Tag Archives: miniature medals

From the Ashes of Disaster

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So, I hear you ask, how was it? As if the title didn’t give enough of a clue.

The slide show was good. I spent a lot of time on it. Part of this was the time I spent relearning the system because I only use it once every two years, and forget how it works. Another portion of time was spent in the script, because it took me months to sort out what I wanted to say. After that, the text and photography was, as always, tedious and seemed to take forever.

However, at about 4pm on Monday (a couple of hours before the talk), I was 90% ready. I’m never 100% ready, and I bet most people aren’t. I had a well-crafted slideshow, the commentary was running round in my head (I don’t use notes, just have a lot of information and use the slides as prompts to bring it out at the right time).

The first presentations I ever did were about the Sealed Knot. Sometimes I would use an old-fashioned show, the sort that actually used photographic slides. They were expensive to produce, there was a delay between taking the pictures and seeing the results, you could load projector magazines back to front or wrong way round, bulbs blew, I even saw a slide melt once (fortunately not one of mine) . . .

Miniature Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM)group to L H Childs – a member of the Northamptonshire Regiment in WW2. The recommendation for his DCM shows that he waded across a canal and tackled two German machine gun nests. Then did it a second time. A newspaper report shows that he was wounded after the war whilst disarming German troops in Italy.

I did talks for history societies, schools, the WI and Scouts. They had varying levels of equipment so i gradually developed what is essentially my current style – I’d take enough items to fill a table, I’d pick something up and talk about it, pass it round or make someone try it on. Whatever I say about modern technology, I do love digital photography, and am quite keen on PowerPoint (or the free ODF equivalent in my case). You can do so much more.

Anyway, back to Monday afternoon.

By the wonders of modern delivery technology, Amazon had delivered a box of USB drives to my door in under 24 hours. I didn’t want his masterpiece of numismatic storytelling to go to waste on my cluttered old drive. I even loaded a second one as I am very much a belt and braces type of presenter, and only the best is good enough for my gem of presentation.

Are you following me? Or have you already deduced the full horror of the precipice I am about to fall off?

Oh yes, despite the care and attention I had taken, the hours of blood, toil, sweat and tears that had gone into my presentation, it wouldn’t show up on the screen in the meeting room. It wouldn’t show up on the screen next door either. But someone else had a USB drive with him and it did show his. It just wouldn’t read mine. Mine, once I got home, functioned perfectly well on my computer. Investigations are ongoing.

There was some muttered discussion about whether any of the others had an old presentation with them as a replacement . . .

Miniature DCM group to Frederick Cowham, once a member of the Royal Artillery, later a prison governor. He won it for mending telephone lines under fire – we didn’t hav e much radio communication in 1914-18 so many medals were given out for telephone-related incidents.

However, cometh the hour, as they say, cometh the man. And that man, after arranging his display cases in the amended order necessary and stood up to deliver the talk. There were no slides, no photos and no prompts, just a man and an audience. And that man, having lived and breathed this presentation for the last panic-stricken week, saw no reason to worry. I missed some things out and didn’t deliver it with the polish I would have liked, but an hour later (it rambled a bit more than the slideshow), it was all done.

Despite everything, people seemed to enjoy it. I was able to pass exhibits round in my new display cases so people all had a look, and I was congratulated several times on the content of the talk, and my ability to stand up and give it without a script or visual prompts.

So, all in all, despite the technological disaster, it went quite well and I was able to carry it off despite everything. If anything, I am now, if anything, a bit too pleased with myself for having kept calm and carried on.

Miniature Medals of Pte Charles Winch, Leicestershire Regiment, with related school attendende medal and picture of his full size medals, which were sold in the same sale. After fighting in the battle of Talana and defending Ladysmith, he was recalled for service in WW1, but did not go overseas. Note the presence of the extra bar “Natal” on the miniatures – this sort of thing, though the fact that the medals have swapped sides is a wild deviation from the main group, even by the standards of strange things that miniature medals get up to.

