The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories.

It takes precedence over all other orders, decorations and medals. It may be awarded to a person of any rank in any service and to civilians under military command. In the United Kingdom, it is usually presented to the recipient or to their next of kin by the British monarch at an investiture held at Buckingham Palace. In other countries where the Monarch of the Commonwealth realms is the head of state, the Governor-General usually fulfils the same function. It is the joint highest award for bravery in the United Kingdom with the George Cross, which is the equivalent honour for valour not in the face of the enemy. However, the VC is higher in the order of wear and would be worn first by an individual who had been awarded both decorations (which has not so far occurred).

The VC was introduced on 29 January 1856 by Queen Victoria to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War. Since then, the medal has been awarded 1,356 times to 1,353 individual recipients. Only 13 medals, nine to members of the British Army, and four to the Australian Army, have been awarded since the Second World War. The traditional explanation of the source of the gunmetal from which the medals are struck is that it derives from Russian cannon captured at the siege of Sevastopol. Recent research has thrown doubt on this story, suggesting a variety of origins for the material actually making up the medals themselves.

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May. He also writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun.

From a career as a local journalist in Northern England, Clarkson rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s, Clarkson has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.

His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public.

Mark Gregor Strang Donaldson VC (born 2 April 1979) is the first recipient of the Victoria Cross for Australia, awarded for gallantry, the highest award in the Australian honours system. He is the first Australian recipient of a Victoria Cross since Keith Payne in 1969. Then Trooper Donaldson was a member of the Special Air Service Regiment when he exposed himself to enemy fire to protect injured troops and then rescued an interpreter under heavy enemy fire in Oruzgan province during Operation Slipper, the Australian contribution to the War in Afghanistan. He was awarded the medal by Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce, in a ceremony in Canberra on 16 January 2009. On 25 January 2010, Donaldson was named the Young Australian of the Year 2010. He was promoted to corporal in June 2010.

Donaldson was born on 2 April 1979 at Waratah, New South Wales. The younger son of Greg, a Vietnam veteran, and Bernadette Donaldson he grew up in the small northern New South Wales township of Dorrigo, attending Dorrigo High School, a small state comprehensive co-educational secondary public school, until 1996. In 1995 his father died suddenly of a heart attack and Mark and his brother became wards of Legacy, one of their legatees being a former member of the same Army unit their father had served in.

Lance Corporal Johnson Gideon Beharry VC (born (1979-07-26)26 July 1979) of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, is a British Army soldier who, on 18 March 2005, was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for valour in the British and Commonwealth armed forces, for twice saving members of his unit from ambushes on 1 May and again on 11 June 2004 at Al-Amarah, Iraq. He sustained serious head injuries in the latter engagement. Beharry was formally invested with the Victoria Cross by Queen Elizabeth II on 27 April 2005.

Beharry is the first recipient of the Victoria Cross since the posthumous awards to Lieutenant Colonel H. Jones and Sergeant Ian John McKay for service in the Falklands War in 1982. He is the first living recipient of the VC since Keith Payne and Rayene Stewart Simpson, both Australian, for actions in Vietnam in 1969, and the first living recipient of the VC in the British Army since Rambahadur Limbu, a Gurkha, in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in 1965. He is one of only 7living recipients of the VC, and the youngest. Other living recipients of Victoria Cross awards include Willie Apiata – VC for New Zealand; Mark Donaldson – VC for Australia and Ben Roberts-Smith – VC for Australia.

Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981) is an English film, television, radio, and stage actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and he rose to prominence through a number of TV roles and more recently major film roles. He played Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor, Captain Nicholls in Steven Spielberg's World War I film War Horse (2011), and also Freddie Page in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz. He played author F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011). He returned to his role as Loki in The Avengers (2012) and is set to reprise the character again for Thor 2 (2013).

Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to parents Diana Patricia (née Servaes), a former stage manager and arts administrator, and James Norman Hiddleston, a scientist in physical chemistry who was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother from Suffolk, England. He is the middle child with two sisters, Sarah (oldest), a journalist in India, and Emma (youngest), is also an actor. He was raised in Wimbledon, in his early years, and later in Oxford. When Hiddleston was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing." He went on to act at The Dragon School in Oxford, then continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2005.