The amazing courage of incredibly selfless heroes is celebrated in a gripping new book.
Bravery Beyond Belief features 50 of the 89,000 staggering acts recorded by the Royal Humane Society. Last month King Charles, who succeeded Queen Elizabeth II as the society’s patron, attended a service at St Paul’s Cathedral to mark its 250th birthday.
, the late queen’s cousin and RHS’s president for 50 years, wrote in the foreword to the book: “Famous and unknown people, young and old, all of the awardees have one thing in common. By their spontaneous courage and self-sacrifice, they have saved a life or lives.” Here are just some of the fearless people who put others first.
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Grace Darling, 1838Grace was 23 and living in a lighthouse off the coast of Northumberland when the Forfarshire paddle steamer was dashed on the rocks during the night. Spotting the disaster, Grace woke her father William but the sea was too rough to launch their lifeboat. So they resorted to a small rowing boat.
When they reached the survivors on the rocks, Grace helped four men and the only female survivor, a mother who had lost both her young children, into the boat and rowed them back to the lighthouse. They then returned to rescue another four survivors.
Grace’s courage made her one of the first celebrities of the Victorian era and inspired more than £700 in donations (the equivalent of £79,600 today), including £50 from Queen Victoria herself. Grace won an RHS gold medal.
Russian Tsar Alexander I was riding by the river Vilnia in Lithuania when he saw several men drag a lifeless body from the water. Mistaking the Tsar for a common officer, they implored him to help. He leaped from his horse, removed the man’s wet clothes, and began rubbing his temples and wrists to revive him, working for three hours until the lucky patient gave a sigh.
Tearful Alexander said: “Good God! This is the brightest day of my life.” He tore up his handkerchief to bandage the man’s arm, helped move him to a house and left a large sum to provide for him. Alexander was given a gold medal by the Royal Humane Society, the most illustrious individual to receive the award.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel came second in the Greatest Briton of all time poll for his feats of engineering, including the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Great Western Railway. But the giant of 19th century engineering was also the recipient of the Royal Humane Society silver medal.
He rescued five men in two separate incidents while building the Thames Tunnel. Brunel was the first to react to a man who became trapped among floating timber in a flooded shaft. He slid down, swam to the worker and fastened a rope around his waist to pull him to safety.
A month later, a boat carrying two directors of the Thames Tunnel Company capsized while they were surveying the work. Brunel and his brave colleague rescued four passengers, then stripped and returned to the spot where they spent 20 minutes diving down to recover the body of a fifth.
Duncan became a national hero in 1980 when he won the gold in the 100 metres breaststroke at the Moscow Olympics. Twenty years later he won a Royal Humane Society medal.
He was walking to his office through Westminster when he saw an elderly man in a suit suffer a heart attack, collapse and hit his head. Duncan loosened the man’s collar, showed a passer-by how to perform chest compressions, then performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics could get him to hospital.
Later Duncan, now 67, discovered he had saved the life of former minister Robert Sheldon. Thanks to the Olympian, the Labour MP lived for 20 more years, serving in the House of Lords for 14 years.
Afterwards, Mr Sheldon said: “People told me what happened. He saved my life undoubtedly. He’s a great man.” The RHS awarded Duncan a certificate of resuscitation.
Alfred Collins, 1884 On a dark, tempestuous December night, the fishing boat, The Water Nymph of Looe, made its way back towards the Devon shoreline. The vessel was eight miles south-east of the Eddystone – a group of heavily eroded rocks off the coast of Plymouth – when a young crew member named Hoskings fell overboard.
With a gale blowing and the rain lashing down, the boy was quickly swept 80ft from the stern of the boat. He would have drowned if the ship’s captain, Alfred Collins, had not dived in to rescue him. Despite wearing oil skins and heavy boots, Capt Collins, who would win RHS’s Stanhope gold medal, swam out to Hoskings with a rope so the crew could haul them back.
Twin sisters Georgia and Melissa Laurie were on a boat tour in Mexico where the guide told them it was safe to swim in the river. But a crocodile silently approached them before dragging Melissa under. Georgia raced to save her and, as the crocodile returned to attack three times, she fought it off with her fists.
Melissa recalled: “I honestly thought I was about to die.” Once the croc had retreated, Georgia helped to drag Melissa aboard a boat and sang to soothe her as she was raced to hospital and placed in a medically induced coma as she recovered from her wounds and life-threatening .
On their return to the UK, Georgia, now 31, was presented with a Royal Humane Society silver medal. She also received the king’s gallantry medal from Charles earlier this year.
Mary worked on the beach at Bognor Regis, West Sussex, for 60 years, hiring out bathing costumes and towels and giving swimming lessons to holidaymakers. During that time, she saved at least 30 people from drowning – the first when she was just 16 – and was awarded the Royal Humane Society’s bronze medal.
Despite her diminutive stature, she rushed into the sea fully clothed in her long skirt and petticoat to save a struggling clerk. On another occasion, a drowning man gripped Mary so hard that he pushed her under the water, but she managed to struggle free and brought him to shore. Locals remarked that no one ever drowned on her part of the beach – right up until she reluctantly retired at the age of 71.
Rick, one of the ’s leading rescue divers, raced to Thailand after 12 schoolboys and their football coach were trapped underground when the caves they were exploring flooded.
Rick and fellow British rescue diver John Volanthen battled treacherous conditions to reach the boys on July 2. They had been stranded on a rocky shelf for nine days. Their exploits were turned into a documentary and a film.
Rick was reunited with one boy last year, joining Adul Samon on stage as he graduated from school near New York. Rick, who was awarded the RHS’s Stanhope gold medal, said: “I’m very proud that I was partly responsible for his life, in a way, and to see him make the most of the opportunities he’s had.”
Off-duty policeman Colin Swan was driving on the M3 near Basingstoke, Hants, with his family when he spotted the rear wheel of a double-decker bus was on fire.
He pulled in front of it and boarded the bus to evacuate it. Colin made several trips to the upper deck, carrying two or three children down the stairs each time.
The door was on fire when Colin finished rescuing all 66 passengers but even when a burning tyre exploded next to the fuel tank he continued working. As well as being recognised with a bronze award by the RHS he also received a 2010 Pride of Britain Award, where he met star Barbara Windsor.
Bhupinder Rajoo, one of the last people off the bus, said: “I remember Colin pushing me out of the door and screaming at me to run. I heard the explosion and to be honest I thought he hadn’t made it. He was so close to sacrificing himself for us.”
Bravery Beyond Belief, published by Unicorn, is out in hardback, priced £30
