Medals of 'Great Escaper' Bernie Jordan go on display at the D-Day Story

The News, Portsmouth

The medals of D-Day 'Great Escaper' Bernie Jordan have gone on display at the D-Day Story museum in Southsea

Transcript

00:00 The camera's running.

00:02 Hello, I'm Andrew Whitmarsh and we're here in the D-Day story in Portsmouth.

00:06 This is our new display about Bernie Jordan, the veteran who became known in 2014 as the Great Escaper.

00:13 So he was unable to get a place on an organised trip to Normandy to attend the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

00:21 And he made his own way there and the story at the time captured the national imagination, was really big in the press.

00:29 So we're really glad to have on loan from the Harrington's Best of British Collection some items here relating to him.

00:36 So his own medals, some of the birthday cards that he got sent shortly after he became famous, it was his 90th birthday.

00:46 Some of the documents that he used, or notes that he took for planning his escape.

00:53 And you can see the past here, so from when he got to Normandy, the past for actually attending the commemorations.

00:59 And then, like you can see the poster here, the film The Great Escaper was made about him last year starring Michael Caine.

01:07 And these are the replica medals that Michael Caine wore in that film.

01:11 And then also there's another film, The Last Rifleman, with Pierce Brosnan, that was more loosely inspired by Bernie Jordan's story.

01:18 And these are the medals here that Pierce Brosnan wore in that film, in The Last Rifleman.

01:24 So it's a really great story about a veteran who was really greatly appreciated and loved by the British public, and a bit more about his story.

01:36 Thank you very much Andrew, thank you for telling the news, it's a Jordan story.

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