

...but if you could just say again what...

I suppose, a two-piece suit now, with the value added tax would be, would be just hitting £2,000. Which initially sounds an enormous price, but... To begin with, I was reading only at the weekend, dresses and things made for ladies, and I was horrified at the, three and a half, four thousand pounds, and, these, I suppose actresses and female tycoons, you know, were willing to pay that sort of price. So I wonder why men wince at something considerably less, and it’s probably got a lot more work in it. Because they’re also, these designer clothes, you can go up Bond Street today and you can buy readymade, very well constructed, mainly Italian suits, and, and they will in fact cost more than £2,000. So, it’s not such a, a horrific price as it sounds. And you are getting the finest cloth in the world, which I still maintain comes from Huddersfield and Scotland, and a lot of handwork which...{intercom]...helps it hold its shape and lasts for considerably longer than the readymade designer jacket in, from Bond Street.

Do you have any memories of Hardy Amies?

Yes, Hardy was a, I suppose a friend of the company, of our company, not only because we, we were his immediate neighbour; before that of course, we were opposite him, when we had our first showroom in Savile Row. I think he had a lot of respect for us, being the oldest and the, certainly at one stage the largest tailor on the Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 133

Row. On the whole I found him rather a shy man, and, I suppose it’s only about, two or three times a year that our paths would cross, and, we would exchange...we would chat. Once or twice he specifically came and joined us at the Royal Warrant holders’ lunch, and would sometimes sit at, we would sit at the same table, and we would share a taxi to, to the hotel where the function was being held. But we never, sadly I suppose, we never otherwise went out socially, we never lunched together or dined together. And as I say, we would have a, a rather quick exchange of words when we would, the few times that we would met in the, in the street. And of course, because he was predominantly a ladies’ tailor, he never got involved with the Federation of Master Tailors, or any of the trade organisations.

Was he the only sort of, female couturier on Savile Row?

Yes, yes he was. I can remember, when I first came into the industry, or the trade, I think Norman Hartnell was more famous than Hardy Amies, and I, I certainly met with my father on more occasions Norman Hartnell than, than I ever did with Hardy Amies. It must seem strange, because, as I say, we, we are his neighbour, and, we share the water that comes into the, both premises, we have to pay the bill to the water board and then, we get reimbursed by Hardy Amies.

So what was your impression of Norman Hartnell?

Well it is a very long time ago. And I think in fact, it’s really my father’s story more than mine, but, one of the mills, and in fact, before I think I have talked about Tommy Nutter, and how we worked together going to these shows, making clothes for the shows that were sponsored by Reid and Taylor. Well before that happened, Reid And Taylor asked a group of tailors to go to the Ritz Hotel, where they met Norman Hartnell. And the idea was for Normal Hartnell to design, to design clothes for this show, and they would be made by these tailors. And my father was hopping mad about this, because, you know, we can design clothes ourselves, and we have cutters that can do it, and for men, we would consider probably a better job than Norman Hartnell could do. So, I suspect at that stage we somewhat fell out with Norman Hartnell, and whether he would speak to my father again, I, I don’t know. But thankfully, Reid and Taylor came round to, obviously agreeing with my father’s view, Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 18 Page 134 as well as presumably the other tailors as well, and we with Tommy Nutter, and I think two other firms, made clothes for the subsequent shows without, without Norman Hartnell being there.

[End of Part 18] Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 135

Part 19 [Tape 11 Side B]

Could you describe...

Well, you could ask me when we first got one, and I’ll go on from there.

Mm, please. When did you? [laughs] Yes.

