I picked up a fairly grubby dispatch riders coat today, very nice 1942 dated and seems all there, working and my size, but it is just generally grubby and used. Has anyone got any tips for cleaning these coats?

I don't know if there is any 'approved' method for these rubberised coats but this worked o.k. for me.

Picked a dry sunny day, stretched it out on some flat ground and gave it a good scrubbing with cold water and a some mild, neutral soap (I used Fairy green block)and a scrubbing brush. This made a significant, visible difference. Washed it down thoroughly with the garden hose. Hence the dry sunny day for drying it off.

I think the important thing is to stay away from solvent type cleaners or stuff like Fairy Liquid that has strong detergents, bleach etc in them. They are likely to cause damage to the material. As probably would a power washer :-)

That seems sensible enough, good advice btb, thanks very much. I'll give it a go if we get any more sunny days

I've got this morning off work, so I've carefully washed the coat over and it looks much better already. Now that it's wet, it weighs about as much as Hampshire! A word of advice though, check the pockets carefully before washing, I found a crushed up old Woodbine cigarette and part of a flimsy message that says 'START POSITION: MR 766546. PROCEED TO CHECK POINT 'B' AT: MR 748556'

Cant find an 'MR' map sheet reference for the ordnance survey. Not a UK sheet reference anyway. Did they produce European wartime maps with another set of sheet references? Interesting to find out where the coat went !
Rich

It's torn right through that bit, but it certainly says MR. It never occurred to me that there may be someone out there who would have some idea what the numbers mean! It would be great to locate a little bit of its history.

Tap it into an Enigma machine?

Wouldn't 'MR' just mean 'Map Reference' ?

There are a number of online resources which can convert wartime grid references to modern locations. The trouble is that you'll have to guess the grid square...