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What a small world.
Ruffred and I rode down to Canberra yesterday to help welcome home the "excellent adventurers".
Busdriver came out to the border to meet us and guide us in.
Turns out that Les(Busdriver) and I did our first rides together 32 years ago.
We were both on the same Air Force rookies course in April 76 and did a couple of rides on our rare weekends off.
Memories came flooding back and it made this weekends ride even more special for me. It was awesome to catch up with a mate that you would think that you would never meet again.
"If time catches up with you. You're going too slow!"
Regards BUSGO
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Interesting story.....
My Great Uncle's flying medal Distinguished Flying Cross (???) and his log book were recently 'purchased' from a private collection - the canberrra war meusem were doing cartwheels at such a catch....
Unfortunately they've been in a small coastal town were he grew up, still in the family, and loaned to the local RSL... and still currently there. It caused my elderly uncle great distress that members of the family read or saw the report & thought he'd sold them!...
Is there such a thing as medal fraud??? We are currently asking a 'please explain'
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as this second set seems to have caused such a high profile coverage.....
My question, how much did this private collector get for 'their' set.....
Which is the real set? I would always think ours, as they were in my Great aunt's possession since they were awarded post-humously and now in my uncles...
The War Memorial doesn't set out to collect medals for the fun of it. They spend a lot of money trying to keep them together and to give them a respectful final resting place. If people didn't sell them, there would be no market for them and they could stay with their families until the family was ready to pass them on to the nation.
It kills me that people can sell these things in the open market.
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Update on the medal saga.
Buggers from Yeppoon stole them from the RSL (members of RSL & outside help) who 'sold' them to War Meusem...
Police involved, charges of theft, fraud, etc will be laid, and meusem will make another media announcement with a public apology to family for the distress it has caused.
Getting better guys!
EXCELLENT! Good to know how it happened. Bet the museum is devestated, they are REALLY paranoid about dealing in stolen medals. they would have checked, they always do, but this one must have slipped through.
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All up there was 13 items in the 'care' of the RSL. Funny thing is to do this sort of thing would require more than 1 person.... (hey and the price of sale was $150'000!!) So that the meusem was happy with the items in this person's personal collection.
What saddens me is, we probably weren't the first to have it happen to from that area! That makes me even sadder. Who else have they ripped off?
Don't worry there is a criminal lawyer who is following it up for the family. A very well respected one. It's nice having connections.
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