A BELVEDERE pensioner has received a medal for his war service in Greece 61 years after the event.

Eddie Marshall, now aged 80, was a sergeant in the Yorkshire Hussars and was sent to Greece in 1940 to help with the evacuation of British troops.

But he was captured after a battle with the Germans in the southern Greek town of Kalamata.

Four months later, he was moved from Greece to Austria and then to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, spending four years and two days as a POW.

Mr Marshall received various medals after the war but there was nothing to mark his activities in Greece until his son heard about the possibility of a medal.

Mr Marshall applied through the Greek Embassy in London, and almost to the day of the anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, he received a medal and diploma.

He was delighted. “I really appreciate this from a foreign government. It is a great honour,” he said.

The diploma, in Greek, thanks Mr Marshall for his help in 1940. But he says he will not be able to add the new medal to his row of other war medals because it has not been approved by the Queen.