What was lost is found ...... family stories from a war.

I never expected to see my uncle’s war medals again.

The medals, 2018

They were entrusted to me by my grandmother and long ago I thought I had lost them.

But they have turned up as part of our family history in the possession of our Jillian.

As I write I am looking at the four and what I had never realized before is that only two belonged to Uncle Roger leaving the other two a mystery.*

Now in my defence I was only something like 11 when Nana handed them over, which for me at least was too young to appreciate their significance.

At the time uncle Roger was a name, a handful of pictures and a cause for great sadness.

Nana never talked about him and mother never lost her anger at the decision to send him to the Far East when she believed the Government knew he would be captured.

Uncle Roger, 1938

He had observed the Manchester Blitz, travelled by convoy to South Africa, and then through the Suez Canal where he witnessed the Fall of Greece and after a short spell in Egypt and Iraq was shipped out to the Far East where he was captured by the Japanese and died in one of their prisoner of war camps.

It took me years to piece together the story of his life and the more I learnt, the more I felt uneasy at my negligence at losing the medals.

But what I thought was lost is no longer but has led to a family mystery.

Of the four medals, two are the 1939-45 War Medal, one is the Burma Star and the last is the France and Germany Star.

Of these I can be fairly confident that one of the 1939-45 medals and the Burma Star are his, but the other two will be someone else in the family.

Mother, 1941

Now mother served in the RAF and so I am guessing the other 1939-45 medal will have been awarded to her, but that just leaves the France and Germany Star.

The only relative to have served in France and Germany was my uncle Fergus but his medals will have stayed with his side of the family.

All of which makes for that mystery.

And as these things do, the story points up the fragility of family memorabilia.

What was cherished by one generation becomes just “stuff” for the next and within another few decades is lost or discarded.

Uncle Roger and mother circa 1939

So I am pleased that I have been reunited with the medals, more so because it fulfils the promise I made to Nana.

Leaving me only to reflect on another promise I made to her, which was never to have a tattoo.

And while three of our children have chosen to have tattoos, I have steadfastly refused, less because of what is entailed but simply because of that promise I made sixty years ago.

Location; 1938-45

Pictures; war medals, 1938-45 and pictures of Uncle Roger and mother, 1939-43, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Which just leaves the mystery of the ribbons.  Two belong to the War Medals, but the ribbon in RAF colours belongs to the 1939-45 Star which is missing from the collection