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forward with the child, and fell onto the sloping roof. Policemen who had been waiting behind
Cleland then leaped on French, who did not struggle, and after the baby had been secured, French was led off downstairs to safety. Thomas French returned to Cambridge, and died of cancer in 2007, aged 74. Stuart French only learned of the dramatic incident when he was in his teens, but had not seen the TV footage until 2015, fifty years after the incident, when it was used in a television documentary he watched.
167:, but suffered frequent bouts of depression. He had scaled the 43-foot building and held his 22-month old son Stuart whom he threatened to take with him when he jumped. He refused to speak to any of the policemen attending the scene, so Cleland was called upon in the hope that her female sensitivity and Scots voice would be familiar and calming to French. Firemen held a large circular net on the street-corner below, a large crowd gathered, and the
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broadcast the drama live on television as
Cleland sat on the parapet of the building to try to calm French. She slowly inched her way forward towards him, then after over an hour of conversation suddenly lunged forward to grab the baby. French, who did not immediately let go of his son, was pulled
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Cleland was awarded the George Medal for her bravery, one of only two Scots policewomen so honoured. She married a fellow policeman, Thomas
Jackson, and transferred back to Dunbartonshire. She retired from the police and became a civilian
155:. In March 1964, when she was 26 years old and only three years into the job, she was called on to try to coax a suicidal Scotsman, Thomas French, from jumping off the roof of a building in
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operator with the
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in March 1964 from committing suicide with his infant son.
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Part of the TV footage of the rescue can be seen online.
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151:, and became a policewoman (WPC) with London's
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