Roy Holliday – Recipient (Finally) of the Defence Medal

Back in October, 2025, I was contacted by John Cree regarding Roy Holliday. Roy was in a reserved occupation for the duration of WW2 in west London. However, from age 16, starting in March 1942, he was an ARP Messenger on a bicycle. From age 18 in March 1944, he became an ARP Warden and also did Fire Watching for his firm.

Roy never received his Defence Medal. I pointed John in the direction of local archives and other possible avenues to support Roy’s claim. I’ll let John continue this story...

"Craig Smith has kindly asked me to write up the process by which my friend, Roy Holliday, has now received his Defence Medal*. Roy reached 100 years of age in March 2026, and lives in Milton Keynes. I try to help him remotely with telephone calls every few days from West Sussex.  

One of Roy’s topics of conversation had been his disappointment at not receiving his campaign medal, as he was in a reserved occupation for the duration. He lived in Acton from 1935 and has a photographic memory of his time working on aircraft and MTB engines at Napier & Son, 211 The Vale, Acton.  

From age 16 in March 1942, he was a Messenger on a bicycle with the Civil Defence services. He had a helmet with “M” written on it. From age 18 in March 1944, he became an ARP Warden, with a different helmet.

In addition, in 1944 during the V1 raids (and once during a V2 raid) he became Fire Watcher for Napier at Earls Court Exhibition Centre where, in the tunnels underneath, Napier stored 24-cylinder Sabre engines, which Roy had to service with inhibiting fluid each week. Roy remembers that there were not enough Tempest or Typhoon airframes to receive these.  

In May 2025, DBS-Medals at the Ministry of Defence kindly sent me the Cabinet Office form to apply to the Civilian Contingencies team for Roy’s Defence Medal. However, Roy had no supporting documentation from any of the bodies listed on the two-page attachment, which the Cabinet Office form says is compulsory.

Roy has moved many times since WW2 and believes that any documents would have been lost in the process. Not wishing to set up Roy for disappointment, in May 2025 I contacted Cabinet Office via their website contact form to discuss. They did not respond to this, nor to my reminder in September 2025. I also tried twice to contact the Civilian Contingencies team directly through email addresses found on Google, again without response. 

I searched online and was pleased to find this Civil Defence website. The webmaster sent a helpful reply about the limited detail available in most archives. I then contacted Acton Local History and Local Authority archives at Ealing (who now cover Acton), but could not confirm Roy’s service by these means. I contacted Napier Power Heritage Trust and they kindly provided a letter which sought to verify Roy's service with Napier and to commend him for the Defence Medal. Again, to avoid disappointing Roy, I emailed Civilian Contingencies to ask if an application form completed by him, with this as supporting letter, would succeed. 

In December 2025, Cabinet Office responded, apologising for the delayed response to my messages on their general enquiry form of May and September, forwarded in error to Ministry of Defence. They made no mention of my direct emails to the Civilian Contingencies team and enclosed a further copy of the medal application form. 

As Roy is visually impaired, I now completed the form on his behalf and sent it to him for signature and posting. At the end of December 2025, I printed off the emails from the Civil Defence website, from Acton Local History and from Ealing Local Authority archives; I also printed the recommendation from the Napier Power Heritage Trust and sent these separately to Cabinet Office 3rd floor, with my covering letter explaining my failed efforts to trace an official record of Roy’s service and hoping that they could treat his application favourably. 

In March 2026, just after Roy’s 100th birthday, Cabinet Office emailed with apologies for the delay, to say that Roy would receive his Defence Medal in due course, that it would need to be signed for and to let them know of any problems. Roy received his medal from the Royal Mint on Easter Saturday and is thoroughly delighted."
 
* I have used Defence Medal throughout but Roy’s certificate details Civil Defence Medal

I'm sure all visitors will join me in congratulating Roy and thanking him for his service.

Roy Holliday - Recipient of the Defence Medal