For a good read, follow this link to the lady in question.

 

 

 

 

Almost Done!

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These two pictures are the miniature medals of Major J L Partington MBE, MC and his Brazilian ID card from a trip he made in 1952. Miniature medals are worn for events like formal dinners I will do a longer write up on them in a later post.

Major Partington was an engineer by profession and went to work in Argentina before the Great War. He returned to fight, joined the Royal Engineers and was decorated for spending all day under shell fire rescuing trains and equipment. He then went back to Argentina, married and had two sons, who were both killed in the RAF, one one in 1941 and one in 1942. I often think, when people are talking about how hard life is, we don’t really have a clue these days compared to the generations that lived through the wars.

Today was the day I hit Peak Panic with the presentation. I only have until Monday, and as I’m working tomorrow, I’m short of time. I’m also short on research and have no chance of preparing all the materials I was going to put together.

On the other hand, I have now learned most of what I need to know about putting a presentation together (I forget how to make a slide show after each time I do one) and by late afternoon I had the majority of it in place, It’s nothing like as good as I wanted. On the other hand (leaving false modesty apart) it’s far from the worst one we’re going to have this winter.

I have plenty of slides, plenty of stories, know my material and have a relaxed manner of delivery. I’ve enjoyed doing it and I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve also bought some great display stands off the internet and the collection is going to look good.

I also bought some bookstands. One of the medal recipients wrote a book about his wartime experiences and another features in a chapter of  book by someone else, so I will have two books on display – I always find myself being impressed by that sort of thing,and hope other people are too.

The header picture is the book by the medal recipient – Night Fighter by Lewis Brandon. I first read it when i was about twelve and it made a big impression on me. It was fifty years later that I was able to buy the miniatures, and it’s very unusual to be able to put this much detail with a group of medals.

He was an actor before the war, a pioneering radar operator during the war and a publican and hotelier after the war (amongst other things) and the book, which only covers his life until 1945) makes a good read.

Anyway, whatever happens, I won’t be telling people that it’s fallen short of my intentions, so they need never know. That’s something I was taught in sales – the customer doesn’t actually know how badly prepared or nervous you are, so hide it and get on with the job in hand.

Miniature Medals of Lt Col Wall

Lt Colonel Wall was decorated by the British and Dutch Governments. He was a pre-war railway manager and used his expertise by supplying troops with food and equipment in three campaigns.

In the winter of 1944-45 the Germans cut off supplies of food and fuel to a substantial portion of the Netherlands as a reprisal for actions of the Dutch Resistance. It was a bad winter and at least 30,000 people died of cold and hunger. Many of the survivors, including a child called Edda van Heemstra, had to eat tulip bulbs to survive and suffered from bad health all their lives.

She became a UN ambassador and worked to relieve famine out of gratitude for the international given to her country at the end of the war. Wall’s part in the relief effort was recognised by the award of the Order of Orange-Nassau (the impressive medal on the end of the group).

By the time van Heemstra worked for the UN, she had resumed the use of her English name,  which had been a problem during the occupation. That is why she is better known as Audrey Hepburn.

Some thoughts on Rammle

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I just had to edit a post from a few days ago. I’d written 2012 instead of 2021. I know I leave typos in, but I now wonder if I’ve put some wrong dates in. If I have, nobody has mentioned it.

A couple of months ago, I had a move round in the dining room. In looking for some things I disturbed a neat pile of boxes on my table (and a few others that were carefully stacked next to my typing table. They were tidy, I promise you. I churned things round, as I was in a hurry, and made a promise to myself I would tidy it next day. I didn’t get round to it. But I have noticed that the mess has grown and spread. It now looks like a subterranean volcano of rammle has built up under the house before venting itself in my dining room. It’s like Narnia in reverse.