It goes back to, we were given a Royal Warrant in the days of Henry Poole, who, by that time we had a very big livery department, and, we started making liveries for Buckingham Palace, the Royal Mews, it must have been about 1860, because in 1869 Queen Victoria made us her court tailor, gave us a Royal Warrant, and we made postillion jackets for the, the outriders of, on the horses, and the coachman’s coatee, and the footman’s liveries. And that went on. And I know we made a batch for the, Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in, I think it was 1897? No, some time over that period. And, and then when King Edward VII was, had his coronation, I’ve got a picture in fact of the liveries we made for his coronation. And it went on that, when... Well, amusingly we started making another batch of new liveries for Edward VIII’s coronation, which of course never happened. So we have orders in 1936 for this coronation, which then of course happened in 1937 with George VI. And I’ve got pictures there of splendid horse-drawn carriage parked outside our premises, our old premises in Henry Poole, and porters loading up these carriages with new liveries to go down to the Royal Mews ready for the, for the coronation. So all that time we had the Royal Warrant as being court tailors to George V, before that of course Edward VII, and Queen Victoria. And the, I suppose it would be in...I know my uncle had taken over the chairmanship of the company when my father retired in 1974, but he, because he was only eighteen months younger, he said that the Royal Warrant should be put in my name, because there’s always a big drama of changing the... There’s always the fear that you might upset someone and, and lose your Royal Warrant. So when my father retired, it was immediately put in my name, and sadly my uncle never had it in his name. And, thankfully we’ve had it ever since, for Queen Elizabeth II. And we are in fact at this very minute making, I think it’s six wrappers, which are like cloaks, which the footmen wear in the winter, they’re very heavy and warm, in scarlet. And we’re doing two postillion jackets. All for delivery by the end of the Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 136 year. And we hope that we’ll get another order for something next year. In recent years, it’s been much better for us and encouraging that we’ve had two or three orders each year instead of suddenly being given a, a very large order and then nothing for five or six years, which was happening previously.

And are they all fitted as well, or not?

In principle they’re fitted, yes. The coachman will come here and we’ll measure him. But we don’t make it exactly to fit, because, when that man retires, it will mean an extensive alteration if we actually made it rigidly to his measure. So we try and compromise, so that, the next person that comes along it will, it will fit. The amusing thing is that, we are making, having to make much bigger ones now than we did fifty years ago, the indication being that men have got taller and thicker set than, than at the turn of the previous century.

And who, or to what part of the royal household do you apply for your...

Royal Warrant?

...Royal Warrant?

Well, you apply to the Lord Chamberlain. But you must do at least three years’ solid work before you can even apply. And it’s probably more like five years that you’ll then be given your Royal Warrant. And then equally, it works the other way, that, if you haven’t done any work for five years, you’ll probably lose your Royal Warrant. So, it’s not as easy to, to get and keep as perhaps some people think.

And, who makes the approach?

Well, it will be the company would approach the Lord Chamberlain, and seek permission. And then I, I think in most cases, if not all cases, that certainly the Queen would be consulted, or the Duke of Edinburgh who can also give warrants, and of course Prince Charles. I think, I’m sure they are actually consulted. I was very taken that we published our book, as you know, in the beginning of the year, and the Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 137

Princess Royal came and was our guest of honour for the launch of the book, and she wrote me a charming letter saying that she hoped it would be a bestseller, which, that was rather wishful thinking. But I also sent a copy to the Queen, and again I got a very nice letter back from her, one of her private secretaries, saying that the Queen enjoyed it, and insisted that the book be put in the library at Windsor Castle for future reference, which... And again she, Her Majesty commented on how we had been loyal makers of her liveries for, for so many years, which I thought was... So she, I think she must have, you know, at least more than glanced at the book to, to have picked that up.

What’s your experience of working with the V&A on the exhibition, Dressing the Part?

Yes, that, how that started was in fact, we celebrated our thirtieth anniversary with the Japanese, and, we sent out to them some of our old ledgers, and some of the old garments that we still have stored in our basement, and in fact, we did borrow one or two of the state garments that we made from the Royal Mews. And I can remember I also borrowed two suits that we made for Winston Churchill from Chartwell. Anyway, these were all shipped out for this big exhibition in Tokyo, and I, I had to go out myself, and the British Ambassador in Japan came and opened the exhibition. And it was such a success that we repeated it in Merchant Taylors’ Hall in the City, for customers and the press and so forth. And, it must have been I suppose seen by someone at the V&A, who said, could we put a similar exhibition on there? Well of course, it had to be much bigger and better, because of the space, and indeed the importance, because, I think it was there for, about six months. And, it was extremely well done, in fact, I mean looking around now, I can see things that we had, that picture there of the Duke of Windsor with Emperor Hirohito, that was all put together by the staff at the V&A. And I think the, that Perspex thing shows a picture of a group of clothes we made for Madame Tussauds in about 1880. So they put together this exhibition. And again, we had the privilege of, of the Princess Royal coming to open that. And our bankers, Coutts, sponsored the opening evening with, with very nice... I remember we could only have white wine, because, the V&A were terrified we’d spill red wine on their carpet. So we just had very a nice white wine, and canapés and, which were sponsored by our bank. And, as I say, the press wrote very Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 138 encouragingly about it, and I think we got a very good write-up in the Wall Street Journal about it, and pictures. And in fact the Daily Telegraph dressed up a male model in some of these garments that we, that we were showing, and it covered a whole page, which, as you know the Telegraph is quite a large...that’s a large page. [laughs]

Do the V&A, do they have a Henry Poole suit in their dress collection?

