Tony Farrell

To regiment-specific collectors, finding these Militia long runners - and the equally hard-to-source Special Reserve issue - is a rare occurrence. Well spotted. Please send my condolences to your wallet!

Out of the nine awarded to date, one goes to a chief executive, one is to a director, two are to assistant directors, two go to heads of departments, one to a development officer and the remaining two have been awarded to... PARAMEDICS! It really should be the other away around. These medals should be for outstanding service at the coalface, to the men and women up to their wrists in guts on frozen motorways at 3am, and not to managers and bean counters who've never seen the inside of an ambulance. There are other awards to reward managerial prowess, like MBEs etc. The QAM will simply become a QPM/QFSM clone to reward well-salaried upper management with the odd token worker ant thrown in for good measure.

Steve, your medal looks fine.

They were struck in both silver and bronze in two sizes: 26mm and 56mm. The obverse and reverse designs are the same as used on the central circlet of the scarce Mayors & Provosts issues.

I'm seeing an NGS (Syria), a St. Jean d'Acre, a Crimea and a Turkish Crimea.

It was decided to introduce a revised ribbon to reflect the differing criteria and to denote repeated tours in the post-Banner era.

Unless there have been very recent amendments to the regulations (that I'm unaware of), then no: military service is inadmissible towards the emergency services' long service medals - either police, fire or ambulance. There are, however, quite a lot of oft-repeated myths that get bandied about - usually by those in positions of some seniority, which in turn lends the myths credibility.

What a way to spend one's birthday! :unsure:

Hell's teeth! A fine, fine piece of family history you have there.

The reason being that Supplementary Reserve and AER officers were not volunteers (territorials) - rather reservists under Regular Army authority. Whilst the ERD looks like an Efficiency Decoration (TD/ED), it is a totally seperate award. It was born out of the whinge that the ORs received the Efficiency Medal (Militia), yet the officers received no equivalent award, as there was no Militia variant of the Efficiency Decoration, due to the policy of not rewarding regular officers with long service medals. As an aside, the post-nominals 'VD' continued to be used for the colonial & Indian officers' decorations after the discontinuance of the Volunteer Decoration in the UK.

The post-nominals for the decoration are ERD.

The use of Commonwealth awards effectively ceased upon the declaration of republic in September 1987 and there appears to have been no system in place until 1995. One would imagine medals to be low priority during that turbulent period. Interestingly, whilst the RFP dropped the 'Royal' prefix, it retained the crown on its badge. Fiji is also unusual in that it continues to utilise the union flag in the quarter - the only republic to do so.

The bronze medal you mention sounds like (and probably is) the more familiar pre-'34 medal. Whilst these were also awarded in silver, the other medal you mention could well be the elusive post-colonial medal that was introduced after Mauritius became independent in '68. That's the one I'm interested in, as there's scant information on it. This medal closely resembles the Colonial Police LSM - with only minor inscription differences. Do you remember any details regarding the ribbon or naming style?

The Colonial Police LSM would have been inappropriate to India, as it was not a colony. Long serving Indian policemen were rewarded with pensions, titles and land prior to the introduction of the IPM, Title Badges and the KPM. A dedicated long service medal - a useful (and respected) token elsewhere - was (thus) pretty superfluous.

I would be very interested to hear if any members have any of the below awards in their collection. These are post-independence pre-republic awards that were in use between 1970 and 1987 (or thereabouts). Fiji Police Medal for Meritorious Service Fiji Police Long Service & Good Conduct Medal

I would be very interested to hear if any members have any of the below awards in their collection. These are post-independence pre-republic awards that were in use between 1968 and 1992. This request concerns the Commonwealth realm period only. Mauritius Police Long Service & Good Conduct Medal Mauritius Fire Services Long Service & Good Conduct Medal Mauritius Prisons Service Long Service & Good Conduct Medal

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MSMs were swivelling until 1926, whereupun fixed suspenders were introduced until the mid-1950s.

Please do. New thread though.

I cannot see how anyone could squeeze that amount of military service in and do enough time in the Civil Service to receive an ISO. The last ribbon looks like a sun-faded St. John grade, though what precisely I have no idea. Without the ISO, 35 & 77 Jubilees, GSM62 and UNFICYP then this ensemble would be plausible, but their inclusion (for me) makes this an unrealistic throw together.

The GV 'Field Marshal's bust' was replaced by the short-lived 'coinage' (uncrowned) effigy. This was used on the Army MSM from 1932-36. Why the change? Not entirely sure, but it was not the only issue to undergo an obverse design change around this time. I would imagine it was something to do with updating worn dies. The crowned effigy of George V, or 'robed bust' was not used on the (UK) Army MSMs.

The answer is on the button: The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). The RAF pin is a 'sweetheart brooch'. Both are in the wrong forum. I'm not being anal, it's just that placing queries in appropriate forums garners quicker (and probably more accurate) responses.

Well... should you come across any more on your travels I'm absolutely positive you'll have no problem moving them on. ;)

To find an RAF Levies Iraq LS&GC is quite something. To find it with another named medal to the same individual is simply... awesome. I suspect there's a 39-45 War Medal missing, but that group needs mounting up in all its glory. I take it you're in Iraq?

Yes, it's very much drifted in to the African section. One can understand why such confusion occurs though. It's the 'independence' bit that causes headaches - most assuming that it means what it says on the tin. Independence, in this case, was initially administrative and latterley constitutional - the Independent Commonwealth Realms being all but dominions and continuing to use the Imperial system - or at least using it to compliment their own indigenous awards. Declaration of a Republic severs the constitutional link, though some remain within the Commonwealth as Commonwealth Republics. Thanks for posting the images though. Always interesting to see.