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Mark Forsdike

A long wait over

Military badge collecting can be a fascinating, but expensive world.

For some years I have long sought to obtain one of the small printed castle patches that were worn by the 1st Battalion on active service on Cyprus at the very end of the Regiment’s existence.

Between 1956 and 1959, the 1st Battalion were stationed in Cyprus assisting the civil powers in maintaining law and order on the island. In the early days of their tour when they were patrolling the Troodos mountains from a base at Xeros on the northwest of the island, the Battalion took to wearing a small yellow castle patch on their tan bush hats. It was a natural progression of Regimental heraldry that had started almost one hundred years before in India when a castle superseded a crown for wear on the Foreign Service Helmet before a foreign service helmet plate as introduced. It had been kept in use in various forms throughout the Twentieth Century with it being worn on slouch hats, steel helmets and jungle hats in Malaya six years before.

In the twilight of its life, it might have been the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel W.S. Bevan, who may have sought to reintroduce its wear once more. ‘Bertie’ was a great traditionalist and cared deeply about the Regiment and its history. It was just the sort of thing that he would have done to in-still a little bit of regimental pride into his young soldiers; the majority of which were still National Servicemen.

Certainly, it was never an officially sanctioned patch, and was in all probability procured locally. mind you, none of the badges that soldiers painted or sewed onto their jungle hats in Malaya were official either, but these were tolerated in the spirit of team building and the forging of rivalry between platoons; each of whom had their own nickname. Perhaps the same was being though of here?

However, this week after some years of searching, I have finally managed to obtain one. I do somewhere, have a genuine Cyprus-period hat which bears the marks of where just such at patch was originally seen - so could this be a happy reunion?


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