I...I’m not sure. I’m sure they do, in fact I know one of our customers sent them some Henry Poole suits. But in fact, their suits on the whole are rather disappointing, they don’t go back very far. Where we do have suits, and again we, as well as borrowing Winston Churchill’s and so forth, the...oh, the London Museum, I think it’s called the London Museum, they have several garments made by us for Sir Henry Irving, the famous actor. Now they go back to sort of 1870. And, the V&A managed to borrow these for, again, for the exhibition. But I’m sure they’ve had to give them back. So, from memory, I was a bit disappointed with the, the men’s garments that the V&A have in their, their collection. I think they have a lot of the sort of 1960s, that period, of which some of them I’m sure are from Henry Poole, and they, I know they have several Tommy Nutter garments. But, anything much older than that, I think is rather few and far between. Other than of course the, the famous garments they have on show, which probably go back to, 1700, they have about, I suppose about twelve I think very old garments. But the actual sort of tailored suits, as I say, I think we probably have one or two more here than they have...[laughs]...in their collection at the back.

What will you do when you retire, how will you spend your days?

I think, well I’m sure most of the time I shall enjoy my garden, and, though my wife tells me weekly that we shouldn’t have bought a house with such a large garden. I have to do all the weeding. [laughs] I’m sure, provided my health stands up to it, that, I shall enjoy, there’ll be plenty for me to do, and, you know, I’ve, I’ve already got myself a, a sit-on mower, so, anticipating sort of when I’m seventy-five that I will still be able to mow the grass. And I’ve tried to, I have a chainsaw, and an electric hedge clipper, so hopefully these mechanical things will keep me going in my Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 139 retirement. I still have my, my old car, which hopefully I’ll be able to play with in retirement. But otherwise, I, I feel that, our little village is so active, the sort of things going on. And this coming Sunday, people are sponsored to cycle to the five churches that form our, what we call benefice, and, I’ve been summoned to sit in the church, or outside the church hopefully if it’s a nice day, and I have to sort of count them in, to prove that they’ve visited our church, and then they will go off to the next church and be counted in there. So, you know, that’s going to be three hours of, of Saturday I think it is. And then on Sunday, one of the villagers has suddenly, he is American, and he’s suddenly been given his British citizenship, which he’s going to celebrate, and the village have been sort of asked to help him celebrate. So there are things going on all the time. I’m sure that will be so, probably even more so when I retire. To what extent I’ll retire, I don’t know, I was asked about this only yesterday, that... I certainly intend to work sort of three days a week for the next four years, which will take me up to seventy. Now whether my son then kicks me out, or whether, you know, I come up one day a week, or, or even one day a month, I don’t know. I always remember that my father worked a five-day week right up to the time he was seventy, and then on his seventieth birthday, which was Christmas time, he walked out and never came back. I think he came up for one board meeting two years later. And I can remember saying to him, ‘Why don’t you come up one day a week just to see customers that, that you know?’ But, he was quite adamant that he, he had retired. But my mother said that he was never, never the same. And he became a cabbage, and, I think very sadly when he was, reached seventy-five, that’s five years later, he, he died of, of boredom I think, because he, he didn’t like gardening like I did, or do, I’ve inherited that from my mother; he had given up his, pleasure of, of driving a car. And my mother used to send him shopping every day, and...[laughs]...I can’t believe that he really liked that. So, I certainly don’t want to, you know, end my days as my poor father did. And it may be that, if China progresses as we hope it will, and Japan continues, they’re sort of areas that I’m much more involved in than anyone else in the firm, it may be that, they’ll still want me to sort of oversee that, and of course what ultimately happens about the lease and the renewal of that, and hopefully that we can extend our lease and spend many many years at No.15.

Is there anything that you would like to say on the tape that I might not have asked you, or that, that you would like to say? Angus Cundey C1046/03/11 Part 19 Page 140

Well... [laughs] Well I really can’t. I think you’ve covered everything so... I can’t think of anything that I haven’t... You know, I really think... [laughs]

Has it made you think about your life in any sort of different way?

Well it... I suppose what it’s done is to sort of, remind me of, of my life really, of what I’ve tried to achieve, and how I’ve sort of gone through working in, in our funny little company. It certainly reminded me of, or you have forced me to remind myself, of really my, my life. Thank you very much.

Oh, thank you.

[End of Part 19]

[End of Interview]