Odd UK military Tam

[Benning Boy]

My old National Guard Infantry unit used to send a couple of soldiers each year to the UK to train with Territorial Army units, and in turn the TA would send a couple to train with us.

One year, we received only one TA soldier. I don't remember which unit he represented. Perhaps you can help me.

His uniform was standard MOD issue of the day, about 1996, as I recall. However, he wore a Tam as his head gear. The unusual thing about it is that he wore it pulled forward, giving it the look of a flat cap with peak or bill. Indeed when I first met him I thought he was wearing a flat cap in the style I learned to call a sports car cap, although there are many names for the style. He said it was customary in his unit to wear the tam in this manner. There was no badge on his tam, nor any tartan backing or other sort of thing you might see on other UK tams and balmorals where regimental badges are attached, as I recall. It had a tourie.

Any idea what his unit might have been?

For history buffs, my unit first deployed overseas as the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Infantry. The best of their day, and they remain so.

[Peter Crowe]

When I was a cadet in the early 80's, the 'Tam O' Shanter' (TOS) was styled this way by the Territorials with the 52nd Volunteers 'D Coy' (Hamilton, South Lanarkshire). who were then badged as Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). I also saw Royal Highland Fusiliers and King's Own Scottish Borderers guys wearing it that way in the 80's, although by 1995 the KOSB guys I spent time with at the Galashiels TA centre frowned on the practice as an RHF thing. Usually when cammo'd up the cap badge and hackle were removed and the tartan patch identified the unit. Sorry can't be more precise.

[theborderer]

The old Tam I was issued in 1958 was like a large pancake, The Battalion was stationed in Malaya and some of the soldiers had the forerunner to the modern Tam made by local Tailors there (with sky blue lining). I have a modern Tam and even with RBLS Tartan patch and Badge I can wear it like Andy Capp or like a modern Borderer

[Ron Abbott]

They don't wear the TOS the same way nowadays (thankfully) but they used to be worn high at the sides and down at the front.

However there were regimental differences. The Black Watch ones were 'shorter' in that they wore them with the front up rather than down and they didn't wear a badge nor a tartan patch, but just the red hackle. The front was shorter than that worn by the other regiments.

The others all wore a tartan patch with either badge or hackle.

The Black Watch is the only unit which wore neither tartan patch nor badge and when on exercise would remove the hackle. However, I have a feeling that the TA Black Watch, unlike the regular battalion, wore the cap badge of the 51st Highland on their TOS with the red hackle and not just the hackle alone. But they did not wear a tartan patch.

Other than glengarries, I can't think of any other type of headwear that was worn, except perhaps feather bonnets by the pipers and/or drummers of some regiments and the Kilmarnock bonnet worn by the D/M of the KOSB and occasionaly by the D/M of the RSDG. But that's ceremonial. And back then, the RSDG, like the Scots Guards did not have any TA unit.

Then there was the balmoral worn by the Lovat Scouts platoon of the 2/51st Highland Volunteers. Or maybe by the mid 1980s it was only a section of a platoon, but I can still distinctly recall a small number of men in the 2/51st wearing them.

A black balmoral with black and white dicing, of the dicing type more commonly worn by police officers.

Can't think of anything else, certainly not with a tourie on top.

I think he may have been TA Black Watch.

I've no idea what the unit was called in the mid to late 1990s, but in the early 1980s it would have been 1/51st Highland Volunteers.

[Ron Abbott]

Forgot to mention....when did the size of the hackles change?
The Black Watch, the Queen's Own Highlanders and the Cameronians used to just wear very small hackles (or a.k.a. budgies).......red, royal blue and black respectively.

The RHF used to wear a bigger white one.

When did the hackles worn on the T.O.S by the Black Watch grow in size?
They seem to wear a much bigger one nowadays.

The Highlanders one seems to be about the same size as that which was worn by the QOH and the Royal Scots Borderers. similar to the size of the one worn by the Cameronians.

[macwilkin]

My old National Guard Infantry unit used to send a couple of soldiers each year to the UK to train with Territorial Army units, and in turn the TA would send a couple to train with us.

One year, we received only one TA soldier. I don't remember which unit he represented. Perhaps you can help me.

