HIGH HONOUR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21644, 3 May 1940, Page 6

HIGH HONOUR

Boy Scout Rewarded For Bravery

By Telegraph —Press Association

WELLINGTON, May 2.

The highest honour in the Boy Scout movement, the Cornwell award for bravery, has been made to Patrol Leader Roger Kingsford, aged 14. of Nelson, for stoical endurance of suffering. Advice to this effect was received to-day by Boy Scout Headquarters in Wellington from the London Headquarters of t ie movement.

The Cornwell award is made for specific acts of physical courage coupled with pre-eminently high character and devotion to duty, or for bravery in saving life in exceptional circumstances or for undergoing great suffering in an heroic manner. Kingsford’s recommendation was made under the last heading. About a year ago he went to hospital with osteoyelitis in a leg, which was amputated. He underwent nine operations, 26 anaesthetics and 13 blood transfusions. In the early stages of the illness the doctors despaired of his life. He is still confined to hospital. Throughout his long illness he has borne out Scout precepts and the surgeon in charge of the case. Dr. W. D. Stoney Johnston. Commissioner of Scouts, Nelson, wrote: "His courage, cheerfulness and manliness have never been surpassed in my care of the sick during my last 30 years of practice.”