Recommended Posts

  • Replies 182
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

Good to see you back Ben and in good form. When I was wooing the to-be Mrs WW she worked in a greengrocery shop. Which meant 5 days a week she was out at 5am, down to Sneinton fruit and veg with

Of course it wasn't all hard graft,sometimes you got to meet some really nice people like this rep at a construction equipment show in Derbyshire for Duo Africa     I'm the one on

Re Troggs' mention of Harry Hyman being our areas executive council member , I went to a union meeting one night, in Centrals' bar, there was a long debate about pay and conditions chaired by Harry. E

First machine I rode in July 1968.Fantastic. Looks fairly well presented, but  the hook ladder on its  R/H side roof wasn't something we carried. I was told the City stopped carrying hook ladders after WW2. There would have been a roof ladder though.

Strangely, we still did hook ladder training at the Birmingham training school. Up to the 4th floor on the outside. Said to be confidence training, wether we used them at jobs or not ! 

I  remember seeing Ken Blatherwick back the TL into the front of UAU, nearside screen pillar all smashed in. No idea who mended it, a local coachbuilder I think.

Great photo Willow.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm not one for having loads of family photos hanging on the wall, but the only one I've got of my late dad, is one in his AFS uniform sometime during WW2. Being a baker at the time, he wasn't called up, but joined the AFS in Sutton in Ashfield, but as the overnight bombing raids by the Luffwaffe hotted up, he was sent to Walsall, and spent most of the war there. 

I've still got his lapel badge and three manuals somewhere in the loft.

Link to post
Share on other sites

What a photo !, the glory days of the British Fire service, the fifties and sixties. I'm sure a few of them would still be in the job when I joined, but I don't readily recognise anyone

I bet some of the pensioners would love to see this.

Spot the fogrider and front end of his bike , on the left, although it appears to have girder forks whereas our Norton was telescopics, so, quite likely to be an AFS despatch rider to lead them out of the City and beyond ?

Love it ! Keep 'em coming !

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Not far off Ian, Chiefs car was a Humber Sceptre, lovely shade of red, swanky black interior,

there were two Avengers after about 1971, in orange. One had rotted through the sills in 9 months.

They replaced two Hillman minx's , black, that had lasted for a decade without body problems !

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

https://sfrheritagetrust.org/portfolio/gto-10-dennis-merryweather-2/

This website gives a basic history of GTO 10, a Dennis Merryweather turntable stationed at Shakespeare street in 1940 to 1955, when it went to Dunkirk until 1965 according to the text. There are some great thumbnail pics too.

It's a fine looking machine and I was always overawed when, as a child, I saw it on the streets.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

GTO 10 is a very stylish machine. It was at the closing event for Central Fire Station. Apart from my fogrider bike, it was the only ex-city machine there out of several.

UAU 999 shown recently was not available , as it's in Sunderland I presume the fuel costs would be behind that. I went through the log books once on miles and fuel issues, it was averaging 2 mpg. Probably does 5 or 6 on a run though !

 

GTO 10 looks the part, but those Merryweather ladders were horrible, flexing all over the place.Some actually collapsed, one fireman was killed, Merryweather  issued a strengthening kit, I remember it being welded on in Centrals yard. The Dennis with a Metz ladder, at Stockhill, was far superior - I spent hours up both !

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

French at a guess, maybe German , that crowbar stuck down the front forks would have you arrested these days !

As for a siren worked off the front tyre, how embarrassing, imagine tearing through Slab square on that with the siren wailing ! Give me UAU anyday !!!!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Re Ians photo above " Blue watch at Central," I've learned something there -  it was opened somewhere around 1940 , that photo must be in the 40's as any photo's I've seen of the yard and when I was there, the buildings behind the tower are 2 storeys higher and there appears an extra window in the tower at 1st floor level. Amazing.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

A superb pic, but I'm confused here, I always believed Central wasn't opened until after 1940, Italian prisoners of war laid the marble City crest in the main foyer.

That Leyland pump is certainly mid to late 1930's. 

Happy bunch sat on it !

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

The front row are sat on tubular steel framed chairs, they make me think fifties, but were such chairs made pre-war as well ?  That Leyland  (cub) would be built  around 1938, 20 years service until 1958. I'm not sure about the 'sergeant' style rank markings. Will look them up. 

An interesting post

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I missed the obvious here, Nottingham was a  Police Fire Brigade until August 1941 (when it became part of the NFS), hence the rank markings.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Ian, I've had a scan for those tax discs, can't find a thing, any chance of a link or some clues? I have an ex Nottingham City Commer, off the road for decades in a museum store, found in the screen was a "tax disc". Done on a typewriter :

                                                                   Nottingham City Fire Brigade

                                                                            999BTV

                                                                 Road fund licence exempt.

I can't prove it was a genuine original though. To see the ones you spotted would be kinda' good.....

The machines were property of the Crown . I have a vague memory of seeing such discs in the screens. 

                                                                    

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...