The artist and uniform expert, Lt-Col Olaf MacLeod, produced these figures in his book Their Glory Shall Not Be Blotted Out (1986) which was published to illustrate the traditions of the last full dress uniforms of the British Army before they adopted khaki for all orders of dress in 1914. The officer is in the levée order of full dress, wearing medals for the South African War 1899-1902. The Cameron Highlanders were the only Highland regiment to wear red and green hose, the green being in memory of the regiment’s facings before they became the Queen’s Own in 1873, and changed to dark blue facings.
The drummer wears a scarlet doublet decorated with ‘crown and inch’ lace. However there is an error in the colour of the shoulder straps and wings. The straps should be scarlet and the wings blue. The illustration differs from the Ernest Ibbotson painting of 1906 in that the drummer has a white leather apron on his left thigh. The metal drum is painted with the Royal Arms (the lion and unicorn partially obscured) combined with a trophy of arms, and battle honours emblazoned on each side, the Sphinx below the unicorn. Just below the drummer’s left arm can be seen his sporran pushed away to his left hip, and part of the tartan fly hanging behind him.
