A Sutherland pensioner who with her late husband served during the Second World War said she his returning their medals in protest of the recent conduct by MPs at Westminster.
Nina MacAulay, from Drumbeg, said she is disgusted with how the country is being run in the wake of the expenses row. The 87-year-old said she no longer wants the eight medals awarded to her and husband Iain because "the world they represent no longer exists".
Ms MacAulay said the ongoing revelations over MPs' claims sharply contrasted with difficulties facing families across the nation and in the Armed Forces.
"It's just to display disgust, and the person who should hear of my disgust - because she's unlikely to ever hear of it - is the Queen. She gave me the medals and I'm giving her them back.
"It's just a complete protest about the system - the whole corrupt system."
Ms MacAulay was employed by the Women's Royal Air Force, processing aerial photography during the war. Her honours include the 1939-45 Star - a campaign medal of the British Commonwealth for service during the Second World War.
The awards given to her husband, an RAF medic, included the military MBE for 25 years' service and a Pacific Star.
Mr MacAulay, who died in 2003 aged 83, was held in a Japanese prisoner of war camp for three and a half years and was told that, as a result, he would die before he was 50 and never have children. He weighed five stone following his release.
His widow said he would have been equally disgusted by the ongoing reports of expense abuses appearing in the press each day.
She said: "He wouldn’t have tolerated it.
"My attitude is, from a military viewpoint we are killing young people and training them to kill others, and at the same time diverting funds away from them to pay for MPs' gardening.
"It is insulting to send men to war for that system - absolutely insulting."
The couple married in 1946 and went on to have two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Ms MacAulay, who is originally from the Argyll village of Kirn, said she planned to return the medals to Buckingham Palace, but health problems prevented her doing so in person.
"I will send them to the Palace. I don't know how, but I will work it out."
Last updated: 20 May 2009, 21:50 GMT
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