Open Writing

Uncle Bruce never wore a waistcoat. Uncle Bruce had travelled the world, and no way would he accept waistcoat whatever or whenever, as we understood it, and as a garment worn constantly by our father.

Uncle Bruce was adamant about it until his dying breath. He wore a vest. The garment was not a coat! Uncle Bruce’s waistcoats were derived from many sources.

Jane was my mother and his sister, also the petted baby of the family who could easily provoke her brother, particularly about waistcoats. She didn’t attack him, just pestered him about one he had procured in Milwaukee, and insisted on the term ‘waistcoat’ whilst he stalwartly defended the ‘vest’.

He acquired the vest waistcoat - or waistcoat vest - (to give full weight to both sides of the argument) when he was railroading. It was not a store product, having all the soft leather fringes, hand-stitching and tassels that one associates with Red Indians.

Oh dear, that is an unacceptable description in our socially aware culture, and on more than one count. It is inaccurate; the term should be something like Original Americans. And also it might be classed as racist and liable to arouse passions. But readers, I hope, will realise that no offence was intended.

This diversion has taken me away from the vest (a.k.a. waistcoat) that Uncle Bruce acquired in Milwaukee. Jane, by now in her early teenage years and in an excess of housewifely concern, decided to return the grimy vest to its original pristine condition.

Uncle Bruce was holding a hot poker, ready to plunge it into a frothing Guinness, when Jane appeared holding out the vest at arm’s length to demonstrate the result of her efforts. She startled her brother, and the hot poker seared through the vest on the left side.

Some time later, after the heat and smoke had died down - literally and metaphorically - Jane stitched a new leather patch to cover the hole. It was somewhat at odds with the skilful work of the original and had a stamped logo of intertwined initials indicating a local shoemaker!

Uncle Bruce was mortified, but took to wearing the vest for the dirtiest jobs and wiping his hands down over the patch to give it the patina of age. The event became part of the family tales retold in my childhood.

Years later, as a railroader myself working alongside Uncle Bruce and with a gang of men, we were sitting by the fire in the cuddy by the railroad exchanging stories, ribald and otherwise. Uncle Bruce was elaborating on his story about the vest, which he was wearing, and where he had bought it.

One of the men noticed the patch and asked how the damage had happened. Too good a chance for Uncle Bruce to miss, and he proceeded to cast himself in the role of Hero of the West, fighting off marauding savages, saying that the tear came from a glancing arrow from a ‘b . . . . . R . . I . . . . .’

He then gave more colourful details and said a captured squaw had repaired the vest. By this time I was more than a little affected by the liquor we had drunk and took a wild swing at him. He ended up with a bloodied nose, but no more was said. If it hadn’t been for the mark on the vest, I would never have remembered.

The vest I liked best was a tapestry waistcoat made, according to Uncle Bruce, in Uttar Pradesh Bazaar whilst he was in the army. Made from hand-printed flower-embossed cloth, it had been made along with white cotton pantaloons in three hours for 45 rupees - the tailor did ask for 50. There was little he could do about the vest, and Uncle Bruce never enlarged on where he was during the three hours, except to say the place was expensive and out of bounds.