Bury museum launches appeal to bring home 'missing' Victoria Cross

Video Report by Granada Reports Correspondent Paul Crone

The Fusilier Museum in Bury has launched an appeal to bring home a Victoria Cross medal won by a Lancashire Fusilier during the First World War.

The medal went 'missing' in the 1980's but has re-emerged at a London auction house where it will be sold for an estimated £240,000 later this month.

The Victoria Cross (VC) was awarded posthumously to Lt Col. Bertram Best-Dunkley for an act of outstanding bravery during the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium in July 1917.

Best-Dunkley died a few days later as a result of his attack on the enemy.

His Victoria Cross was pinned to the shawl of his new-born son in Barrow-in-Furness at a special ceremony in 1917.

Now the Fusilier Museum in Bury is raising funds so the medal can be purchased by them at the auction and join the other six genuine VC's already on display there.

Gini Wilde from the Museum said: "It's a Lancashire Fusiliers' story, so the medal should be with the collection of the Lancashire Fusiliers which we have in this museum.

"It just doesn't seem right that it would be on display in London."

Donation sites have been set up by the museum, on the museum's website, and on Crowdfunder.