Medals

Transcript

Voiceover:

Now, in 'A small piece of history', Sam Doty of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.

Sam Doty:

I've got here a medal group. That's the 39-45 Star, the Italy Star, the Defence Medal and the British War Medal. And these are campaign medals awarded to soldiers for just being there, for going to those theatres of war and serving there. You get other medals for acts of bravery or heroism and those are called gallantry medals.

When I first came to the Museum, medals didn't really mean anything to me. They were symbols or badges, but I had no connection to them. Until one day we had an event at the Museum and we'd arranged for some veterans to come in and I saw one of them approaching the front door clutching his chest.

He was quite an old man and was leaning on a stick and his hand was over his heart and I thought, "God, he's having a heart attack." So I ran out to him and, in fact, his medals had started to come off the bar that holds them.

I said, "Well, just give them to me and I'll sew them back on again," because he was there for a parade and he wanted to look his best. And he unhooked them and gave them to me and when I took them from him in my hands it was the first time I really, really understood the connection between what they were and what they meant to him, because he'd won them. You know, he'd fought and he'd served and there they were. And after he was gone they were going to be all that was left, really, to remember him by.

But that's really when these became living things to me. And so now, in the Museum, I always try to tell the stories of medals where I can, really, just to try to make the connection with the people who earned them.