MEDALS FROM ‘DOWN UNDER’ MAKE IT HOME TO RICHMOND
26th February 2009

Peter Etherington with Ada Stoker

Last week a group of medals belonging to Sgt Maj Norman Stoker were donated by his daughter Ada Stoker. For many years they have been in Australia with Norman’s son John Stoker who proudly wore them on Anzac day. His medal group includes a Military Medal won in February 1917, a 1914 star and bar showing both his early involvement in the First World War and the fact that he was under fire. The group also includes a British War medal, Victory medal, Defence medal and War medal (1939-1945) as well as a Long Service and Good Conduct medal. Stoker joined the Green Howards on the 5th August 1914 and served with the 2nd Battalion. The 2nd Battalion war diary records that he was awarded the Military Medal on the 21st December 1916 but neither the London Gazette nor the Green Howards Gazette records what action he undertook to be awarded the medal. He was discharged from the Regiment on the 10.3.1919 but a month later he re-enlisted and stayed with the Green Howards until 10.3.1931. He then re-enlisted with the DLI (TA) on the 7.2.1939. Stoker died in 1975. His obituary in the Green Howard’s Gazette records that he was a well loved member of the Regiment who, ‘few referred to as Sgt Stoker but rather by his Christian names of ‘Norman Victor’.

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