Famously worn by David Niven in the film Carrington VC, it was probably the most widely viewed Victoria Cross in the history of the award. Steve Snelling charts the story of the real-life hero.
FIRST WORLD WAR | VICTORIA CROSS ACTION
On a summer’s day in 1954 a tall, elderly man with snow-white hair left his tiny tenement flat and travelled across London to a newspaper office in the heart of the capital. Harry Cross, ‘Crossy’ to his pals, was on a mission. The one-time docker and railway worker turned city messenger took with him a battered old suitcase containing his proudest possession - one that would earn him a brief place in the celebrity limelight alongside one of the biggest screen stars of the day. Marching into the newsroom, he clicked open the case and declared: “If David Niven would like to borrow this he can.”
It was a moment of pure theatre that would have done credit to the best-directed West End production. For revealed inside the age-worn case was the rarest of all military distinctions: a small bronze cross suspended from a crimson ribbon and bearing the simple inscription ‘For Valour’ on its face.
‘Crossy’s’ special delivery was in answer to an unusual appeal, published in the same ne…
