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The "man behind the medal" in this instance really had an amazingly varied career in service. Arthur Cecil Stopher was born in 1898 in Woolwich. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lt in the Royal Welsh Fusileers in January 1916 and then transferred to the RFC in November 1916. He served as a pilot with 47 squadron in Salonika, where has his plane landed behind enemy lines and he was taken prisoner by the Bulgarians. There are various mentions of Stopher in the Flight magazine archive mentioning this. Also included in the sale is the rare book "Over the Balkans and South Russia" a history of the No 47 Squadron RFC by HA Jones MC. Stopher is mentioned in the appendix as a casualty (POW) albeit the name is (incorrectly) given as 2nd Lt S (sic) Stopher. It would appear Stopher did not get to fly for long as he was taken POW on Feb 12 1917.He is also referred to in Henshaw's "The Sky their battlefield" in which it states FK3 AW6219 47 Squadron forced to land at Demir Hisoda. Stopher was held captive at Phillipopolis (modern day Plovdiv) for the remainder of the war when he was repatriated- there is a POW record for Stopher at the National Archives On return to the UK Stopher then enlisted for the "Black and Tans" in the Royal Irish Constabulary he was in A division at Instogue- the scene of an incident at which the IRA attempted to assault the police station, but it all went wrong and their leader Ernie O'Malley was captured with a note book containing  a list of IRA members. Stopher served in Auxillary division no 41, with the service number 72168, appointed to "A" company Adric 30 July 1920, section leader 9 dec 1920, platoon commander 21 feb 1921, dispersed january 1922. Stopher then enlisted in the Ceylon Police, for which he earned this medal. Stopher served in the Ceylon Police from 1925-1947, he would have earned this medal around 1943 (I have not looked up the ceylon gazettes to get the actual date) in 1949 stopher transferred to the Malayan police following independence of Ceylon. There is a pension record for Stopher for the malayan police stating about stophers service in Ceylon. Stopher returned to the UK and retired to Oxfordshire where he died in 1972. He obiously enjoyed his time in Malaya as his house was called Yam Seng, which is Malay for "Cheers!" The medal is named Inspr AC Stopher and comes in its Royal mint box, Stopher was also entitled to a WW1 pair, potentially WW2 service medals and the medal also came with a piece of ribbon from a St Johns Ambulance Medal so he may well have earned one of those as well in Ceylon. All In all a great story with plenty more research to look into his varied career.