"Tam, beret, bonnet... What's the difference?" Topic

…asked the guy who should know better but doesn't!
I have painted many Highlanders in my timem and seeing the thread on painting berets made me suddenly click-think.
Are they basically the same "hat" but with different names at different periods?

Actually they aren't hats. A hat has a brim that goes fully around the body and crown. A cap has a visor in front.
But then again a rose by any other name and all that.

John, I'd say the Tam and Beret are one and the same, the Tam being maybe a bit floppier. The Bonnet I think refers to the "fore and aft" type of cap that some folks show on Rogers Rangers. the Bonnet I think is similar to the "Gorillo" or "Isbellina" worn during the Spanish Civil War.

Bonnet is a generic term, that over time has covered a variety of differing headpieces, including the Glengarry the Tam/ Balmoral and the feathered bonnet typical of full dress (think Waterloo highlanders)

Tams, and the closely related Balmoral are two piece affairs with a crown stitched to a headband, which gave them in pristine state a slightly stiffer look. Modern usage is to mash it down over the eyes for that tough guy from the Gorbals look. The Tam and the Balmoral invariably feature a toorie a little woollen pom pom affair on the top. This is to remind the wearer that, at heart, the Scots are a comical people fond of a wry joke, even at their own expense.

Most modern military berets have a single piece crown stitched at the sweat band and are variously boiled, urinated upon, shaved etc. so as to be worn in a rather tight fashion, at least by professional armies. GIs, pastry cooks and the occasional third world army are the general exceptions to the rule. In the Second World War there was a woollen abomination called the Cap, General Service, AKA The GS cap which bore passing resemblance to a tam or beret but was essentially a stiffened two piece affair. Berets were only worn by Marines, Paras and the RTC.

That help?

Which is the one with the puffball thingy on top?

I always thought Tams and Bonnets featured a prominent pom-pom whiel berets did not (although sometimes they may feature a single, stubby "tassel").

I'm no expert at haberdashery, though. ;)

Shawn.

If you do a Google image search you get the same basic head-cover for all of them. And each seems to have different shapes over the years.
(Except for Tam which is also an airline :)

@Chacrinha: When I was an SP back in the 80s, we'd cut the liner out of a new berets and shower with it in hot water – then we'd step out, adjust the lay of the beret to get the appropriate John Wayne drape (a fold of the beret over the flap, the right edge of the beret down over the right ear, etc.). There were guys who swore by urine, but hot water worked fine for me.

If you didn't remove the linger, the beret would always look puffy – we'd call berets like that "Chef's Hats" and the guys who wore them "Swedes" (after the Muppet's Swedish Chef).

It seems ridiculous now, but we all took it very seriously back then. In those days it was considered a big deal to be in a unit authorized to wear berets, so you wanted to wear them with the proper panache and swagger.

Shawn.

"Except for Tam which is also an airline….."

Even that is now LATAM, at least in an official, group, sense since they merged with LAN. They still market themselves as TAM however.

Thieves often band together.

Exceptions to every rule I suppose Shawn ;-)

To further confuse the OFM, I proffer this:

link

Oh, yeah – definitely not being argumentative. ;) I was just sharing my outrageously out of date experiences with that particular cover.

I say the care we took in shaping our berets seems silly now, but in retrospect, all my caps have to smooth down just so or I'm not happy with them. And don't get me started on the brims and crowns of my fedoras and Stetsons . . . :D

Shawn.

If I might be permitted to add to the confusion, the "fore-and-aft" style bonnet worn by Scots regiments is a Glengarry, and, like the Balmoral/ToS, has a toorie.

The Caubeen is a larger and more rigid version of the beret, worn by Irish regiments. I have only ever seen it worn with a hackle. Berets may be worn wth hackles, e.g. by the Fusiliers, and I gather may also be seen on Balmorals.

