Head Dress

Quote :

I can never ever remember 'marching at ease' behind a band or on a parade where the 'Colours' were carried.

See my previous post Len

but where were the scaleys?

What on earth is 'marching at ease' ?

Scaley marching!!

Lazy marching

Gordon. wrote:

Lazy marching

I thought that was just ambling ?

pete26 wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

Lazy marching

I thought that was just ambling ?

Both one and the same thing.

It`s what gunners do...

Gordon. wrote:

It`s what gunners do...

Way, way back, there was a WW2 popular song recorded by Glenn Miller
(oh Happy Days when lyrics could be understood!).

It was called "What do you do in the Infantry"............ one bit went like :-

" The son of a gun in the Signal Corps is riding on a bike,
But what do you in the infantry, you hike, you hike, you hike."

And so it should be...Even if it does refer to our cousins over the pond...

Smudger and his mates, around their 40/60 Bristol Bofors gun,are wearing their head dress in 1950's style, central badge and sides of beret pulled down left & right, a style adopted when out of sight of the BSM. They are kitted out in the one-piece, oil stained, light grey denims issued by 32 (Minden ) Bty, part of 16 LAA Regt RA from Quebec Bks. Osnabruck.

The web waist belt has been discarded to reduce the need for daily blancoing, and they are in shirt sleeve order, a summer dress produced by discarding the Hairy Mary shirt and rolling up denim sleeves. Daily shovel drills were an irritating experience, for it involved stripping nearly naked and gripping denims between knees in an attempt to reduce the hazard of missing the excavation and fouling their clothing.

Scruffy looking bunch - typical Cloud punchers!!

Shelldrake wrote:

Scruffy looking bunch - typical Cloud punchers!!

Unworthy comment for a fellow Gunner ! You should have seen us when we weren't
regimental!

Should have had a scaley RSM...sniff

That way of wearing a beret was called 'GD' style in my day. I was the 'discipline' NCO at 20 Armd Bde Sigs and used to have my daily rant at the lads for wearing their berets that style.

I came back from a course in Bad Oyenhausen late one night and turned in, next morning on First Works, what do I see but every bugger on parade including NCO's with their hats on GD style grinning like Cheshire Cats. Before I could throw a tantrum I noticed SSM Hade and Major Cooper coming onto the square, both had their berets on GD style. I snap up a salute and get a cheery 'happy birthday corporal' from Maj Cooper. Yes it was a wind up, but that was 20 Bde .. boy did I miss that bunch when I was posted.

Len (Ciphers)

This ancient illustration of Cartav & his mate, Jock Cairney, shows the proper procedure laid down in the 1950's for the correct wearing of the head dress............. leather hat band 1" above eyebrow and cap badge central over left eye. It can be argued that Cairney's beret deviates minimally from these requirements, but he was a regular soldier and not given to the precise adoption of the rules which were followed to the letter by NS soldiers.

They are both seated in the Bedford MWD 15 cwt FFW which was provided for their in-camp enjoyment and for their occasional joint use as a driver training vehicle.

Note the 32 (Minden ) Battery logo in yellow lettering around a red rose. This was introduced as a hearts & minds initiative which only served to confuse both Germans and squaddies, both of whom could never believe we were ever on the same side.

cartav wrote:

Smudger and his mates, around their 40/60 Bristol Bofors gun,

We had a bofors gun in 1974 at the Maze prison.

Every so often we had to play about with it to fool the 'naughty boys' 'behind the wire' that the thing worked, in case they thought of an aerial escape.

We didn't have any ammo for the damned thing.

cartav wrote:

This ancient illustration of Cartav & his mate, Jock Cairney, shows the proper procedure laid down in the 1950's for the correct wearing of the head dress............. leather hat band 1" above eyebrow and cap badge central over left eye. It can be argued that Cairney's beret deviates minimally from these requirements, but he was a regular soldier and not given to the precise adoption of the rules which were followed to the letter by NS soldiers.

