Ref. 25865-8MORE than 50 years after the first Suez Canal emergency a Swindon man has at last received a medal to mark the part he played in the campaign.

But while army veteran Brian Brown now has his gong, thousands of other ex-servicemen are still waiting for their medals.

It was only last year that the Government agreed to strike a medal to mark the campaign in the early 1950s.

They did so after a long-running battle for recognition of the British troops who served in the military expedition but ministers warned that it could take up to two years to get the decorations out.

So far it is estimated that fewer than 8,000 medals have been issued out of up to 40,000 applications that have been made, and Mr Brown of Grange Drive, Swindon, is among that number.

He said: "It was nice to receive the general service medal with a ribbon but to be honest I doubt if I will ever wear it out in public.

"Various people have been talking about it for years and I was beginning to think that I would never get one."

Brian, now in his 70s, was in the Suez Canal zone for eleven months during the crisis which ran between 1951 and 1954 when tens of thousands of British servicemen were sent to Egypt to keep the canal open and protect it from terrorist attack.

This emergency preceded the disastrous Suez Crisis of 1956, and the men who took part became known as the Forgotten Army because they never received official credit for what they did.

Brian has always made it clear that he did not think it was the best of Army postings and said: "I would never go again even if someone offered me a holiday there."

He did his duty in Egypt after being called up for National Service in 1951 and joining the Royal East Kent Regiment.

When he was sent down to the canal zone his first job was to help build a tented camp for his Battalion, and then he was put on guard escort and protection duties.

Shortly after being demobbed Brian moved to Swindon and took a job with Vickers Armstrong working as a maintenance carpenter at the company's aircraft factory.

He was with them for 32 years before being made redundant. He then worked for a chemist in Highworth until retiring at the age of 65.

Martin Vincent