Douglas Anderson’s paintings of military uniforms are well known and his output is prodigious, especially of Scottish uniforms. This illustration is from his book Scots in Uniform (Holmes McDougall 1972). The accompanying text, written by Anderson, includes this:
‘In 1961 the regiment amalgamated with the Seaforth Highlanders to form the Queen’s Own Highlanders. The painting, however, shows a Colour Sergeant of the 4/5th Bn The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (TA) in No,1 Dress.
‘When a new uniform for ceremonial occasions was proposed after the war it was hoped by many that the old British red coat would reappear. Not only did this not happen but the style of uniform was altered too. In the case of the Highland regiments, it must be admitted, some effort was made to display the tartan properly and the previous doublet with “Inverness” flaps was replaced by a short coatee with squared-off tails. If the “piper green” colour was a bit disappointing at least the bonnet, tartan stockings and white belt and spats brightened it up so that the general opinion in the Highland Brigade was that “it might have been worse”. The coat tails were decorated with turn-backs in cloth of regimental facing colour each with three buttons and for Other Ranks there was a white piping on collars and cuffs. Collar badges were worn and badges of rank were in gold on the right sleeve only. The red sash was worn as before by ranks of sergeant and above.’
Anderson does not explain why this soldier has a goat-hair sporran rather than the small white ‘bald’ sporran worn by Highlanders since the 1950s. Photos of Highland Regiments in 1964 show the white sporran still being worn by all ranks. It is also a pity that the rank badges are not shown clearly as his rank of Colour Sergeant has three stripes and a badge above the stripes (a crown?). The sergeant wears medals for service in WW2 and he has a white (plastic?) belt with a rectangular clasp that has the Camerons’ badge, which is also on his sporran and on his bonnet. It is not made clear why this soldier is still a Cameron Highlander two years after amalgamation with the Seaforths. For some reason, Anderson has chosen to depict contemporary Territorial Army uniforms instead of regulars, which may explain the fact that they do not conform to the re-formed regular units.
