Grandfather’s Medals by Linda Osbourne

A Valley’s View Digital Story

Grandfather’s Medals Digital Story Transcript

I’m Linda Osbourne and I’m from Hengoed. I have just started researching my grandfather’s story as he was a prisoner of war in the First World War. I have got his diary and his medals and everything. To think that he came through all this and was killed in Bedwas pit when my father was only 8 years old. My father never knew anything about his father so I decided to do some research. Been on it now for about 20 years. It was hard in the beginning because [the diary] my father was never able to read it because the writing was so small. So without him knowing I borrowed the diary and it took me about 3 months with an eye glass to copy every word out of the diary into a new book for my father to read. So I gave it to him and he cried because it was the first time he ever read it. So my next obstacle was that my grandmother sold his medals years ago. “What medals did he have then dad?” “I don’t know” he said because he was only 8. So I got through to the ministry of defence and found out what medals he had but of course, I had his army number out of the diary. Luckily, I hunted them down and bought them back for my father for one of his birthdays. I bought them from a private collector in Abergavenny. I got the original medals back!

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