I had to look rammle up. I use it in speech but you rarely see it in writing as it’s a dialect word and not much used by the university educated prats who write most of our news. Look up rammel and you get a German page followed by a British politician, then Erwin Rommel. Look up rammle and it asks you if you meant ramble. I didn’t.

Working on the knife sharpening theory I am now going to work on the rubbish pile and sort it out over the rest of the week (interspersing it with my similarly paced writing of my presentation for next Monday).

Service records show that the recipient of these medals (known as a 1914-15 trio and Italian Bronze Medal of Military Valour didn’t go to Italy during the war, just France. This wasn’t uncommon, as the alllies used to send batches of medals to each other for award to troops, almost as a superior sort of souvenir. I’m not sure what he did to merit a medal, but his records also show that he was admitted to hospital with  VD just days after reaching France. I suspect his embarkation leave had been spent in the traditional way and had come home to roost.

The medals in the header photo belonged to Superintendent Tacey of the City of Nottingham police. His service records indicate rapid promotion and a mention in despatches for his hard work during the war. He did go to Italy for a while. They will both be featured in my presentation on Monday. Not long now . . .

The Presentation Looms

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George Medal group awarded GM for gallantry under fire in Iraq when he defused a mutiny by Iraqi troops.

On Monday night at the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire AGM the list of talks for the new season was announced. I am officially listed as making my presentation in September. That is just 59 days away. The time has flown by. I have written a rough script and the first few slides and am currently relearning how to use the Presentation part of my Apache Open Office suite. It’s similar to PowerPoint for those of you who aren’t familiar with it and Open Office is similar to Microsoft, but has fewer features, much lower costs (it’s free) and doesn’t fence you round with a variety of restrictions. I would love the features of PowerPoint, but I prefer the feeling of using Open Office.

We had 14 members attending, which is good for what is universally accepted to be the most boring meeting of the year. Sometimes we have over 20 if the talk looks interesting. Sometimes I fall asleep, so perhaps some meetings are more boring than this. Other societies, from what I hear, have varying memberships. Some are larger and seem a bit more active. Some are smaller, which is a comfort to us as it makes us feel more viable. What is certainly true is that membership of coin clubs is down to about 50% of what it used to be and most of our members are 60 and over. Sometimes well over. there are younger collectors but they tend to use social media.

A pre-war railway specialist who, became a Lt Colonel in the Royal Engineers and was decorated three times for efficiency in feeding troops and Dutch civilians

We had one place available on the committee and, we thought, one person wishing to join. As it turned out someone rang during the afternoon and expressed an interest. One space, two enthusiastic volunteers. What do we do? I’d have accepted both, but we seem to have rules about that. However, as they are both younger than me and both good candidates, I volunteered to step down and make another vacancy. I was planning on stepping down next year after we move so it wasn’t a problem. We now have two new and enthusiastic committee members, which is good.

A railway signalling specialist working for a British firm in Argentina. Decorated with the Military Cross for rescuing a train under shell fire in WW1 and a civilian OBE for services to railway engineering. Both his sons died flying with the RAF in WW2 

One of my previous incarnations on a committee was Nottingham Outlaws where I was the Volunteer Coordinator. This is the ungrammatical title given to the person who coordinates the club volunteers, rather than the person who volunteers to coordinate. That’s how I know Rule Number One – never turn a volunteer down.

Anyway – 59 days to go. Just over 8 weeks. I need to research and write approximately ten slides a week so I don’t have time to spend chatting, I’d better get on . . .

DSO, DFC & bar to a pioneering night fighter radar expert. He wrote a book after the war telling of his exploits. As a pre-war actor he was Robert Donat;s understudy and was actually given leave from the RAF to play  a Gestapo officer in a film.

The photo at the top originally belonged to a multiply decorated war hero. Then someone got hold of it and used it as the basis for making up a fraudulent group. In fact he had an active service career with the Royal marine Light Infantry lasting about 4 months before being wounded in the battle for Gavrelle windmill in April 1917.