Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Telegraph & Star ‘Gloops Club’ Distinguished Conduct Silver Star, reverse inscribed, ‘June 1st 1942, Howard Nelson’, silver and enamel pin-backed badge by Vaughton’s, Birmingham, hallmarks for Birmingham 1928, in case, extremely fine £100-150

With original Telegraph & Star letter, dated 24 June 1942, addressed to ‘Howard Nelson of 28 Goore Road, Littledale Estate, Sheffield 9’, reading:

‘Dear Howard, In view of the part you took, in capturing the escaped prisoners, the Gloops Club has decided to award you the Gloops Silver Star. I shall be glad if you can come to “The Star” Office, High Street, on Friday, June 26th, when this will be presented to you by Mr H. L. Cooper, a Director of the “Star”. .... May I offer my personal congratulations upon the presence of mind which you displayed. Yours sincerely (signed) Auntie Edith.’

Together with photocopied extracts from The Star, 2 June 1942, entitled ‘Schoolboys had “Great Fun” Stalking Escaped Italians’:

‘Three secondary school boys who found the task of trailing three escaped Italian prisoners from a camp in the North of England to be “great fun,” were the heroes of their school when they returned after their Whitsuntide holidays today. The boys, Derek Leslie Lee, aged 13, Lewis Charles Tomlinson, aged 12, and his cousin, Howard Nelson, aged 12 were camping on the moors when they helped to recapture the Italians last night. “It was nothing,” Lewis Tomlinson told a reporter of “The Star” to-day. “We were not in the least frightened and thoroughly enjoyed spying on the Italians. It was great fun,” he said. The boys who had spent their holidays together, decided to spend their last day camping. They had struck their tent, leaving their cycles close by, when they were told by a woman to keep their eyes open as escaped Italian prisoners might be in the district. When they were playing “hide and seek” among the rocks, Tomlinson spotted a man, wearing a khaki shirt and trousers and carrying a bundle under his arm, some distance away. The boys became suspicious and fell on their stomachs behind the rocks to keep watch. After a few minutes they saw a second man. They then decided it was time to take action. Nelson, a Scout, rushed back to the cycles and fastened them together with rope, deflated the tyres, and removed the pumps. “By this time we were certain that they were the escaped Italians and decided to get in touch with the police,” Lee stated. “Because I had the fastest bike ... I rode to the nearest house nearly a mile away, to ‘phone the police while Howard and Nelson (sic) kept watch,” he added. .... When the police arrived the boys approached the cave in which the prisoners were sitting around a fire, with the officers. The Italians offered no resistance, but as they were being put into the police van all gave a Fascist salute. ....’

With a further photocopied extract from The Star, 27 June 1942, featuring a photograph of the three boys being presented with their Gloops Medals.