ARTICLE PROFILES VICTORIA CROSS COLLECTOR LORD ASHROFT

Billionaire Lord Ashcroft owns the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses – yet he doesn’t know if he has what it takes to win one, the Sunday People reports.

“I’ve often reflected on it,” he says. “And I’m not sure ­whether I have that kind of courage.”

We are in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery of London’s Imperial War Museum amid £40million worth of the most potent symbols of gallantry ever.

Building work goes on around us as the museum is revamped for next year’s centenary of the start of the First World War.

Most of the VCs on display here belong to the 67-year-old ex-deputy Tory chairman.

He owns 183 in all and gave £5million towards the gallery where, alongside the medals, the stories of supreme courage are told in words and pictures.

Stories like that of pilot Lloyd Trigg, the only man to get a posthumous VC on the say-so of the enemy after dive-bombing a U-boat when he could have pulled away to save his life.

And stories like that of Noel Chavasse, one of only three men ever to win the VC twice.

Michael Ashcroft’s interest in what constitutes courage ­began as a 10-year-old in Norwich when he persuaded his reticent dad to relive his ­experiences of D-Day, where he had been wounded.

The peer recalls: “My father was a modest man but I felt a surge of pride that he’d played such a courageous part in the war effort.

“And the most special thing about VC winners is their ­modesty and their humility.

“Most of those I’ve met say they only did what anyone else would have done in the same circumstances.”

The former deputy chairman of the Tory party has spent a lot of time over the years thinking about the ­nature of bravery.

He says. “You can’t measure it, you can’t bottle it and you can’t buy it.”

But he believes the kind of valour the VC is awarded for falls into two categories.

The first is spur-of-the-­moment bravery in the heat of battle – the second, the “cold courage” needed to defuse a bomb or to go out on a special forces’ mission.

Lord Ashcroft says: “I have nothing but admiration for both – but a greater respect for ‘cold courage’ because they go into highly dangerous situations time and again knowing they are likely to get maimed or killed.”

His passion for the VC began when he was in his 20s and he read about one of the medals being sold at auction.

He promised himself he would own one as well – if he could ever afford it.

That day came in July 1986 when the VC won by diver James Magennis – whose story is detailed on the left – was auctioned at Sotheby’s. Lord Ashcroft paid £29,000 for it.

He says: “As I was holding it, it dawned on me this was just the start of owning more.

“One became two. Soon the collection hit double figures.”

Since then he has bought many more at auctions.

He also gets VCs from the families of medal-winners in private deals – but only if they approach him. Now he owns the first VC awarded in the 20th century and the last – which was posthumously earned in the Falklands conflict by Sgt Ian McKay, whose story is also told on the left.

Only 1,360 VCs have ever been handed out since the ­medal – cast from the bronze of cannons captured during the Crimean War – was inaugurated in 1856.

And by buying up so many, the peer has stopped large ­numbers of them ending up with collectors overseas.

And he has vowed to present them to the nation one day.

To read the complete article, see: Lord Ashcroft owns world's largest Victoria Cross collection - but doesn't know if he'd have courage to win one (www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lord-ashcroft-owns-worlds-largest-2365416)

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