What are they up to?

[Snapper]

While we are on the subject of medals in another post in this sector; you might be interested in the story of my father in law, Jim. He is eighty-five and served in the Merchant Navy from 1939-46 before eventually leaving Scotland to come down to the Smoke to join the Metropolitan Police in 1947. He went through the whole "Blue Lamp" era. I digress... Anyway, a year ago the MoD or somesuch bunch announced that Merchant Navy veterans could apply for one of the new fangled veterans badges that are doing the rounds. He had to fill out a special form outlining his service and then waited some time before they told him he qualified and just this month he got his badge. It is superb, an MOD emblem for the three services backed by a bright Red Ensign. The point being how the forces were always backed up by the MN. Good eh...well no, actually, because Jim is unimpressed. He only got his badge because out of six years of war he had spent the minimum 18 months required to qualify for it directly in service alongside His Majesty's Armed Forces. Because he had served on a troop ship during the evacuation from Greece in 1941 (his story about the Indian Lewis gunners on the Khadive Ismail trying to shoot down Stukas is a gem)

and had also spent time on an ammunition ship sitting off Bombay harbour for several months he got his badge. For the rest of his service, doing the Atlantic convoys and dodging submarines in the Indian ocean and on the perillous bauxite runs from the Caribbean he would have got nothing. So all those blokes who only did that sort of stuff and never came under any form of military control or patronage do not get this badge. My uncle Edward, a GM winner in 1940, would not have qualified. So, who thought that one up and what were the reasons. It is hard, sitting here with snowdrops drifting down across my screen, to think of a charitable reason as we approach the Season of Goodwill to All Men (Who Qualify).