Sandhurst gorget
 

I have a white gorget patch to RMA Sandhurst and I have a query concerning the surface of the patch as a white paint or paste has been applied over it. Is it perhaps normal for the white fabric (which may have lost its whiteness) to be subject to a form of blancoing? I would think not but I have such an item.

GTB

About half-way through my time at RMA Sandhurst (1961-1963) we changed from blancoed gorget patches to white plastic covered ones. It was, I recall, a gradual change, not an instant overnight one. Mike

Blancoing the patches white when they got dirty was a common practice as this example from an RMAS Battledress illustrates. The cloth ones were eventually replaced by woven plastic ones which were easier to keep clean as the WRAC example shows.

Jon

Thanks both. Learnt something else.

Jon, your left-hand scan is a spitting image of my patch, which is blurred

GTB

Glad to help.

Jon

In the Liverpool University OTC earlier felt like cloth gorgets were replaced by plastic ones but the differences are not that clear in the attached photo.

P.B.