Cuppa saved mum’s life in cancer scare
Great Escape legend’s RAF golden caterpillar fetches £3k at auction
ALERTED Nicola Fairbrass A MUM found she had cancer when she reached for an evening cup of tea in bed and found a lump in her left breast.
Nicola Fairbrass, 44, was diagnosed with stage three cancer the next month.
Nicola said: “I love tea and I think, in a way, it saved my life.”
She said: “That night I turned around to get my cup of tea from the bedside table but as I was pulling it towards me, I felt a lump in my left breast.”
The mum-of-one from Oakwood, Derby, had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is cancer free.
Nicola, a dogsitter, said: “It has been a huge relief to get the all clear. It has been a very tough year, but I am glad it is over.” Bram van der Stok A GOLD caterpillar badge awarded to one of the heroes of the real Great Escape has sold for £3,200.
Flight Lieutenant Bram van der Stok received the lapel pin having joined the unofficial Caterpillar Club for RAF airmen who had baled out over land.
The Dutchman, known as “Bob”, parachuted from his Spitfire into Nazi-occupied northern France in 1942, leading to
Stalag Luft III, scene of Great Escape
his capture and then imprisonment at the Stalag Luft III camp in Poland.
In March 1944, with 75 others, he took part in the Great Escape, immortalised in the 1963 film starring Steve McQueen.
Flt Lt van der Stok was one of only three to evade recapture and eventually reached Britain via Gibraltar.
The pilot resumed service with the RAF until the war ended and became the most decorated Dutch aviator in history with honours including the MBE. His badge caused a bidding war when it was auctioned by Lockdales in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, selling for five times its £600 estimate. Boss Daniel Daley said: “The lapel pin awarded by the Caterpillar Club to van der Stok has real historical The gold caterpillar interest due to its personal connection to a wartime aviation hero also hugely admired for escaping Stalag Luft III.”
Flt Lt van der Stok was serving with the Royal Netherlands Air Force when Nazi Germany invaded in 1940.
He fled to Scotland in 1941 and joined up with No41 Squadron, at RAF Westhampnett, West Sussex. Later he became a doctor and died in 1993, aged 73.