Dont put that Lycett on your Hetchin!! Just use Brooks or maybe a Mansfield Ormonde or the like.
takes me back a bit this,, and I'm sure Hilary will correct me if I'm off track a little, but there was a definite hierarchy of saddles makers in the UK in the 40/50/60s era and probably before as well.
Brooks were always held to be the best by the hard-riding Yorkshiremen, and many a continental Pro as well.. Anquetil, poulidor, so I've seen it claimed, even Coppi and Bobet, but I digress.
After Brooks came Mansfield.. not quite in the same class, but made some interseting models with alloy frames, then.. and this is debatable .. Wrights and Lycetts and somewhere in and among Middlemores, but I can't recall this last company making any quality road racing saddles. Perhaps Hilary or Mike or some of the southern lads can elucidate a bit more.
The hierarchy of saddles in the wet-land of the north sprung from how much a saddle would NOT LOSE its shape after a regular dowsing in the rain. Clearly comfort was more important but the dowsing test almost equally so. Brooks always, until later years excellent.. Mansfields less so but not too bad. My memories of Lycetts and Wrights is that the leather never seemed to have enough "body" leading them to stretch, and develop two long longitudinal grooves, which in turn needed to be eliminated by tensioning the saddle.
What an almost subjective matter this is.
Norris Lockley.. pondering whether Brooks leather came from northern cows, whilst Lycetts ' might have been southern bred.
PS Never heard of Imperial.. although therewas a well-known brand of bike called an Imperial Petrel