AMALGAMATION PARADE AT DREGHORN BARRACKS, EDINBURGH

17 SEPTEMBER 1994

(Both sets of colours from 1 QO HLDRS and 1 GORDONS were paraded together on Battalion parades until July 2001 when new Colours for 1 HLDRS were presented by Prince Philip, the Colonel in Chief.)

"On 14 September 1994, The Gordons and The Queen's Own Highlanders met for the final time at Telford's Bridge over the River Spey at Craigellachie. Commanding Officers, Colour Parties, and ceremonial guards from both regiments were accompanied by the massed Pipes and Drums of the Gordons and the Queen's Own Highlanders as they marched over the bridge and vanished into the mists of time. "

The formation of The Highlanders took place on 17 September 1994 at Edinburgh when the 1st Battalion paraded before the Colonel of the Regiment [General Sir Jeremy MacKenzie, KCB, OBE: then Commander of NATO's Rapid Reaction Corps] at Dreghorn Barracks. The regiment represents over two hundred years of pride and tradition through the amalgamation of the Queen's Own Highlanders [Seaforth and Camerons] and the Gordon Highlanders. In turn, the Queen's Own Highlanders were the descendants of three famous Highland regiments raised in the late 18th Century.

At the amalgamation ceremony, members of the Regiment received their new Stag's Head cap badges as their famous old regiments passed into the annals of British military history. The new badge "stag's head carboshed" which formed the principal feature of the Seaforth Highlanders badge is from the Coat of Arms of the MacKenzies of Seaforth, and derives from the old annual feudal reddenda, by the Clan Chief to the Sovereign, of a stag. The Thistle ensigned with the Imperial Crown is the Badge of Scotland as sanctioned in 1707, and granted to the 79th Cameron Highlanders by Queen Victoria in 1873.

The Regiment's motto, Cuidich'n Righ [Help the King] is now the only Gaelic slogan used by the modern Regular Army, and was used from the late 18th Century by the 78th Highlanders and their successors, the Seaforth Highlanders.

Soldiers of the new regiment will be known as Highlanders and wear- with the exception of the Pipes and Drums- the Gordons' kilt.

Because of the importance of the predecessor regiments' tartans (79th MacKenzie of Seaforth, 79th Cameron of Erracht, and 92nd Gordon) to the regiments and their regimental areas, it was decided they must all be perpetuated in the new regiment. This arrangement allows every member of the Highlanders to wear all three tartans as a part of their uniform.

The primacy of the Queen's Own Highlanders cap badge has been balanced by giving equivalent prominence to the 92nd Gordon tartan. Thus, the regiment, less pipers and drummers, will wear the Gordon kilt and a patch of Gordon tartan in their balmoral bonnets (TOS). The entire regiment wears trews (trousers) of the MacKenzie tartan.

Pipers, in addition to the Cameron kilt, wear a plain blue Glengarry headdress with a Golden Eagle's feather and a green doublet trimmed with gold braid wings. A Cameron tartan full plaid covers the doublet. The drummers' uniform is similar with the exception of the headdress- a five-foxtailed feather bonnet.

The new regiment is the holder of over 185 Battle Honours inherited from its predecessors including America 1778-83, Assaye, Egypt, Waterloo, Crimea, Balaclava, Indian Mutiny, Kandahar, Delhi, Tel-el-Kebir, Omdurman, South Africa, North-West Frontier of India, Mons, Loos, Somme, Arras, El Alamein, Kohina, Anzio, Burma, NorthWest Europe 1940 1944-45, Borneo 1963, and The Gulf 1991.

The Highlanders Battle Honours truly represent the military achievements of the British Army throughout history.