"When we opened the [living room] door, we were hit with a huge blast of flame. We went outside because we couldn't get back upstairs. We climbed on to the flat roof on top of the bay window and we got my mother and what we first thought was all of them [his sister and five younger brothers] out through the bedroom window. But then we had a count up and there were two missing. So me and my dad went back again. We could hear Roy shouting from the back bedroom. My dad tried to get through the flames by wrapping a blanket round him but the blanket caught fire. I told him to go round the back and I would get into their room and chuck them out the window. I couldn't see anything because of the smoke. I got down low on my hands and knees because it was the best place with the smoke rising. When I found them in the bedroom, I had Roy between my knees and Brian was next to us by the window. I slammed the ash window up but the bloody thing came down again and slammed my fingers. So I banged it up again and this time it stayed there. But when I turned round Brian had gone- he was frightened so he had got back into bed. I knew where the bed was so I got him and chucked Brian out too. I remember then I somehow got out of the window too. But the next thing I can remember was lying on the hearth in front of our neighbor Mrs Hale's fire and our doctor, Dr Towle, kept saying to her: 'Give him weak tea. Give him weak tea.' Even though all I wanted was lots of water. It's daft what you can remember."
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From an interview in 2010 with Michael Ashcroft, quoted in George Cross Heroes (2010) by Michael Ashcroft, p. 235-236
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Bamford
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Jack Bamford
John Bamford GC (7 March 1937 – 2 November 2023), known as Jack Bamford, was the youngest person to have been directly awarded the George Cross. On 19 October 1952, aged 15, he rescued his two younger brothers from their upstairs bedroom when a fire occurred during the night at their home in Newthorpe. He took four months to recover from the injuries he sustained. He was awarded the George Cross in December 1952.
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