In 1987 i wrote a letter to a man called Hamish at an address in Sheffield asking if he could send me a brochure about something called ‘Buffalo Clothing’ that he had invented.
A while later an A5 envelope arrived and in it was a folded piece of A4 card with an ink stamp of a buffalo on it, and inside the folded piece was about a dozen A5 bits of card. On each one was a copy of a handwritten feedback letter to Buffalo about their clothing or sleeping bags. There was nothing else in the envelope.
Nigh on 40 years later i can still recite one of those cards – it was the opinions of a Royal Marine Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre Instructor. He’d observed that after going through the ice on skis in winter wearing just Buffalo shirt and trousers and duly getting out and skiing on, he’d not only dried but had overheated and had had to stop to vent. Nothing else on the market anywhere was that efficient in truly demanding conditions.
I had nowt as a kid but i started saving up for ‘a Buffalo’ there and then.
When Mike Cudahy released ‘Wild Trails to Far Horizons’ in 1989 the cover image is of him wearing an anonymous Buffalo shirt. Mike was a humble and hard God of endurance.
In 1990 i got a Buffalo Big Face (it took that long to save up).
I recently gave my son the Mountain Shirt i bought with my first Army pay packet.
Like many early adopters i wore Buffalo all over the world and swore by it despite it being increasingly ‘overtaken’ by other fads, fashions and fabrics.
Several weeks ago i was informed that the owners of Buffalo had sold the company to that bloke off the telly and his business partner. My heart sank.
Ben Fogle had been to the Buffalo factory recently to collect some clothing for his family and after an extended conversation had literally decided to buy the company.
I wore a red Buffalo windshirt on mountain rescue call-outs yesterday and today. Simple and efficient clothing for mixed weather.
With members of Edale and Glossop Mountain Rescue Teams i gathered at Curbar Gap this evening to ‘meet the buyers’. Ben Fogle and James Sleater duly turned up in the ‘company car’ …
I wasn’t interested in speaking to either of them unless i got an assurance that the brand was staying in Sheffield. Their photographer – a Sheffield lad – told me it was staying. Ed the Buffalo business manager told me it was staying. James promised me it was staying.
Ed remembered our trip to Rivelin Pond years ago researching something called a ‘dry robe’ and trying unsuccessfully to get the then owners of Buffalo to make them. They refused. Fools.
Watch this space.
Ben got wrapped up and stretchered around Curbar. Photos were taken. Questions asked.
Men of a certain age were very relieved by what they heard.
They’ll have to broaden the Buffalo range and add accessories and casual wear to ‘pay the bills’, but they really ought to keep at its core simple, effective, durable clothing that is made by hand in Sheffield.
Small cards with hand written unsolicited testimonials on them from hard people still using Buffalo in challenging and dangerous places ought to still be a thing.
Today was a good day.
….. but will they continue to make their rarest product – Buffalo Suspenders ?
*still available online from Needlesports and as featured in this superb article that Stephen Reid wrote in 1993 about Buffalo. About how to wear it. About how bloody brilliant it is in woeful wretched weather. About what the best mountaineers in the world thought about it. For context Stephen owns the best independent specialist outdoor equipment shop in the UK.