SIR – I was saddened to read Peter Raistrick’s jaundiced opinion of the significance of his war medals – even more so because it appeared on the 67th anniversary of D Day.
He thinks that his decorations are mere scraps of metal and it doesn’t matter who wears them. I don’t agree, because campaign medals were only awarded to servicemen and women on active service and under fire across the world.
For ‘re-enactors’ to justify the wearing of them because they are informing and educating later generations is mere sophistry.
Nor is the veneration of those who have fought for their country a new phenomenon.
If you look at act four, scene three of Shakespeare’s Henry V, they will see in the King’s speech on the eve of Agincourt the following: “He will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours and say ‘Tomorrow is Saint Crispian’. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day’.
“And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day”.
Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley
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