Headley Court, the rehabilitation centre in Surrey for soldiers wounded in active service, can't be more than 30 miles from my usual stamping grounds of Victoria (the Telegraph offices) and Somerset House (fashion show HQ), but it's self-evidently a different universe.
The connecting thread, as I discovered when I visited there recently, is the power of a lovingly crafted item of clothing to change the mood of the person wearing it.
I don't write this lightly. When I first heard about the charity that Jermyn Street shirt designer Emma Willis had set up to make bespoke shirts for soldiers who'd been injured in Afghanistan, I had my doubts. I'm well acquainted with that spike of endorphins released when you feel you've made the most of yourself - the considerable lift to the spirits as well as to the shoulders and the spine is way more powerful than alcohol. Even the austere mandarins of Whitehall in the Forties suspected as much. In the grimmest days of the war, in this supposedly puritanical country of ours, the government was forever coaxing women to look their best for the menfolk returning on leave - and above all to wear a little make-up. One of the first Red Cross consignments into Bergen-Belsen after its liberation contained boxes of red lipsticks.
But still… it was hard to imagine how someone who'd lost a limb might get excited about a new shirt, however lovingly made and beautifully fitted.
READ: Emma Willis: shirt-maker extraordinaire
My mistake. After a small piece I wrote in the Telegraph last winter, Emma was kind enough to invite me along on one of her sorties to Headley. She's indefatigable, Emma. Next week she's organised a reception to raise awareness for her charity, at the Cavalry and Guards Club (for more details on the style for soldiers, see emmawillis.com). She visits Headley every few weeks, just her, a tape measure, some swatches and occasionally her assistant. She sets up her stall, on a table in a fluorescent lit common room and within a few minutes word goes round, as one of the soldiers put it "that a hot chick's arrived giving away posh shirts".
Very few civilians see inside Headley Court these days and, on the way there, I was petrified that I'd start weeping the moment I clapped eyes on the amputees. The last thing Headley needed, I figured.
You don't cry, though, partly because it would be self-indulgent, but also because the soldiers are extraordinarily stoical. You expect that in Kipling, not so much in modern Britain. There's the inevitable gallows humour, mock-competitiveness about who's got the flashiest prosthetic, and lots of chat about football and the twists and turns of Homeland. Many have already had limbs removed, others are waiting to hear whether they'll have to undergo amputations. They're all experts in anatomy. The common room walls are covered with posters of paraplegics performing crazily extreme sports. The overriding sentiment is gratitude to the staff at Headley. As 28-year-old Lieutenant Edward Orr, from the Rifles, whose leg, shattered from a bullet, is being reconstructed with a bone transplant, said: "Everyone here's just wondering when they'll be active again." Will he go back? "If I can."
As you'd expect, they deal with their lot in different ways. Corporal Louis Smit from the Parachute Regiment, 35 years old with a two-year-old son and new baby, showed me the footage on his smartphone of the moment he got blown up (on his son's birthday). He's watched it countless times. It would have been rude not to watch it with him. "I did 10 years in the Army and it was incredibly exciting. If my son wants to join, I'll encourage him to do it differently. I'd like him to get a degree and go to Sandhurst because the pay's better when you're an officer."
Most striking is their dignity. Maybe that comes from detachment. There's lots of downplaying of pain. But they know that it's one thing to feel normal in Headley, another coming to terms with life, and finding a job, in the outside world. Being fitted for a shirt and an elegant walking stick (regulation sticks are often the wrong heights; the ones Emma makes are personalised with the soldiers' Cap badges) is a step on the way. "It means a lot to be appreciated," says Lieut Orr. "We're soldiers, remember," says Captain James Murley-Gotto of the Scots Guards, who's about to get married. "We like to look smart."
Read more of Lisa Armstrong's columns
Via: Emma Willis's sartorial mission
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