Shawn reminded me of the treatment my berets underwent in the late 70s, first in the Navy cadets and then in the Territorial Army. One first cut out the lining and the rigid cap-badge mounting bit, which was quite major surgery, and then soaked the thing in boiling water. It was then shaped on to the head, and permitted to cool while one watched telly or polished boots, with streaks of dye running down one's face from the cooling beret. This process was repeated until the beret was shrunk and shaped to a smooth, snug and aerodynamic fit on the head.

Berets also had good aerodynamic qualities when thrown like frisbees, as the unfortunate recruit would discover when approached by a slightly-more-experienced comrade, who would ask "Would you like to see my rock & roll singer impression?" On the response "OK then, go on", the questioner would grab the victim's beret, throw it as far as possible, and say, "Chuck Beret!"

All the best,

John.

When I got made up to a Rupert I remember my old beret had a material band but the new officer one had a leather one which shrank smaller than my head when I dipped it in the saucepan of hot water, very embarrassing.

Strange you mention third world armies having non shrink berets, I remember seeing an Italian unit with berets the size of a family pizza!

We did the same thing to our berets when I was in a divisional armored cavalry squadron in the later 1970s. They had to fit tight and smooth with the right side touching the top of the right ear. You were laughed at if your beret stuck out straight or puffed up.

Jim

The correct pronunciation of a Highlanders headgear is " bunnet"!

Glengarries are an abomination, and the least practical headgear known to man! Designed to fill with snow or rain and dump it in yer crotch!

The current Canadian fashion for berets is to have them very small and shrunken. Supposedly 'Belgic' fashion. makes it look like bottle cap has been jammed on yer head!

Headgear etiquette is a serious thing. MN caps had to have the stiffener removed, and then be deliberately battered so that they were obviously not Ruperts' caps.

And all true tankies wear their black berets ' a la cow pat ' with the badge centred over the nose and an equal amount of beret on either side, so as not to get in the way of the headphones ;-)

Caubeen means little hat in Irish, and Tam comes from the Robert Burns poem Tam OShanter. The Scots wore a bonnet (like the tune " blue bonnets over the border") They are all types of the same hat, I'd say, a wooly beret with local, regimental and period differences.

Rather like the Macedonian kausia, like that worn now in Afghanistan.
link

Modern-issue berets have a little instruction label on the inside, actually telling you how to do what we've always done to shape them… though with warm water, not urine…! The bands have gone back to being leather in the last ten years, which makes them easier to re-stretch (in the approved fashion, over the knee) when they inevitably shrink.

Tam-o'shanter – Note stitched seam around edge of crown and broad cloth headband:

Caubeen – Again, wide cloth headband and stitched seam around edge of crown. No toorie:

Glengarry:

WW2 General Service (GS) Cap – virtually identical to a caubeen:

The original RTC beret was a MUCH bigger, floppier affair than later berets. Note that unlike the TOS, Caubeen or GS Cap, it lacks the wide headband, having instead a narrow band made of fabric or leather. The crown is now also made of a single piece of felt, rather than two pieces stitched together:

Berets shrank a little during WW2, but were still larger than post-war berets:

In addition to the list given above, there were some other regiments who wore berets. For example, the 11th Hussars had their own 'beret' (actually more of a caubeen, as it has a two-piece crown and wide headband), which had a cherry-red headband and chestnut-brown crown:

Officers of the Scots Greys also wore grey berets during WW2 and officers of one of the other Dragoon regiments (1st Royal?) wore chestnut-brown berets.

A Scots bonnet is like a bigger and floppier version of the modern Tam without the toorie. A bonnet is the thing Civil War reenactors wear when 'being' Covenanters.

Oh, John, it's sometimes tough to imagine you as the Oirishman ye are…..

I wonder how many realize that you're just taking the Mickey out of them.

Eric

Isn't a bonnet what the girlies wear at Easter?

Aye, but a bonnet's no' a bunnet!

Should go back to shakoes!

Is it not the front of a car, the thing that covers the engine,
what the Yanks call a hood?