Bowler-hatted ‘city gentleman’ to retire

Press, 29 May 1982, Page 22

Bowler-hatted ‘city gentleman’ to retire

By

KEN COATES

S in London

One of London’s best known survivors of the bowler and pin-striped brigade, Mr Cyril Gibbs, will no longer be seen in Fleet Street and the City of London to be photographed by countless tourists. In his immaculate threepiece suit and crisp bowler hat, with a carefully rolled umbrella and a rose in his buttonhole every day of the year, Mr Gibbs has provided to the visitor the perfect image of the English city gentleman for 30 years. But he is retiring at the age of 69 from the promotion

staff of the “Daily. Telegraph” and the “Sunday Telegraph.” “It has sometimes got so bad in the summer that I have bad to make a detour to avoid walking-past St Paul’s because so many people stop and ask to take my photograph,” he says. Mr Gibbs started wearing a bowler hat and pin-stripes because his father, who was also in the newspaper business, had done so before him. He began putting a rose in his lapel soon after he came out of the British Army in 1948. He is sad that the tradition of wearing a buttonhole has

all but died out, “especially as the rose is the emblem of this country.” He manages to make one flower last up to four days by wrapping it in plain paper when he gets home in the evening, putting it in a glass of water and leaving it in the fridge overnight. Mr Gibbs decided to retire when his wife, Hilda, told him: “You’ve been married to the papers for 33 years — couldn’t we have some time together?”

So he will have more time to look after his roses and will still continue wearing a bowler, even when' gardening: “It stops me banging, my head on the trees.”