Veterans who fought in Malaya in the 1950s are fighting for the right to wear a medal for their service. Fifty years on, the Malaysian Government wants to honour the British servicemen with the medal but military regulations state that the soldiers cannot wear it.

It was a war in everything but name. The Malayan Emergency, as it became known, was a bitter conflict fought against hardened ethnic Chinese communists.

Eventually the British, Malayan and Commonwealth forces pushed the communists back far into the jungle, finally ending the conflict in 1960.

But 2,500 soldiers had died and for many young national servicemen from Scotland, their lives would never be the same again.