His uniform was standard MOD issue of the day, about 1996, as I recall. However, he wore a Tam as his head gear. The unusual thing about it is that he wore it pulled forward, giving it the look of a flat cap with peak or bill. Indeed when I first met him I thought he was wearing a flat cap in the style I learned to call a sports car cap, although there are many names for the style. He said it was customary in his unit to wear the tam in this manner. There was no badge on his tam, nor any tartan backing or other sort of thing you might see on other UK tams and balmorals where regimental badges are attached, as I recall. It had a tourie.

Any idea what his unit might have been?

For history buffs, my unit first deployed overseas as the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Infantry. The best of their day, and they remain so.

It's a standard MOD issue T-o-S that has been shaped into that particular style. It is quite common to see Scottish squaddies wearing their bonnets that way. Since there was no cap badge, there's a good chance he was with the Black Watch, since they traditionally do not wear a badge, but only their red hackle.

Isn't that the 20th Kansas USVI -- "Funston's Fighting 20th"? The reason for my asking is that it was my understanding that Kansas, like Iowa and other states, continued their regimental numerical designations from the Civil War regiments during the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars. I used to reenact the 20th KS, and the boyhood home and museum of GEN Frederick Funston is about two hours from where I live in Iola.

The 2nd KS fought at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, with its sister regiment, the 1st KS, and both 90-day regiments were disbanded soon after. Many of their members went on to serve in other KS regiments raised later.

Regards,

T.

[Benning Boy]

Thank you all for the interesting info on the wear of tams by different regiments. There's more to it than I thought.

Without going into too much detail, as this isn't the place for it, there was doubt about federalizing state militia units for deployment overseas, like the 1st KS Infantry, so they reorganized as volunteer regiments, such as always answered the call to federal service, and the 1st KS, became the 20th KSVI, the problems this caused lead to the organization of the National Guard. Funston led the 20th, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gutsy service. In their day, the 20th were more famous than the Rough Riders. Funston was to have commanded US forces entering The Great War, but died of a heart attack just prior, and Black Jack Pershing was given the command.

Two of my Great-great grandfathers served in 2nd KS as NCOs, one a Tenney, the other a Baird.

[Dileasgubas]

My old National Guard Infantry unit used to send a couple of soldiers each year to the UK to train with Territorial Army units, and in turn the TA would send a couple to train with us.

One year, we received only one TA soldier. I don't remember which unit he represented. Perhaps you can help me.

His uniform was standard MOD issue of the day, about 1996, as I recall. However, he wore a Tam as his head gear. The unusual thing about it is that he wore it pulled forward, giving it the look of a flat cap with peak or bill. Indeed when I first met him I thought he was wearing a flat cap in the style I learned to call a sports car cap, although there are many names for the style. He said it was customary in his unit to wear the tam in this manner. There was no badge on his tam, nor any tartan backing or other sort of thing you might see on other UK tams and balmorals where regimental badges are attached, as I recall. It had a tourie.

Any idea what his unit might have been?

For history buffs, my unit first deployed overseas as the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Infantry. The best of their day, and they remain so.

In the Canadian military, all of our highland units are now Reserve units, the equivalent of the TA. I have noticed that since our Balmorals (Tams) are now being made with less cloth, there is a distinct tendancy for some soldiers to wear them pulled down in the front much like a flat cap. From a practical point of view, this does shade the eyes from bright sun. Most, however, still tend to form their bonnets with the flap pulled well down on the right side of the head. The great thing about a balmoral is that it permits a certain level of individuality on the part of the soldier while remaining within the uniformity of the unit. No one in a Guards would understand this but for a highland unit, it seems to work well.

[Nathan]

A lot of Nova Scotia Highlanders wore our TOS bonnets like this and, in fact, I did so in one of the first photos I posted on xmarks and raised a lot of eyebrows. They old blue bonnets were often worn forward as well.



I wore mine to the front with a slight cant to the side. Some wore theirs more to the side.

Because the TOS is in three pieces, sometimes an odd wrinkle pops up where the top meets the body if you pull it dramatically to the left like a Balmoral.

[OC Richard]

You mean like this?





The most extreme examples I've seen, like the man on the right above, were in the Royal Highland Fusiliers. The bonnet is blocked up equally on both sides and comes far forward in front.

As opposed to the tiny bonnets of The Black Watch