A FALKLANDS veteran has received his service medal 29 years after the conflict ended - thanks to a little help from his friends.

Mark Moore, a former bomb disposal expert who lost the lower part of both of his legs when he stepped on a mine near Port Stanley, did not receive his South Atlantic medal in 1982 because it was sent to an old address.

But friends of the 50-year-old, from Nelson, last year organised a collection to replace Mark’s missing medal because they thought he should be able to wear it on Remembrance Sunday.

The group, made up of staff and regulars at The Albion pub in Skipton, presented him with the medal last week.

Mark, who regularly makes the trip to the Skipton pub from his Pendle home, said he was overwhelmed by the gesture.

He said: “I am just so touched by it. It is nice to have the medal after so long but really I am lucky just to be here.

“At the end of the day I came back. I see a lot of people now coming back with no legs at all or they are coming back in a box.”

Mark, who is raising his four-year-old daughter Emma on his own, joined the Royal Navy in 1978 and was injured clearing landmines near Wireless Ridge four years later.

He said: “I was clearing a route for 2 Para when I stepped on an English landmine sold to the Argentineans by Margaret Thatcher’s Government a few years earlier.

“I lay there in a muddy ditch for 12 hours with machine gun fire overhead because no-one could reach me.”

Mark was eventually rescued when British forces gained more ground and were able to reach him from the far side of the minefield. His legs were so damaged that surgeons had to remove everything below his kneecap and reattach his feet to metal ankles. He is now only able to walk short distances.

Sarah Howard, landlady at The Albion, organised the collection and arranged to have the medal reissued.

The leftover money will be donated to Help for Heroes.

Sarah said: “We all went to the Remembrance Parade in Skipton last year and thought it was a shame Mark couldn’t wear his medal to say this is where I have been and this is what I have done.”