Letter: Heroic sailors

The anger encapsulated in your leader (4 June), "Heroes snubbed as coalition breaks medal promises", is wholly justified.

On eight occasions, between 1963 and 2004, I approached defence ministers, both Labour and Conservative, arguing the case that Councillor Willie Pender who, as a teenager, had been on the hazardous Murmansk voyages, should receive a British medal.

In brief, the regular response was: "The politicians are sympathetic; it is the admirals who will not allow it."

On 28 May, 2011, on the occasion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland being awarded the Freedom of West Lothian at Livingston, I was delighted to see the ex-councillor and ex-board member of Livingston Development Corporation, an erect 90-year-old and proudly displaying his medals, a measly Arctic emblem badge grudgingly given to his contemporary sailors by the British, and four impressive medals awarded by the Russians.

TAM DALYELL

House of the Binns

Linlithgow