We had the short version which were strips of tightly woven wool about a yard long by five inches wide, with a cotton strap at the end. You put them on by starting at the flat end winding them at the top of the boot, from the inside of the leg to the outside, that's clockwise/anti clockwise depending on leg. The cotton end strap was wrapped neatly around the centre of the puttee and finished off by tucking it in on itself in a smart and regimental manner.
The trousers were then bloused over the top of the puttee. I could put mine on in a minute.
The average length gave you about four or five layers of flexible wool.
There were various colours, ours were khaki, tankies had black, LI and Ghurkas dark green, there was also a sand colour.
You will see early years photos in NI with the troops wearing short puttees, they gave way to specially acquired high leg black boots in around 1977/8, these were for street duty only, but us old sweats wore them if we could get hold of them.
I would not have them back, but they were better than the canvas webbing gaiters I had issued in training in 1973, mine were dated 1944! We had to black them and bull them so they were shiny, a complete waste of time and a b*ll ache, but that was the whole point.
We envied our American colleagues with their high black boots, but when I found out how much work they were forced to put in to make them shiny I was glad we had boots, DMS.
It was the Falklands conflict that finished off DMS boots and puttees, there were too many cases of trenchfoot, and the MOD had to dig deep to find better footwear for the troops. The Altbergs and other stuff that is issued today is a far cry from what we were issued, but at the time we knew no better and had to make do and get on with the job.