Royal Highland Fusiliers Tam O’Shanter

The Scottish Tam O’Shanter headgear was named after a character in a Robert Burns poem, and is often abbreviated as TOS, or referred to as a Tam. It’s graced the heads of many regiments over the years.

This particular tam bears the Makenzie tartan and white hackle of the Royal Highland Fusiliers. The regiment was created in 1959 by the amalgamation of the Royal Scots Fusiliers and the Highland Light Infantry. Today it’s the second battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland.
I purchased this item from a surplus store in Galveston Texas in the late 1980s. In the 60s and 70s the Royal Highland Fusiliers had been in Aden, Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Malaysia, and multiple tours in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles”.

The lining has been cut away, and I presume that was by the soldier. By experience I know American soldiers habitually cut the linings out of their berets, so I figure UK troops might do the same. The hackle wasn’t with the tam when I bought it, and for years I assumed that I needed to find the right regimental badge that would align with the hole in the middle of the tartan backing.

It was only while I was researching for this article that I learned that a white hackle would have been inserted. By sheer coincidence I had the appropriate hackle in one of my boxes of odds and ends! As you can see it lines up perfectly.

Thanks to REMEVMBEA1 over at the British Badge Forum for setting me strait on a couple of points while writing this post.

Chris