Cadet Colours

These are old files and probably some of my oldest flag designs. Between the ages of 12 to 18 I was a member of the Army Cadet Force. I noticed a few flags in my time with the ACF. I will start with flags/banners/colours used or in use. Firstly is the National Banner of the Army Cadet Force. This is a pennant used to represent the ACF at national occasions like the National Remembrance Service. I had the hounour of marching behind it at the Royal Review of the Cadet Forces in 2010, when selected cadets marched to Buckingham palace to mark 150th Aniversary of the Cadet Movement. Here is a clip of the banner at that event.

 

The insigna in the canton of the banner is the badge of ACF Colonel n Chief HRH Duke of Edinburgh.

The standard design of camp flag (flag flown from buildings and flag poles in camp) is normally a blue and red flag with the ACF badge in the middle:

               

This is not a standard flag and camp flags might vary from unit to unit but most camp flags are based on this standard design. The flag I saw most in my cadet career was the 1st (Northern Ireland) battalion camp flag. This differed from the standard design as it was a green and red field with the local NI ACF badge rather than the National one. It also had the Roman Numeral 'I' in the canton as we were the 1st Battalion. 2nd (NI) battalion used the same design except the 'I' was a 'II.' 

You can see the flag flying from our climbing tower at one of many public events we took part in below. 

The Battalion Colour was almost exactly the same as the camp flag except the local NI ACF red hand and shamrock badge was moved to the upper fly and replaced with the National ACF badge. 

Most of the time this and the National Colour (which is simply a union flag) were hung up in the officer's mess. But when the battalion or a company of the battalion were on parade and watched by the public, then the colours came out. Here are some images of the colours on parade: 

National colour on left side of pic, battalion on right

The national colour is not here as there is more than one organisation on parade and the senior organisation's union flag is being used (only one union flag is needed for the whole parade) 

Normally cadets train at weekends and normally only one company at a time throughout Northern Ireland is mustered. The battalion flag is used for a company both camp flag and colour, all of the above picture are of a company on parade rather than the battalion. This is were the flag designs begin. These designs were only for my amusement and are not actual flags in use. The first flag is a company camp flag. My company was B Company which covered both Derry City and County Londonderry. 

This would be the standard for all companies. The only things that would change would be the letter in the canton (1st Bn had four companies A,B,C and D) and the colour of the field itself. Yellow was the colour of B Coy, we wore yellow flashes on our arm, our luggage was identified with yellow tabs when the battalion trained as a battalion on mainland UK. 

A company colour came next. This would be the same size as the battalion colour and would only be used when the company was the only ACF unit on parade. Otherwise the battalion colour would be used.

Again it is in the company colour. It is based on the battalion colour. The regional badge has been moved to the bottom fly. and it has more text on it as is common with military style colours.

I didn't stop there though. The Company is broken down into detachments. Every detachment meets one night a week in a local meeting place. Each Detachment is sponsored by a TA or Regular Army unit. As well as being part of the Batalion the detachment is part of the regimental family of its sponsor unit, and would ware the badge and headdress, rank system and carry the traditions of that unit. 

You can probably guess what is coming. I designed Detachment colours. Now these would be about a quarter the size of the company colour, and more like the national banner I mentioned first. They would not be carried on parade the same way the battalion or company colours would, but be more like markers on the parade square.

The first colour I designed was for my own detachment Lisneal Guard  sponsored by the Irish Guards.

The detachment colours had two different sides. On the main side was the badge of the sponsor unit, which would also be the badge worn in the beret or caubeen. In the Canton is the ACF badge and under that is "B 1NI" meaning B coy 1st NI Battalion. This would be the same on all detachment colours. on the reverse is a unique badge to the detachment and the coat of arms of either the city or county. There are a few exceptions but normally infantry detachments have a green colour and corps detachments a blue colour. Lisneal Guard  being a 'Foot Guards' detachment has a crimson colour. Although I did design another one to denote their Guards status.

The Blue, Red, Blue bars of the household division that are worn behind the badge on a guards beret. The Irish Guards badge on the colour. The Royal arms of Ireland on the reverse. Being from the city they have the city of Londonderry coat of arms on the reverse. 

Next up is Caw Detachment RLC. caw is sponsored by 125 (Ulster) Transport Reg which was a regiment of the Royal Logistics Corps. They have the red hand of Ulster as their badge and are from the city.

