MORE than half a century after braving the muck and bullets of the Suez campaign, Don Jolliffe's military service was finally officially honoured by Britain this week.

Governor Sir John Vereker presented long-time Bermuda resident Mr. Jolliffe with the Canal Zone General Service Medal in a ceremony at Government House.

The medal means that, for the first time in his life, Mr. Jolliffe will be able to take his rightful place among Bermuda's war veterans when they march behind the Regiment Band to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day next month.

"It will be very emotional," Mr. Jolliffe said. "I've watched that parade for 43 years and now I have the medal I'll be able to march with the veterans. It'll be quite emotional. I'm very excited about it."

The 74 year old, who originates from Wales and is Commodore of the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club, served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa between 1951 and 1953.

During that time he was nearly killed when he was crushed under a truck which had overturned after a mine exploded under it.

He was also shot at twice, lost friends who were killed by guerillas and endured appalling conditions living under canvas in the midst of swarms of flies and fierce heat.

Despite the fact that around 600 service personnel, classed as being on "active service", died due to the actions of terrorists or of illness in the unhygienic conditions, no medals were awarded for service in this operation ? until now.

"There were a lot of similarities between what we were putting up with then and what the soldiers in Iraq are going through, though obviously the technology has changed a lot," Mr. Jolliffe said.

"If you were driving along in a 15-hundredweight truck, you had no armour protection and they would shoot at us. I got shot at twice.

"The terrorists would try to kill us any way they could. They put poison in our food, they'd shoot at us and they even put up wires across the road to decapitate dispatch riders. So when I see the TV reports from Iraq, it brings back strong memories.

"We lived in tents in poor conditions. The flies were terrible and a few people died from dysentry.

"I think they (Britain) did not give medals to us, because they were a bit embarrased about the whole thing.

"It was not a complete surprise when they announced they were going to award a medal because there had been rumblings about it for a while. But I do feel quite proud about it.

"The Governor said he wanted to present me with the medal and I was delighted to accept his offer."

A long-running campaign to honour those who fought in the Canal Zone finally persuaded Britain to award the medal.

This is only the second time in British military history that a decision was made to retrospectively award a General Service medal. The first occasion was in 1848, when medals were awarded to those who fought under the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian campaign against Napoleon in 1801.

After the Queen gave royal assent to the Canal Zone medals to be awarded, Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said: "It was an injustice that no firm decision was taken in the 1950s to award a campaign medal. This medal will recognise those, most of them national servicemen, who served with honour in Egypt."

Mr. Jolliffe was sent to Libya to start his National Service in 1951. It was there that he was crushed by the truck. His injuries left him hospitalised for several months. He was then called to the Canal Zone as the result of a dispute between the governments of Egypt and Britain.

The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 had agreed to the British maintaining a military base in the Suez Canal Zone up to 1956. But in 1951, the Egyptian government wanted to back down from the agreement and threatened to "take over" the Canal.

As Britain still had ?100 million worth of equipment stored in the Zone from the end of World War Two and nearly 10,000 troops stationed there, the British refused to accept the abrogation of the treaty.

Egyptian troops and police were ordered to harass the British soldiers and soon civilians were joining in. Britain declared a "Suez Emergency" and and an extra 6,000 men and supplies were dispatched to the Zone within ten days.

At its peak, the campaign involved 80,000 service personnel, the largest military force to be engaged in a single military theatre since the end of World War Two.

At the time, the Suez Canal was considered strategically vital to British interests and essential for maintaining trade and transport links with Australasia, the Far East and some of the African colonies.

Mr. Jolliffe's traumatic three years in the Arab world represented his National Service. He said that he bore no grudge about the conscription and still believed in its value today.

"National Service did me a lot of good and I believe it's still doing people good in Bermuda now," Mr. Jolliffe said.

"I believe it helps people to be disciplined. You learn how to look after yourself and how to do your own laundry, things like that."

Mr. Jolliffe has lived in Bermuda since moving here 43 years ago. He is now Commodore of the RHADC and also served more than 20 years as a church warden at St. John's. He is a past president of the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society.

l The Governor also made several other presentations on Tuesday night, relating to awards announced in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June.

Footballer David Bascome received the MBE that was announced in June last year, while columnist Cynthia DeSilva was presented with the Queen's Certificate & Badge of Honour, as were Joan Dismont and Leonard Simons.

There were also long-service medals awarded to members of the Police and Fire Services and the Bermuda Regiment.