On a quiet, lazy Sunday morning last October, Jack Bamford, a boy apprentice miner, was awakened in the Bamford cottage in Newthorpe, near Nottingham, by the acrid smell of wood smoke. He roused his dad, who is a miner. They ran downstairs into a roaring fire at the foot of the stairway, and together rescued Mrs. Bamford and three of the children. Then they remembered Brian, 6, and Roy, 4. They were trapped in Jack's back bedroom; and the second floor was in flames. Father wrapped himself in a blanket and tried to rush upstairs, but fell back before the heat.
Young Jack took over. "Be ready to catch them," he yelled to his father. "I'll see if I can crawl through," and he charged up the stairs. On hands and knees he groped his way into the bedroom. He picked up the two boys and tossed the younger out the window into his father's arms below. But as he did so, Brian wriggled away, and ran back toward the flames. His shirt blazing, his shoulders and arms already burned, Jack took after Brian, caught him, carried him to the window and dropped him to safety. Jack put one leg over the windowsill, ready to get out himself, but fainted and, unconscious, tumbled into his father's arms.
Last week, as he lay in a Nottingham hospital, Jack got a crested letter which began: "Her Majesty has been pleased to award you the George Cross."
At 15, the apprentice coal miner was the 16sth — and youngest — recipient of the silver medal, Britain's highest honor for noncombatant bravery. "I think it's a bit daft," said Jack. "I didn't really do owt [anything]."