OFFICERS at a Preston barracks had an art attack after commissioning a special commemorative painting.

The oil painting now adorning the walls of the Officers' Mess at Kimberley Barracks, Deepdale Road, Preston, depicts a scene from the famous campaign for the Relief of Ladysmith which took place in January 1900 during the Boer War. The Battle of Spion Kop was commissioned by the Colonel of the Lancastrian and Cumbrian Volunteers (LCV), Lieutenant Colonel David Sanderson, and painted by South African-born artist Jason Askew who knows the landscape where the battle took place.

Colonel Sanderson said: "I commissioned the painting because I wanted to commemorate the distinguished past history of the three regiments that now comprise the LCV. The antecedents of each of the three units fought at the battle of Spion Kop." The LCV, formed in 1999, is an amalgamation of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, and retains a platoon of Fusiliers.