They are both seated in the Bedford MWD 15 cwt FFW which was provided for their in-camp enjoyment and for their occasional joint use as a driver training vehicle.

Note the 32 (Minden ) Battery logo in yellow lettering around a red rose. This was introduced as a hearts & minds initiative which only served to confuse both Germans and squaddies, both of whom could never believe we were ever on the same side.

The guy on the right has been using his beret for smuggling plates out of the cookhouse.

More likely tatties & neeps which he washed down with pints of heavy !

Wot???No haggis

cartav wrote:

Smudger and his mates, around their 40/60 Bristol Bofors gun,are wearing their head dress in 1950's style, central badge and sides of beret pulled down left & right, a style adopted when out of sight of the BSM. They are kitted out in the one-piece, oil stained, light grey denims issued by 32 (Minden ) Bty, part of 16 LAA Regt RA from Quebec Bks. Osnabruck.

The web waist belt has been discarded to reduce the need for daily blancoing, and they are in shirt sleeve order, a summer dress produced by discarding the Hairy Mary shirt and rolling up denim sleeves. Daily shovel drills were an irritating experience, for it involved stripping nearly naked and gripping denims between knees in an attempt to reduce the hazard of missing the excavation and fouling their clothing.

Funny how the British squaddy manages to look like a sack of spuds, no matter what they're wearing !
That beret style was prevalent in the late fifties/early sixties in our regt too-we called it the "Tankie beret". We fondly believed that tank crews had to wear it like that because they wore headsets all the time. (total drivel-any excuse to rebel !)
We never got away from the two-piece denims until Coveralls came in. The belt was never dropped but we did have the pleasure of dyeing and black polishing our belt & gaiters, that was met with universal approval.

[quote="pete26
We had a bofors gun in 1974 at the Maze prison.

Every so often we had to play about with it to fool the 'naughty boys' 'behind the wire' that the thing worked, in case they thought of an aerial escape.

We didn't have any ammo for the damned thing. [/quote]

Blimey, I'd forgotten about the Kesh cannon !
Installed to deter aerial escapes I believe.
We were quite sure Paddy wasn't fooled by it.

The only successful escape while we were there was by a bloke who changed places with his brother. The MPSC got the blame for that one !

pete26 wrote:

We had a bofors gun in 1974 at the Maze prison.

Every so often we had to play about with it to fool the 'naughty boys' 'behind the wire' that the thing worked, in case they thought of an aerial escape.

We didn't have any ammo for the damned thing.

Brum wrote:

Blimey, I'd forgotten about the Kesh cannon !
Installed to deter aerial escapes I believe.
We were quite sure Paddy wasn't fooled by it.

The only successful escape while we were there was by a bloke who changed places with his brother. The MPSC got the blame for that one !

The bofors may not have fooled them, but I recall that a fighter squadron was on fast alert from the Londonderry area IIRC. They 'buzzed' the Maze when I was there.

Quote :

Funny how the British squaddy manages to look like a sack of spuds, no matter what they're wearing !

Speak for yourself Sir

In spite of best efforts, L/Bdr Jim Abbot refuses to assume an upright posture on his Matchless G3L. To acquire a normal image it will be necessary to tilt head 90 deg. to left, or rotate screen right to a similar angle or to 270 deg left.........
Nobody's perfect............

Last Head Dress illustration.......... Both Jim & Cartav personalised their crash hats unofficially. On the Army- green background, the rim was painted white, and rank chevrons were added centrally on the front. The mailed fist 6 Armd Div sign was to the left front, and the white figures "73" on a halved red & blue square to the right of centre showed 16 Regt RA was the Lt.Ack Ack element in an armd div.

Jim went on to add a winged Matchless logo in red above his one stripe, and got away with having the yellow Minden Bty logo added to the back of his leather jerkin.

All of this was good publicity for a profitable sideline of churning out BZ plates for the second hand cars acquired by affluent commissioned ranks.