General Chat

A Burma Star belonging to a relative.

Weren't there some medals out today at the memorial events on the television?

And quite rightly so.

I haven't yet watched our recording of today's events, but caught a short snippet on the news.

I'm guessing my nephew has Dad's medals. I'll have to ask.

you're right Sharon - a lady was wearing her father's medals - he died last month in his nineties

my Dad was an engineer so not called up

my husband actually did active service in Malaya [Kuala Lumpur] during his National Service in Singapore and I have his medal - a general service medal

One of our relatives has his Dad's medals. They are professionally mounted and framed.

They didn't seem to make much of their own medals did they?

I played with them,as did so many others who had had dads in the war.

It is our generation who have started to value them.

Fred kept, or, rather,left,his in the box they came in,stowed away in a drawer.

I thought about having them put on a pin together or, indeed, mounted and framed, butI feel that it is somehow, not my decision to do that. They were his medals and not mine.

Unfortunately his were awarded after his death on the Burma Railway whilst a POW. My Dad did not get any medals as he was in the AFS during the Blitz. But if he had I would have loved to get the framed and hung as a memory of his service.

Are you sure he was not entitled to anything?

I think it might be worth having a look.

If he was, my so called Mother would have had them so they were either given to my so called perfect sister or else she got rid of them after he passed away.

I am sure you could get copies if they were important to you but you will your own ways, as we all do, to keep your good memories.

Maybe I could Sharron, I may well look into that. I will always hold his memory with me he was such a lovely kind man, I will never understand why he stayed with the Evil one. :-(. He spent as much time away from her as he could, that I do remember.

I think it was because there was a stigma to divorce in those days and,almost without exception,custody of the children was awarded to the mother.

He would probably have found it hard to prove grounds as well as lose his children.

We forget that life is not the same.

My aunt-by-marriage burnt my grandfather's WW1 medals, photographs, documents, etc etc after her husband died in 1991 .......... she never asked me or my nieces whether they wanted them. Just got rid of everything to dot with THAT family :-(

Grandfather never talked about his war service, and I'm gradually discovering that he was in the Machine Gun Corp

My dad was in secure occupation during WW2, he didn't get any medals, nor did he ever talk about it, so I have no idea what he actually did, except that it was in our home town.

My grandfather was sent a white feather.

He was forty at the start of WW1 and working as a shepherd.

I suppose I can understand somebody with a son who was not much more than a boy or a husband with dependant children fighting at the front being resentful of a grown single man not fighting but he was producing food on a farm with a greatly reduced workforce.

My grandfather was sent a white feather.

He was forty at the start of WW1 and working as a shepherd.

I suppose I can understand somebody with a son who was not much more than a boy or a husband with dependant children fighting at the front being resentful of a grown single man not fighting but he was producing food on a farm with a greatly reduced workforce.

I think anyone who refused to go to war was incredibly brave to stand by their principles

Sharron ...............

that is shameful. I thought agricultural workers were exempt?


My grandfather was called up in 1915, he was 31 when he was mobilized in 1916, with 3 children.

They were indeed but he didn't refuse, he could not be spared.

My late Dad got the Burma Star, he had four medals in total and after he died Mum gave two to my nephew and two to my son but what annoyed me was she let my nephew pick his two first. I don't know which ones my son has as they are packed away somewhere, but to let 7 yr olds choose seemed a bit silly.

Lizx

My grandfather was officially stationed in Ceylon and India with the 19th Daggers. He was awarded a Burma Star. My father has all his dad's medals.

It is a shame that we have them but very little opportunity to show them off.

All we can do is attend Rememberance Day services wearing them on the right, not that Fred ever attended anything wearing them on the left!

Most of them just wanted to get on with life and not dwell upon what they had experienced and those medals are more fo us than for them.

I am sure my Uncle Jack would rather have had his fingers than the medal he had for losing them in Burma.