Side hat badge, Assam Valley Light Horse, 1940 circa (brass)

Side hat badge, Assam Valley Light Horse, 1940 circa. Brass badge with a King’s Crown over unit monogram ‘AVLH’, with scroll bearing the unit’s motto, ‘Semper Paratus’, meaning ‘Always Ready’. The Assam Valley Light Horse was formed as a volunteer corps and auxiliary regiment based in Assam. The majority of those in the regiment were tea planters from the Assam Valley. The unit was founded on 25 September 1896 when the regiment’s name was changed from the Assam Valley Mounted Rifles (an amalgamation of the Lakhimpur Mounted Rifles, Sibsagar Mounted Infantry, Sibsagar Mounted Rifles, Darrang Mounted Rifles, Nowgong Mounted Rifles, and Gauhati Rifles). In 1911 the regiment sent a detachment, comprising one officer and 12 men operating a maxim gun, to fight against the Abors in Assam on the North-Eastern Frontier of India. It was here that the regiment received the nickname ‘Lumsden’s Lambs’ because they were often up against it but ‘never bleated’. From the Field Marshal Sir John Chapple Indian Army Collection.