A box of slides handed to the Ballarat Ranger Military Museum has unearthed a 50-year-old part of our military history.
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Museum manager Major Neil Leckie received the images last week. Looking through them he realised one packet contained photos taken at the 'Presentation of Colours' to Royal Victorian Regiment (RVR) battalions.
The three regiments - 2 RVR, 5 RVR and 6 RVR - received new colours at the Melbourne Showgrounds on October 19, 1969.
Ballarat's 8/7 RVR (then 2 RVR) in receiving new colours, replaced the 8th Battalion colours which it had previously carried.
Colours are the flags of a military unit such as a regiment or battalion which contain their battle honours, the achievements of troops in battle.
Major Leckie says the last time British Imperial colours were carried into an actual battle was 26 January 1881 when the 58th Foot (later the 2nd Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment) fought at Laing's Nek during the First Boer War in South Africa.
The 8th Battalion Colours were 'layed up' or retired into the Ballarat Town Hall on November 2 1969. Reports in The Courier had 400 members of the public turning up to watch a guard of honour and 80 ex-members of the battalion, which had served with distinction in two world wars, hand over the guidons.
As 'living records' of the history of the military units, the old colours are venerated as possessing the spirit of the troops who served under them and are never destroyed.
The 8th Battalion colours still hang in the Trench room at Town Hall.