MERCHANT NAVY MEDAL PRESENTATION
Merchant Navy Medal
On 17th November Court Assistant Sean Gay represented the Shipwrights’ Company at Trinity House for the presentation of Merchant Navy Medals by the Lord West of Spithead. (The Company makes an annual contribution to the Merchant Navy Welfare Board.)
This is the 10th year of the Medals and there were nineteen worthy recipients. It was done very nicely with the trooping of the Red Ensign by serving Merchant Navy Cadets. It is intended, and hoped, that by the New Year’s Honours list of 2016 the Merchant Navy Medal will have become a State award known as The Queen’s Merchant Navy Medal. At that time it will no longer be awarded for acts of courage but fall under other medal awards. Nelson’s head on the medal (he served on merchant ships) will be replaced by that ofHer Majesty The Queen.
There is a quiet satisfaction that, with a strong representation at the Cenotaph, the annual remembrance at Tower Hill memorial getting larger and the Medal’s progress, that the services rendered to the UK by the men and women of the Merchant Navy over the last century and presently are belatedly getting some of the recognition they deserve.
