A WORCESTERSHIRE company has won a major contract to help mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Thousands of commemorative medals are being produced for the event this summer and Worcestershire Medal Services (WMS) beat off international competition and the Royal Mint to get the £7 million project.

About 450,000 Diamond Jubilee medals are to be made in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and mounted at the company’s factory in Bromsgrove.

They will be awarded to members of the Armed Forces, emergency service workers and prison staff, among others, to mark the event, which will see a range of celebrations in June.

WMS managing director Phil McDermott said: “It’s been a terrific amount of work.

“Our staff have been working six days a week – at some point seven days – and 13 hours a day to deliver on time.

“The medals were made in Britain, and winning this contract has meant we’ve had more enquiries when, historically, over the last 10 to 15 years, they had been moving to the Far East.”

The medals are engraved in Latin, the words translating as ‘Elizabeth the Second, by Grace of God, Defender of the Faith’, and will be awarded to those who had served a minimum of five years at the point of accession on February 6.

WMS, which owns the Gladman and Norman factory in Birmingham, joined forces with two other Jewellery Quarter companies, Toye, Kenning and Spencer and Thomas Fattorini, to compete for the contract.

They won it ahead of the Royal Mint, which has the exclusive contract to supply all British coinage.