D-Day hero and 'Great Escaper' Bernard Jordan's war medals raise £1,650 for charity

Military collector Andrew Butler, 55, bought Bernard Jordan's five service medals, with all the money donated to the  Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). 

Mr Butler plans to put the collection - including a 1939-45 Star; an Atlantic Star with a France and Germany clasp; an Italy Star; and a Second World War Defence and War medal - on public display at his shop in northern France, close to the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy. 

Ex-Royal Navy officer Mr Jordan died aged 90 on December 30 last year, just six months after he made headlines around the world - and became the subject of a police hunt -  after staging his 'Great Escape' from a care home to attend a D-Day 70th anniversary commemoration event last summer.

A week after Mr Jordan's death, his wife of 59 years, Irene, also died, aged 88, prompting tributes to the couple who left £600,000 to the RNLI in their will. 

Today, the auction lot also including a portrait of Mr Jordan on canvas and a coloured print of a 'Bob' cartoon published in the Sunday Telegraph last June, following his D-Day anniversary escapade.

Other reminders of his trip across the Channel were also sold, including printouts confirming his Brittany Ferries return ticket. 

Mr Butler, from Ramsgate in Kent said: "I'm very proud. It's something that will be displayed in the shop for tourists and collectors to see. I'm very pleased.

"I was fairly determined. Having the shop in Normandy, I saw [Mr Jordan's] story on the internet and in the papers. 

"When I saw them come up, it was something I had to have for the display in the window."

Mr Jordan slipped off to Normandy on June 5 because his carers had been unable to get him a place at commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Police were called after Mr Jordan was reported missing from The Pines care home in Hove, East Sussex, where he lived with Irene.

His whereabouts emerged when a younger veteran phoned later that night to confirm he had met Mr Jordan in France and he was safe.

The Royal Navy veteran told reporters on his return that he had made the trip to remember his fallen "mates".

Mr Jordan added that he had decided to join British veterans, most making their final pilgrimage to revisit the scene of their momentous invasion, to remember the heroes of the liberation of Europe.

Some 156,000 Allied troops landed on the five D-Day invasion beaches on June 6 1944, sparking an 80-day campaign to liberate Normandy involving three million troops and costing 250,000 lives.

Mr Jordan had hoped to return to Normandy this June. Brittany Ferries had offered him free crossings to D-Day events for the rest of his life.

Following his death, the Royal British Legion said Mr Jordan's decision to go to France highlighted "the spirit that epitomises the Second World War generation."

On his 90th birthday, days after he returned from his escapade, Mr Jordan was inundated with more than 2,500 birthday cards from around the world.

Mr Jordan was later made an honorary alderman of Brighton and Hove in a special ceremony at Brighton Town Hall.

He joined an elite list to receive the honour, including Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, former Olympic champion Steve Ovett, and First World War hero Henry Allingham - who became the world's oldest man before his death aged 113 in 2009.