First World War medals exceed auction estimate

Cpl Thomas Girdler received the DCM for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty” while serving with the Royal Berkshire Regiment during the second Battle of the Somme, in France, on September 1, 1918, just 10 weeks before the end of the First World War.
Cpl Girdler was born in Aldworth in or around 1889 and was one of the seven children of Kingsclere-born cowman Walter Girdler and his wife Mary Ann, from Lambourn.
Before he joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment, he was a farm labourer.
According to auctioneers Bonhams, “Cpl Girdler was in charge of two gun teams in the advance and got his guns well forward of their objective by sheer determination.
“First of all the number one gun was wounded and after attending to him, he himself was wounded as well as his section sergeant and he was the only NCO left with the two guns. He stuck to it, despite loss of blood and dealt with snipers and machine guns as the advance progressed.”
He had married his sweetheart, Edith Hall, nine months previously. He died in 1958, aged 69.
The DCM, described by Bonhams as an “extremely high” level award for bravery, was introduced in 1854 during the Crimean War.
The medals had initially been expected to fetch between £700 and £900.