Clearing his wardrobe

Lucy’s column for August 19.
Wardlo…1
He was, once upon a time, the picture of sartorial elegance – all Daniel Hechter suits and silk ties. But then, he had an image to keep up, in the heady word of telly, and the cutting edge of PR.
But retirement does something to a man, and the slob emerges – in his case, the vagrant, though I’ve seen better dressed tramps wandering our streets. He’s happiest in the sort of holey jumpers and stained slacks which most men wouldn’t even consider wearing to dig the allotment.
His trouble is, he won’t throw anything away. Shirts with frayed cuffs and collars will always "come in handy". Flares, and the sort of lapels once sported by spivs and comedian Max Miller, could, according to himself, make a come-back. And he’ll be ahead of fashion. The aforementioned sweaters are his comfort zone. (His favourite, one of those emblazoned with that little alligator logo which once spelled the height of cool, I bought for my late son, Matthew, in 1984).
And then, there’s his anorak. Well, there are two of these cazzy, but decidedly un-smart, garments which spend entire winters on his back, and summers lurking in the cubby-hole at the top of the cellar steps. One is a woolly creature, several sizes too big, and there’s a paper-clip where the zip-pull should be. The other is just a nasty grey thing, all elastic waist and poacher’s pockets, which could have come from the wardrobe department of Last of the Summer Wine. Which it may well have done, since he once had access to the wardrobe sales at Central TV, when they produced light entertainment programmes there, and once came home with a frilly shirt with the late Bob Monkhouse’s name stamped across the collar, and a pair of shoes belonging to Lionel Blair.
Suffice to say, the shoes didn’t make him dance any better, probably because they nipped his toes. And the shirt went the way of all singed nylon frills – okay, I confess, I did it on purpose. It’s tough enough ironing straight bits, so I’m blessed if I’m expected to faff with frilly bits.
Right now, I’m sitting here with a smug grin on my chops. I’ve just done a major purge on his closet. Shirts, trousers, moth-eaten woollies, several threadbare jackets, even what I recall was his wedding suit – and we’ve been married 37 years – were dumped in bin-bags awaiting a trip to the recycling plant at Raynesway. Oh, I had the decency to tell him. Which was perhaps my downfall.
Because that self-satisfied smile has just turned to egg on my face. As I dragged him, kicking and screaming, from the vision of what must be the neatest hanging space in Littleover, proud as Punch about my major effort on his behalf, he threw an almighty wobbly. The bags were retrieved, everything strewn across the kitchen floor, and you’ve guessed it, half the stuff is back, cluttering up those imaginatively colour-co-ordinated rails. The rest, he’s carted off to the charity shop, screeching : "If I can’t have them, they’ll be snapped up by somebody else."
Heaven help us, what more does a man of his age need other than a selection of half-decent shirts, trousers of every hue, two Daks jackets – they never date, apparently, and if they’re never worn, don’t wear out – a funeral suit, and a second one which will take him to weddings, christenings, and any other event which cries out for a tie? It’s not as if we spend our time swanning off to soirees, or cruising into the sunset with the ship’s captain’s table beckoning.
Besides which, I’d kept back a ganzy, gruesome enough to garden in. And those anoraks are still mouldering in the cubby. There are some things even I daren’t dump!
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