Lincolnshire Army Cadet Force - Photographs From The Archives

[oc14]

Whilst in at County Headquarters of Lincolnshire Army Cadet Force last week, I managed to have a quick look through some of the scrapbooks/photograph albums. Some interesting displays of insignia, I took a few random images on my phone (apologies for the poor quality of some, I took them on my phone and got some flash on some of them). Anyway, here goes.

It appears that at one time all the cadet units in Lincolnshire Regiment/Royal Lincolnshire Regiment (the Anodised Royal Lincolnshire Regiment badge was certainly worn until at least 1972 - interestingly, at this time the officers were wearing the cap badge of the Royal Anglian Regiment).

In the 1950s the diversity of cap badges started to appear with units adopting the badges of the Royal Artillery and Parachute Regiment.
Photographic evidence(shown below) shows that a red on blue Royal Artillery title was worn above a white on red Lincolnshire title, which in turn was worn above a white on red ACF title. Photographs (that I know were taken in 1953/54) shown cadets still wearing wartime pattern battledress and Caps GS rather than berets).
Cadets and officers wearing the shoulder titles of the Parachute Regiment appear to have worn a white on red "Lincoln" (rather than Lincolnshire) title below the Parachute Regiment title and above an ACF title. Interesting to note that they also wore the Airborne Pegasus Formation badge (these appear to be embroidered). At some time the "Lincoln" title seems to have been dispensed with.
A bit of a mystery is the "Lincolnshire" (not Royal Lincolnshire) ACF title worn above the number "5" - there was never (to my knowledge) a 5th Cadet Company or 5th Cadet Battalion of Lincolnshire ACF.

Hope these are of some interest. I will dig deeper next time I get the chance !

Paul

[oc14]

In the interests of bringing this thread up to date ...
In Lincolnshire ACF we now have EIGHT different cap badges:-
Grenadier Guards
Royal Anglian Regiment
Parachute Regiment
RAMC
RLC
Royal Artillery
Royal Engineers
Royal Lancers

The photograph below brings us right up to date and shows the winning team from the 7 Infantry Brigade "Combat Cadet" Military Skills Competition last weekend - "OC14 Junior" is on the extreme left on the rear row !

Paul

[Peter Brydon]

Marvellous stuff, presumably something similar may be at other County Headquarters, great that this can be recorded as I have heard tales of photos like this being consigned to a skip in the past .

P.

[REME 245]

The three titles are interesting and in contravention of the regulations. The County Title should not be worn when a regimental/Corps one is worn.

We have scrap books as well in the Wiltshire ACF HQ. It was the fashion at one time to retain news paper clipping's and photograghs etc but unfortunately ours have not been updated for many decades. They should be placed in the care of their County Records Offices if their security cannot be guaranteed and also to allow access.

Unfortunately due to ignorance a lot of valuable stuff does get thrown out including recently when our stores were reorganised. This included 2 bin liners full of Rank Slides some of which dated back many years which were just burnt. There is a well known story of a County within the Wessex region which burnt a quanity of 1908 pattern webbing belts inorder to weigh in the brass!

Every County should have a History Officer and luckerly our current Commandant has a real interest in our Counties history.