Consuming Interest
Coming Clean
By LESLIE ADRIA'N
IT was a year before I could pluck up the courage to have my new suede jacket cleaned. Fearing that the
cleaning process would leave *ti my expensive coat either The discouraging noises made by a well-known cleaner, supposed to be specialists in leather work, almost made me regret ever buying the jacket. I can only suppose that the number of complaints and threatened actions for damages had made them apprehensive of suede garments. Yet, ironically enough, their charges are half those of anyone else's: you would think they could have charged more for a better service.
A tip from one of the backroom boffins at Shell Chemicals finally solved my problem. He sug- gested taking the jacket to a furrier with a fur- cleaning service, as soft leather would respond well to the gentle treatment given to furs.
Noble Furs of Regent Street Ltd. (183 Regent Street, WI; REGent 6394), chosen quite at ran- dom, took only three days to restore the jacket to its original bandbox beauty and their charges (according to length) are between 25s. and 30s.
Since then 1 have discovered two leather specialists who clean bags, gloves and shoes as well as coats and jackets. In the London area there is A.X.L. Leathercraft Ltd. (Coronation Works, Cobden Road, Ell; LEYtonstone 1877), whose charges (excluding postage) for coats are much the same as Noble's, but the job takes two weeks. Handbags cost between 10s. and 12s. 6d. and gloves 4s. a pair.
A small firm in Northampton has made a speciality of suede, and they are the only firm I have found who are prepared to give a guaran- tee for this difficult material. All others accepted leather for cleaning at owner's risk only. On the rare occasions they think the risk is too great, they inform the customer in writing that the gar- ment can only be cleaned at owner's risk. (This usually arises when the dye of a sheepskin lining is particularly unreliable.) Their price-range is from £2 8s. for a full- length sheepskin-lined coat down to 36s. for a short suede jacket, and they normally take seven days: ten it the coat is lined. Shoes cost 6s. 6d. a pair and take three days, handbags 12s. 6d., hats and sheepskin-lined gloves 10s. 6d. Parcels should be addressed to Suedecraft (Great Britain) Ltd., Spencer Street, St. James, Northampton.
The last issue of Which? elected to advise its readers on racing correspondents, calculating On a twelve-year basis how much money one would have lost by backing their nap selections. The Greyhound Express lost you least money, the Irish Times the most. For some reason they left out the Daily Worker—which I had always understood owed much of its circulation to its racing correspondent. I have also heard that the Worker's racing man owes his reputation largely to having backed, for political reasons, a horse called Russian Hero that came in at 100-1. I don't know the truth of the matter: I wish R'hich? had told us..
I don't know why no one has had the idea before: or perhaps someone has and we just haven't heard about it. For years Benedict has been producing tinned fruit. and Wilts United Dairies, cream; but it took their advertising agency to persuade the two firms to stand one tin of cream on top of another of mixed fruit and jelly and join them with green Scotch tape, thereby providing the housewife with a con- venient packaged job, and the two firms with some useful publicity.
The product was unveiled at the Savoy I° week, and the press invited to taste the lel; partyish jellies and cream. Some of the fruit aii° jelly combinations were alarming (cherries itt strawberry jelly; prunes in blackberry 1e111; pears in lime jelly, and so on); and the taste of cream is too reminiscent of condensed milk fat my taste (though it was sterilised, they assured me, vastly different from condensing). But if the object is to provide every housewife with je ready-made solution to the problem present!. by her child's unexpectedly bringing home 0 friends on a Sunday, then it is a clever one.
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