Today’s postcard is a fine portrait of a soldier from the Royal Army Medical Corps with and officer form the Boys’ Brigade taken during the Great War:

The back of the postcard reads:

To Private L Pickles. With best wishes for a happy Xmas. From:- The officers of the 10th Halifax Co. Boys Brigade

This suggests to me that the soldier in the postcard is indeed the eponymous Private Pickles and the Boys’ Brigade connection explains the civilian next to him wearing a glengarry and holding a swagger stick. Private Pickles looks an older man so it is likely he was a fellow Boys’ Brigade instructor. He is now serving in the RAMC as witnessed by the cap badge:

And the Red Cross armband worn on his sleeve:

Interestingly, he also wears a brown leather belt, very similar to the 1888 pattern belt more normally seen in white:

It perhaps makes sense that this man has joined the RAMC as there was a strong Christian element to the Boys’ Brigade and although many of its members did serve in the military, it was not as obviously preparing them for a military life in the more overt way the Scouts were at this time period so medical services would have been appealing to those of great faith as it involved saving rather than taking lives.