| BMMT

Help Marina Get Back To Her Best

We are raising funds to pay for the restoration of our portrait of Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent (below), an Honorary Colonel of the Buckinghamshire Battalions and their successors.

The work was painted in 1939 by William Acton, a relatively well-known portrait artist of the 1930s, who served in the Pioneer Corps during the Second World War. The painting was presented to the Bucks Battalion after his death in 1945, and hung in the TA Drill Hall in Aylesbury for many years. It was later loaned to the former Bucks County Council and was, until recently, displayed in the old County Hall in Aylesbury.

The years have not been kind to the painting. It has suffered some damage and now needs to be returned to its original condition, as a tribute to Princess Marina herself, and to the men of the Bucks Battalions, including those who gave their lives in battle. This highly-specialised work will cost in the region of £2,300 – a considerable sum for a small charity such as ours. Please help if you can. Any sum, no matter how small, will assist us in ensuring that this precious. piece of Bucks military history lives on for future generations. You can contribute via the Donate button on our homepage or directly at https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/20430#!/DonationDetails

Princess Marina was the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and a first cousin to Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. She became the Honorary Colonel of the First Bucks Battalion in 1938 and held then the Second Battalion soon after the outbreak of war, a position she held jointly with Lord Cottesloe. In 1947, when the Territorial Army was reconstituted in the aftermath of the Second World War, 645 (Bucks) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment replaced the Bucks Battalions, and Princess Marina and Lord Cottesloe remained Joint Honorary Colonels, the latter until his death in 1953, when he was replaced by Colonel R. N. Guest, formerly Honorary Colonel of 480 HAA which had merged with 645 to form 431 LAA. Princess Marina retained her Colonelcy until her death in August, 1968.