Honours and awards - little lights in a dark world !
Let me put cards on the table: I think our honours system evolved in the 19th century into an almost perfect model of its type. I was never likely to benefit from it, but the colour of it certainly brightens otherwise drab uniforms.
With respect to Hangarshuffle, almost every country has an honours system of some sort although who of us would know how fair those systems are. We might note the pictures of royal weddings in Scandinavia or Monaco and feel mildly pleased that we do the baubles business so much better.
We are though peculiar in using the post-nominal letters for our awards. Apart from one or two ex-dominions, does any other country do it ? The USA has a panoply of medals and decorations, but you might never know the old airman’s achievement once he enters civil life; indeed, while he is still in uniform, you need an encyclopaedia in your hand to tell his distinctions from his other service medals.
We surely reward the loo-cleaners (and the lollipop ladies), especially those who have stuck it for 40 years - although as ever with any awards system it is a bit hit-or-miss. We had to bring back the BEM perhaps just to fill that need.
What PPRuNers might have noticed is how the rewards have become a little less for the very senior serving officers. A 3-star in my day would have expected a knighthood (or not); now he might “only” get a CB. The colonel or group captain often now has to be satisfied with an OBE rather than a CBE – indeed this time that is true for a 1-star. To my mind it makes plain that the recipient has still done a good job, but the job was less worth doing than it used to be.
However entitlements might have been degraded, there is still no doubt that considerable rank is needed to earn the higher awards. Rank gives gearing to whatever achievements have been made.
Yet, while the achievements even possible down the gradient from Sqn Ldr to LAC reduce drastically with rank, the one reward on offer is in each case the MBE. If what the Corporal did is as valuable as what the Sqn Ldr did, should not the Cpl be quickly promoted ? I say bring back the military BEM.
Looking at civvie street, we might all have wondered at the elevation of Barbara Windsor. Peter Simple (whose name be praised) imagined our monarchy in the hands of King Norman and Queen Doreen, but he never imagined the Second Class of our Most Excellent Order of the British Empire being occupied by a professional Cockney termagant using the very name his monarchs seemed to have discarded.