This started off as a piece for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire, but it isn’t really about numismatics, it’s about a badge. However, it’s flat and stamped out of metal so I thought it was close enough.
It all started about 35 years ago when Julia and I were walking through Nottingham when we were stopped by a charity collector. They were selling these badges and as we collected badges and were generally interested in helping charity, we ended up with a couple of badges on cards, which we stuck in a box and forgot. One emerged recently as we were packing to move house. I’m not sure what happened to the other one.
Somewhere there must be someone who will one day write a thesis on “Clutter, Stuff and the Migration of Things”. Until that happens, it will probably remain a mystery.
It has been slightly re-written (even I am not lazy enough to drop a complete post from one thing to another) to appeal to a wider audience than a bunch of coin collectors. My interjections will be in a different font to the one used for the original article, partly to differentiate them from the original article, and partly because it’s easier than messing around with the fonts.
At one time, the world was quite keen on peace and the USA and USSR actually went as far as withdrawing nuclear missiles from service in an attempt to make the world a safer place. This badge comes from those days. It is made using metal reclaimed from Russian SS20 and American Pershing II missiles and, according to the wording of the card “symbolizes the historic changes now taking place”. It’s not actually a coin or medallion, though it is a flat piece of metal, so shares some of the features of a medallion. It’s a badge, in the form of a flat disc with a straight pin and clutch fastener on the back.
At this point I will interject to point out that back in 1992 the idea that Russia invading a European neighbour, AI and all its associated dirty tricks, and the idea of a bunch of billionaire Bond villains seizing the White House had only ever occurred in film and science fiction.
If life continues to imitate art, how long will it be, I wonder, before we are over-run by Zombies or invaded by Mars. Anyone want to work on a screenplay ICE Meets the Martians?
This one, like the one illustrated on the Imperial War Museum website is on its original numbered card. The number on the IWM example is 192,956 (and one on eBay had the number 195, 315) so it’s fair to say they weren’t rare at the time, though I suspect many have been thrown away over the years. It was issued by The Memorial Fund For Disaster Relief which lists a London address, and says its Chairman was Group Captain Lord Cheshire VC, OM, DSO, DFC. He was, in fact, not just the Chairman, but the founder. He is probably better known in charitable circles, as Leonard Cheshire, founder of the Cheshire Homes, an organisation to allow disabled people to live in safety and in dignity.
The Memorial Fund For Disaster Relief was launched in 1990, and partly funded by a rock concert – The Wall – Live in Berlin – on the site of the former Berlin Wall, on January 1 1992. This was produced by Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, and featured many well known musicians. It is too big a subject t to cover here, but has its own Wikipedia page if you are interested.
The concert started when Leonard Cheshire blew a whistle variously reported as being WW1 or WW2. Logic tells me that it was a WW2 RAF whistle, as this would tie in with Cheshire, but in this context it doesn’t really matter. He, like the concert, is a subject deserving of an article to himself. At the end of the war, after being decorated multiple times, he was one of the UK observers at the bombing of Nagasaki, after which he became known for his good works and Christian faith. This resulted, in 2017 (the centenary of his birth) in the Catholic Diocese of East Anglia starting to promote the case for him being made a saint.
The badge itself is another example of not believing all you read about it. Historical research has its pitfalls, and so, it seems, does research that only goes back 34 years. There are currently four examples of this badge on eBay. Two have cards and are correctly described, two have no cards and are attributed to Police World Memorial Day. The actual date for the INTERPOL police memorial day is 7 March each year. The misunderstanding comes, I imagine, from the whistle used on the badge – the type best known as the “Metropolitan” due to its use by the Metropolitan Police.
I’m not sure about the exact provenance of the whistle used at the concert, or what sort of whistle Leonard Cheshire carried during the war, but this type of whistle was also widely used by the RAF during the war (along with many other organisations) and should not automatically be attributed to the police.
The badge is 22mm in diameter with the wording “World Memorial Day/1st January” around the edge. In the centre is a tube whistle and lanyard . The reverse is plain apart from a single clutch pin fastening. The card is 140mm x 60 mm – it gives details of the work of the organisation and source of the metal used in the badge. The cards are individually numbed.
To be honest, it doesn’t seem as long now I have it laid out in WP, though if you aren’t interested in badges, history or whistles I suppose it still seems quite long. With a bit of effort I could stretch it to 1,000 words, but that would just be dragging it out to hit some meaningless word limit. So I’ll, reluctantly, leave it here at a mere 999 words . . .
