Prince Charles's fruit salad......

Watching a small part of the Jubilee shindig, a thought occurred to me. Does Prince Chuck wear too much fruit salad (medal ribbons)when in uniform?  He seems to have as many as Kim Il Jong.

I was entitled to the 1077 Jubilee Medal but only virtute officii. I had done nothing to deserve a gong. So I ceded it to my elections officer. She had officiated at every general and local election since 1937.

Her husband had died recently from the after-effects of maltreatment in a Jap POW camp in WW2. She definitely deserved some recognition.

I would not accept an award that I had not worked for or put myself at hazard. I have the Rhodesia Medal and the Zimbabwe Independence Medal, which I have only worn once, at the 5^th Anniversary in Zimbabwe, where I got a lot of curious looks from the locals, as if to say ‘What’s this muzungu doing wearing our gong?’

In Zim in 1980 we were in clear and present danger. There were several accidental deaths in operational areas; our team had one wounded by an armour piercing shell that went straight through his Land Rover and showered him with aluminium fragments; one guy drove straight over a land mine that failed to explode; and a friend of mine walked unscathed for the total wreck of  a light aircraft that hit a large boulder at the end of a forced landing in the bush.

I don’t recall Charles being at risk to justify his chest-full, unless it was from the grub on his mine-sweeper. Andy and Harry, on the other hand, have well-earned campaign medals.

Just protocol, I suppose.