Camerons Service Dress at Buckingham Palace

[OC Richard]

Something we're not used to seeing: soldiers doing guard duty at Buckingham Palace in khaki (drab) Service Dress.

The year is 1934 and the regiment is The Cameron Highlanders, and they're relieving the Scots Guards who are in Full Dress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ksx4QbrNng

Full Dress was abolished throughout the army in 1914 never to return for most regiments, with the exceptions of Guards, some regiments' military bands (brass bands) and some regiments' Pipes & Drums.

In 1953 a new Number One Dress was introduced with Archer Green coatees for Highland regiments and blue tunics for the rest, but the scarlet Full Dress may never return.

Note that neither the Camerons nor the Scots Guards are doing the high arm-swing that we Americans associate with the British Army.

A Pipe Band aside, there's been a recent trend of the upper-level civilian Pipe Bands getting larger and the army Pipes & Drums getting smaller.

Around 16 pipers was long normal for military bands and many civilian bands were around that too.

But over the last 20 years civilian Grade One bands have increased to 20 or more pipers and some are around 30 pipers, while army Pipes & Drums have generally shrunk to a dozen or less pipers.

So it's interesting to see The Cameron Highlanders in 1934 marching 20 pipers.

Here are their descendants, the Pipes & Drums of the 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland marching 8 pipers. (Beautifully tuned their pipes are.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlypMpQ5X7A&t=51s

[Silmakhor]

Hrrrrmmm.

That's interesting re: pipe bands getting larger - is it a deliberate attempt to recruit more players, so as to impress judges, or are elite pipers getting more common on the ground?

[OC Richard]

pipe bands getting larger; is it a deliberate attempt to impress judges?

All things being equal, it does seem that judges give the edge to the bigger band.

As we know, the more people playing the same part in unison, the more difficult it is to achieve perfect unison.

There's a musical side to it also: a 30-piper Pipe Corps can perform more sophisticated orchestrations than a 12-piper Pipe Corps can.

or are elite pipers getting more common on the ground?

I think yes, there are simply more Grade One level pipers now that perhaps anytime in the past.

Ditto Grade One level drummers; snare lines of a dozen snares seem common in Grade One nowadays.