Orders, Decorations and Medals

Corporation of Glasgow Bravery Medal, 3rd type, 9ct. gold (Ralph Dunn 1966) hallmarks for Edinburgh 1965, complete with gold brooch bar, in T. S. Cuthbert, Glasgow (worn) case of issue, extremely fine £250-300

Constable Hutt and Mr Ralph Dunn were awarded the Glasgow Bravery Medal in 1967 for rescuing a woman and her three children from a fire in a Glasgow tenement on 29 November 1966.

‘About 12.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 29th November, 1966, an outbreak of fire occurred in a two apartment flat in the tenement property at 252 Parliamentary Road. At that time there were in the house a woman and her three children aged five, three and one. The children were asleep in the bedroom.

Constable Hutt patrolling nearby, heard screams and ran upstairs to the house. Getting no reply to his knocking he then attempted unsuccessfully to force open the door with bodily pressure. The mother was unable to reach the kitchen door because the pulley was lying against it.

At this point, he was joined by Mr Dunn, a resident on the top flat, who on hearing screams, and dressed in only a pullover, trousers and shoeless, left his house and ran down the stairs.

The Constable and Mr Dunn could now see smoke issuing from the sides of the door of the house and seeing that the Constable’s attempts to force the door were unsuccessful, Mr Dunn suggested that they could gain access to the bedroom of the house by going along a ledge under the sills of the first flat houses.

Going into an adjoining unoccupied house, Mr Dunn climbed through the window on to a ledge about 18 inches below the level of the window sill and about 9 inches wide, the ledge being approximately 14 feet above ground level of Dobbies Loan. Standing on this ledge, facing the wall of the building, Mr Dunn stretched across a gap between the two windows with his arms - the gap being about 5 feet wide - grasped the masonry at the side of the window and edged his way along the ledge and climbed on to the sill of the bedroom window. He then climbed into the bedroom, being followed by Constable Hutt who gained access in the same manner.

The smoke from the kitchen was filtering through the bedroom but fortunately was not too dense and Mr Dunn and the Constable were able to see the children without too much difficulty. Mr Dunn lifted the youngest child, from his cot, and Constable Hutt lifted another child who was standing against his bed. They carried them into the small hallway. The front door of the house was locked but the key was still inserted and Mr Dunn unlocked the door and he and Constable Hutt carried the children out on to the stair landing. Constable Hutt then returned to the bedroom and lifted the remaining child from his bed and carried him out on to the stair landing.

Constable Hutt then went into the house again, leaving Mr Dunn with the children and without difficulty pushed open the kitchen door and found the mother screaming and throwing water on to the by now burning kitchen cabinet. .... Constable Hutt told the mother that her children were on the stair landing and to leave the house and look after them, while he and Mr Dunn, who had come into the kitchen, attempted to control the fire which was confined to the recessed area. On the arrival of the Fire Brigade, the fire was quickly extinguished.

The rescue of the woman and her three young children by Constable Hutt and Mr Dunn is deserving of great praise. Neither rescuer had thought for his own personal safety, and it would seem that without their combined efforts the outcome of the fire might well have had fatal consequences. ....’

With some copied research.