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Auction: 24002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 81A

General Service 1962-2007, 1 clasp, South Arabia (Capt. K.B. Hughes. RAMC.), mounted court-style as worn, good very fine

Keith Basil Hughes was born on 17 February 1941 at Northampton and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1963. Hughes served with the 24th Field Ambulance from 1965-66, was the Resident Medical Officer of the 1st Malawi Rifles from 1966-70, acted as Command Comms with the BAOR from 1976-81, and was a consultant at the British Military Hospital in Hong Kong from 1981-83. Hughes' short service commissions to 2nd Lieutenant (22 Sept 1963), Lieutenant (17 April 1964), Captain (20 April 1965), Major (9 Feb 1971), and finally to Lieutenant-Colonel (7 March 1978) appeared in several editions of the London Gazette; his retirement was also gazetted on 15 May 1984.

In an email to the Vendor, Hughes reveals more about his career and the curious circumstances upon which he was parted from his medal:

'Thank you very much for your letter and the information regarding my medal. I had wondered what had become of it, it is now obvious it was in the pocket of my No 2 dress jacket which went to the fancy dress shop in Doncaster when we were preparing to leave Doncaster for Cornwall and downsizing. ... I was not the POW RMO in Aden. Because I was already posted to Malawi wef 6 Jan 1966 I was general duties dogsbody working in the MRS as a GP , being seconded to the TOS (The Trucial Oman Scouts )in Sharjah for 6 weeks as cover for the residents leave and also going to sea on an LST from Aden to Bahrein and back , flat out it did 10 knots in temperatures of nearly 40 C ! Malawi was interesting including lots of medicine, chasing and killing rebels and going to dinner with Hastings Banda when he became president. After the Gloucester's I specialised as an ENT surgeon and was lucky enough to go to Singapore, ANZAC forces which included a milk run to Butterworth in Malaysia providing ENT services to the Australians. After BAOR it was Hong Kong which included trips to Brunei and Nepal then to Woolwich! The Army tried to seduce me with accelerated promotion to full Colonel to be effective 5 Mar 1985 but I left to join the NHS at Doncaster Royal Infirmary where I stayed until January 2006'.


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Sold for
£260

Starting price
£110