…you can name the rest if you’re old enough too (and see if you’re right). Joking aside, it’s a busy time for our fireman and they all do a great job, I’m sure you’ll agree!
Here’s a smashing old photo that I found of a crew from the Hoylake Volunteer Fire Brigade (click for larger). It was taken in the 1920s and captures the crew in front of a Aster Merryweather Pump – and if I’m not mistaken the crew are outside a house on Stanley Road.
Merseyside Fire Brigade gave me permission to publish the photo and here’s some background information:
The Hoylake and West Kirkby Volunteer FB dates from 1884 when it was equipped with a hand drawn reel cart kept in the garden shed of one of its members on Alderley Rd. It was restructured the following year and with cash donations it was able to purchase a Merryweather horse drawn manual engine which was named ‘THE WONDER’.
In 1898 a single-bay fire station was completed at the side of the Town Hall on Prussia Rd now Albert Rd. The Brigade by now was under Captain Jessie Bird (my emphasis), and comprised 2 other officers and 13 firemen. By 1909 a second station was opened in an extension built on to the front of a terraced dwelling, at 44 Grange Road, housing a reel cart, an escape ladder was also put on-station there.
The brigade acquired its first motor engine in 1919 an Aster Merryweather, a Leyland followed in 1929. In 1930 the brigade was re-organised by the UDC, and a new station was opened in Hoylake with a full time Chief Officer Mr L J Laird was appointed, they manned two pumps and an ambulance. The Chief broke his arm whilst turning over the Aster’s engine with a starting handle on the day the station opened.
Advancing a few decades, and before Jack Rabbit’s here’s what Hoylake Fire Station (Grosvenor House) looked like:
Enjoy your fireworks this November!
I’m pretty sure that the third from left standing in the back row is my Great Grandfather the wonderfully named Samuel Rowland Walmsley Smith. I didn’t know about the Alderley Road shed – but he was a member of the volunteers right from the start, and did live in Alderley Road…. He retired from the Fire Service, still a volunteer at the age of 69 in 1931, and my cousin has a pair of inscribed binoculars presented to him. Also in the photo there’s a very good chance that my Great Uncle Noel Jones would be on parade – he was given a long service medal by the Fire Brigade in 1924 – again still in the family with my cousin.