The Victoria Cross: For Valour

I watched a programme last night on BBC2 called The Victoria Cross: For Valour. It was written, directed and presented by that bloke Jeremy Clarkson, which is always a good thing IMHO. The main thrust of the program was to describe how in September 1944, Major Robert Cain won what was described as the finest Victoria Cross of the Second World War. His story is amazing and its telling left me in no doubt that Clarkson was in total awe of not only Major Cain VC but also all the other VC winners, some of who had their stories told in brief during the programme. It’s only at the end of the programme that we discover that Clarkson is married to the Major’s daughter who had no idea that her father was a VC winner until after his death in 1974. They don’t like to talk about their deeds apparently, VC winners.

We also got to see a little bit about the history of the medal itself and how it is, and always has been, manufactured by a small London jeweller Hancocks Ltd, London, from bronze. Not just any old bronze either, but bronze from the melted down breeches of guns captured from the Russians at Sebastopol in the Crimea. We were shown what was, I think, the remaining chunk of this metal; enough to make 80 or so VC’s. It was locked away in a safe in a military storage depot somewhere in England. This amount of bronze itself is worth next to nothing, but because of its history and the use to which it was being put this particular chunk is priceless.

For more on the Victoria Cross see here.

BBC TV at its best.