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Peter Taylor, of Galloway's Society for the Blind, presents the cap badge to Jane Davies, of The Queen's Lancashire Regiment Museum

A battered and bent badge which once proudly adorned the cap of a wartime Loyal North Lancashire Regiment soldier is to go on public display at the Museum of The Queen's Lancashire Regiment in Fulwood Barracks.

The badge was turned up recently by gardeners working on the lawns of Galloway's Society for the Blind in Howick House, Penwortham. Now it has been presented to the Museum by Galloway's Director Peter Taylor.

The old Loyal North Lancashire Regiment was Preston and Central Lancashire's own infantry regiment. It became part of The Queen's Lancashire Regiment in 1970.

The cap badge itself has little intrinsic value - tens of thousands of them were issued to members of the regiment during its 90 years of existence - but it is to go on special display because of the link that it proves with Preston's wartime history.

"The Museum holds little archival material on our regimental links with wartime Preston," said Jane Davies, curator of The Queen's Lancashire Museum. "However there is good reason to believe that Howick House, now Galloway's Home for the Blind, was a main base for Preston's Home Guard, certainly for the early years of World War II.

"As Preston's own regiment, it is almost certain that the town's Home Guard would have worn Loyal Regiment cap badges. This recent find goes some way towards proving both Howick House's own links with the Home Guard, and the Guard's links with the regiment. We always welcome opportunities to reinforce our links with the local community in our displays."

The badge was found during work in the grounds of Howick House last summer.

"It was just lying there," said Peter Taylor. "To the best of our knowledge, the lawns have never been reworked. It must have been lost when the grounds were used for training during the war. Now after all these years it must have just worked its way up to the surface.

"For us it is an intriguing link with our home's past. We've had many people tell us that Howick House was the Home Guard's base; finding the badge goes some way towards proving it.

"We are particularly delighted that the badge and its story will now be preserved at the Museum where it can be enjoyed by all."

Jane Davies added: "Whoever lost it may well have found himself on a fizzer, and probably got charged for the cost of a new one. He can't ever have dreamed that his little lost badge would one day enjoy such care and attention."

11:14am Friday 28th March 2008

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