Fire Brigade on the new fire engine at Farley Common 1929

Fire Brigade with the new Merryweather Fire Engine on Farley Common in 1929

The firemen are: On the tender L-R   Bill Allen, Alf Allen, Alf Nicholas, Fred Dunn, Fred Nicholas

On the ground L-R   Bill Henley, Arthur Galloway, Fred Paige, Major Hicks, George Avis, Bert Wood, Charlie Sharp. The driver is George Burgess.

Local garage owner Charlie Sharp was in ‘civvies’ because he had just joined the Brigade and was still waiting for his uniform. His joining was in support because half his work-force were always brigade members – if your car was in for repair and there was a ‘shout’ you just had to wait…

Cyril Heath “…when I joined the fire-brigade in 1948 I was twenty-one years old, and four of us all joined at the same time – myself, Bill Whitbread, Dick Paige and Yorkie Townsend.
Bill, Dick and I were working at Sharp’s garage, and hadn’t been there that long when there was a big fire at the Warde Arms next door. We all said ‘well, bugger that, we can’t have pubs burning down,’ so we joined the brigade. At that point there were four full-timers at the station who were the drivers as we weren’t trained-up to do that. They used to do sleep-overs there, on shifts, two-on and two-off.