Drumahoe Detachment RIR are sponsored by the Royal Irish Regiment. RIR sponsored detachments wore the Irish caubeen rather than a beret. Their badge is a sea horse which is an animal which often appears in Irish mythology. They are from the city.

Newbuildings Detachment RIR are also sponsored by the Royal Irish Regiment. Their badge is a Celtic cross. They are from the city. 

Eglington Troop RAMC are sponsored by 253 (North Irish) Medical Reg of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Their badge is a flax flower and they are from the city. The RAMC has the most Victoria Crosses and members of this detachment can wear a crimson flash behind the badge in their beret to denote this fact. That is why they have a red colour. 

That is the city of Derry done, now for the other towns of the county.

Coleraine Detachment (RA) is sponsored by 206 (Ulster Battery) Regiment of the Royal Artillery. They have the county arms in the canton of their colour and have St Patrick's Saltire as their badge.

Garvagh Detachment RIR is sponsored by the Royal Irish Regiment. They have the county coat of arms on their colour, and their badge is the bagpipe, prominent in North Irish military music as well as some traditional Irish and Ulster-Scots music. 

Last but not least is Limivady Troop RSig. Limivady is sponsored by 40 Ulster (North Irish Horse) Signal Squadron, Royal Signals Corps. They have the county arms and the shamrock as their badge. B Coy also has another detachment Ballymony in Co Tyrone. But as this detachment was not part of the company when I was a cadet and  when I designed these flags it is not included. 

I also designed special officer colours for Lord Lieutenants. There are two one for the city of Londonderry and one for the county. He or She often represents the monarch at public events and historically raised militias. The L.Lt picks a cadet to assist him/her in public duties and often attends cadet parades as an inspecting officer or guest of honour, so it seems right they should have a colour to mark their place. 

Their colour has the arms of the city/county they are responsible for on one side and a gold shamrock topped by a crown on the other. This comes from their cap badge they ware on their uniform. 

Lord Lt for the city of Londonderry.

And Lord Lt for the county of Londonderry

All the designs for company and detachment flags are my own. I was a young teen when I designed them so sorry if the quality isn't great. Comments Welcome.

City of Natal

My friend from the Flags Forum Leonardo Piccioni published on his blog some ideas for a new flag of Natal. Natal is the state capitol of the Brazilian state Rio Grande do Norte. The current flag is below:

The Coat of arms has a meaning. Natal means Christmas, reflecting on the date the city was founded. The star design appropriately depicts the star of Bethlehem, The biblical star that led the magi to the infant Jesus Christ. Leonardo noticed some Brazilian heraldic rules were broken by these arms. Acording to him they are as fallowed: 

• The mural crown shows nine visible towers, while, by a standard inherited from Portuguese settlers, a city should use a mural crown with five visible towers.
• Being Natal the capital city of  Rio Grande do Norte, this mural crown should be golden, in recognition of this special status.
• The coat of arms is placed in a English shield shape, while a Spanish escutcheon should be rather used.

The obvious solution is a banner of the coat of arms but where would the fun be in that?

Leonardo's design simply corrects these errors:

designed by  Leonardo Piccioni

I have taken this further and made a couple of new designs. The first designs feature both a simple version of the arms showing only the shield and a version with the full coat of arms. 

The first one takes the colours of the current flag and forms a green and white vertical field rather than horizontal with the arms at the hoist separating the two colours. 

The next design really is based on the current flag with the arms moved towards the hoist which I think works better when the flag is in use than if they were in the centre. 

The next flag is based on the American stars and bars flag. but with the bars changed to green and white and the banner of the coat of arms in the canton. 

Again I took this one step further with moving the banner of Natal to where the white bar is and placeing the state flag in the canton. Now the state flag I used is not the official state flag but a proposed replacement designed by Leonardo. The reasons I used this are:

1. In my opinion it is better than the current flag.
2. It works better in my flag than what the current state flag does.

I also thought when making this why stop at state? Why not put the Brazil flag in?

The problem I have with this is that the Brazil flag is too complicated and the colours don't work, but this can easily be corrected. 

In this design I simplified the Brazil flag by removing the stars and the text. and changed the blue in the field to match that in the canton. I did not change the green as I think it works better with too shades to make the canton stand out from the flag. 

