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Auction: 9022 - Orders, Decorations, Medals & Militaria
Lot: 411

x Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Life Saving Medal, bronze (A. Waring 1954), with integral ´For Humanity´ top riband bar, extremely fine, in case of issue, together with two newspaper cuttings END OF MORNING SESSION Estimate £ 80-100 Mr. Arthur Waring, a maintenance fitter from Blackpool, was awarded the R.S.P.C.A. bronze medal for scrambling 35 feet down into the pitch blackness of a disused gasometer, at the town´´s Rigby-road gasworks, to rescue a black cat which had fallen through a manhole into nine feet of water flooding the bottom of the holder. The cat, which had swum to a ledge, was marooned when its crying attracted Mr. Gordon Wright, a North Western Gas Board mains layer. He called R.S.P.C.A. Inspector Harry Heyes and the gasworks superintendent Mr. Cyril Martin- the latter summoned from a game of bowls- to help in the rescue operation. After Blackpool Fire Brigade had supplied an extension ladder, Waring made his tricky descent and rescued the cat. He was later presented with the R.S.P.C.A. bronze medal from the Chairman of the Blackpool Branch, Mr. A.F. Warner. The cat, called Topsy, was wet through and in a starving condition when rescued, but after being cared for by Mr. Heyes, and fed on milk and fish, made a full recovery. (Newspaper cuttings with lot refer)

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£220