Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Owen
Chris,
I don't think I have ever seen a British beret actaully designed for use with a lugged badge. They are all made assuming that a slidered badge will be attached; generally with a leather backing strip to receive the slider. As stated above the soldiery often improvise a stiff backing. (or in the case of the para regt just stick it in the wrong place anyway and wear it like a flat cap......)
Alan
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Alan,
Ref the comment about lugged or not lugged berets. I am not sure whether this particular thread has now expired or not, but I have just spent 2 days in deepest Somerset and managed to get an ex-RM Commando officer to show me his mid-1970's issued Royal Marine berets.
They were both made in the UK and also have the leather piece inside the beret with 2 lug holes provided (there is no sign of a slider mounting) - for the main part of the RM badge - he cannot remember whether he had to make the additional upper 2 holes for the separate crown lugs. Whether this was specially done for the RM's he didn't know. On examining the leather patch, they 2 upper "holes" do appear to be "professionally" done rather than with a pointed instrument... If you want me to post pics, let me know. As an aside, when he was on NI tours, he bent the lugs on the separate crown up (i.e. the badge goes down), so that the crown was closer to the main badge and didn't identify him as an officer to snipers etc. This habit appeared to be fairly common practice.
rgds, david