All designs are mine unless stated otherwise. Comments are appreciated. :)

Londonderry Flag

This idea really only came to me from a post on a different blog about a new flag for the city of Liverpool. Being a Liverpool FC fan I thought I would have ago too. Then I thought about what about my own city Londonderry? Londonderry(aka Derry, Dorie(Irish) Lunnonderrie/Derrie(Scots) the walled city and the maiden city) is one of the most ancient and historic places in Ireland. It is Northern Irelands second city and is set to be the first ever UK city of culture in 2013, so it seems right we should have a decent flag. The flag currently flown over the Derry City Council offices (not the Guildhall where council sits which has no flag pole) is this:

This is a very simple flag with two main features, the city coat of arms and the crimson field. I will explain both.

First off the coat of arms. the most ancient part of the arms consist of a black shield with a skeleton sitting on a mossy stone with a castle in the background. No one really knowns the origin of these.  

• A suggestion has been made that the castle is related to an early 14th century castle in nearby Greencastle belonging to the Anglo-Norman Earl of Ulster Richard de Burgh.

• The most popular theory about the skeleton is that it is that of a Norman De Burgh knight who was starved to death in the castle dungeons in 1332 on the orders of his cousin the above mentioned Earl of Ulster. Another explanation put forward was that it depicted Cahir O'Doherty (Sir Charles O'Dogherty), who was put to death after Derry was invested by the English army in 1608. 

In 1979, Londonderry City Council, (before the council changed its name,) commissioned a report into the city's arms and insignia, as part of the design process for an heraldic badge. The published report found that there was no basis for any of the popular explanations for the skeleton and that it was "purely symbolic and does not refer to any identifiable person"

The next cheif of the arms bears the arms of the city of London. It was the London Guilds who funded the reconstruction and plantation of the city and the building of new walls(which still stand today) and a new charter in 1613. (hence the name Londonderry). A Harp was added to the centre of the cross, this is sometimes forgot about, and in the past has been dropped completely.  In 2002 Derry City Council applied to the College of Arms to have the harp restored to the city arms, and Garter and Norroy & Ulster Kings of Arms accepted. The harp sometimes appears on top of the shield. In Loyalist and Unionist interpenetration's a crown might appear on top of the arms both with and without a harp. Although no crown was ever offically added to the official armsThe motto Vita Veritas Victoria is Latin for life truth victory. . The cities arms are often flanked with flags,banners and weapons. Below is a carving from inside the city Guildhall it depicts cannon, swords spears and muskets and colours flanking the shield. the four flags in this case are a British red ensign representing that Londonderry is a port. the blue flag with gold harp is a traditional flag of Ireland, and the dark crimson ones in the background I will come to next.

 

The Crimson flag is also part of the Derry tradition. To understand it you need to know that in 1689 the city withstood over 100 days of siege. It was the third and last attack on the walls(which have never been breeched hence the maiden city) During this conflict a crimson emblem was displayed on the walls and later on the Cathedral as a symbol of defiance to the attackers. It features in George Folingsby's painting the Relief of Derry symbolising relief ships lifting the siege. It is belied to have been dipped in blood hence the crimson colour. This colour is known as 'Derry Crimson' and the colour of school blazers, council vehicles

   and the sashes of the Apprentice Boys of Derry Clubs who hoist the crimson banner on the Cathedral and carry it as a colour at the anniversaries of the shutting of the gates and relief celebrations every year.

Top: Crimson Flag flown from St Columbs Cathedral the establish city cathedral (there is a second Roman Catholic one outside the walls) Above Bottom: a crimson Apprentice Boys flag.

The city of culture flag looks like this flown from the Derry-Londonderry round the world race yacht as you can see it is rather operate so I believe we need a better flag to show the world.: 

Not wanting to abandon the coat of arms or the crimson banner I decided to use both I used a banner of the arms in the council logo:

I used a design similar to the flag of City of Dublin shown below:

 

As you can see a banner of the arms appears in the canton of the design. My designs are below:

 Arms in canton

Arms at hoist

This is a little bare so I added the red hand of ulster 

However I don't think it works so a harp on a blue shield seed logical as it is another shield often seen in the Guildhall. 

The problem with these shields are that it might say Ireland, Northern Ireland or Ulster but not Derry. so I needed a badge and walking in Guildhall square I saw it on the walls. 

An oak leaf symbolising the city origins with a bastion symbolising the ancient walls. I incorporated it in the flags

I also made an elongated version for use as street banners on lampposts: 

The new designs belong to me. All comments welcome