|
1914-1945
Written by
Ian Richardson,
My father, Ron Richardson, wrote the following reminiscences about his father in the weeks just before he died from a brain
tumor. It must have been a great effort for him to write them, and in the original document one can see his handwriting deteriorate
as the tumor robbed him of more and more muscle and mental control. As a result I have found it necessary to guess at one
or two words, and to add one or two explanations. These are shown in square brackets – [thus] – everything else is Dad’s.
Although he struggled to finish them – and could probably have written more if he had been given more time – I am sure he
gained a lot of satisfaction from having made sure that they did not die with him. It is clear from his last sentence, which
was almost literally his dying wish, that he wanted other people to be able to read his memories about an era the every-day
details of which are almost impossible to imagine today. I take all responsibility for any errors in the transcription of
the notes, and my mother, Joyce Richardson and I are proud to have them made available so that the lives of ordinary-yet-extraordinary
people may be remembered.
In 1914, Frank Richardson, then a young married man with a 4-year old daughter, joined Horsham U.D.C.’s Volunteer Fire Brigade;
a decision to which I may possibly, if not probably, owe my existence. I did not come onto the scene until June 7th, 1917,
but by that time very few fit young men were spared the demands of the butchers at the Western Front. Women largely filled
the gaps left by the men, but a Volunteer Fireman must have been very hard to replace in that way.
First and above all, the job required an absolute commitment to abandon the immediate task at a moment’s notice, day or night,
rain or shine, 365 days of the year, without knowing if their absence was for an hour or (on occasion) 3 days.
Employers seem to have been sympathetic over this, but a woman with a husband, and perhaps children, was in a very different
case.
At that time Horsham was a small, quiet town, surrounded by farmland and a number of large landowner’s estates.
The rural area was “truly rural”. Only in the early 1930s was a water main laying scheme undertaken, and gas and electricity
were almost unknown for the cottagers and farmers.
As a result any attention to animals during the hours of darkness was by lantern-light among straw bedding, and the dangers
are all too obvious, and fire fighting as I recall usually meant a farm fire.
In those days, too, animals (including the horses which provided most of the muscle power for farm machinery) had to be fed
through the winter. Hay was grown for this purpose, and had to be cut, spread out to dry (with turning to speed the process),
carted in to be built up in stacks (or ricks) like small houses with sloping roofs and tarpaulins to keep rain out. Everyone
hoped for a fine spell for the hay making, and everyone worked hard from dawn to dusk to get the hay dried and stacked without
intermediate wettings, which reduced its value, either for sale or as foodstuff.
On occasion a desperate farmer might be tempted to stack his hay before it was truly dry. A damp patch might begin to ferment
and heat up (as lawn mowings quickly do). Tightly compressed and excluded from air the heat would intensify to smouldering
point and eventually begin to burn.
The cry of “Fire!” would be raised and every pair of hands available would be pressed into service to save what could be saved.
Water in summertime might be low and distant. A human chain passing buckets from hand to hand might be formed. Others would
try to drag away unburnt material to safe areas; but the heat would be raising a pillar of sparks and burning material to
drift and fall and start further fires, possibly in nearby barns, stables, cowsheds, etc., and farmers often lost stock in
this way. Such fires were all too frequent.
The Brigade members would be alerted to an alarm by a large bell on a massive beam above the roof of the Fire Station.
In 1919 my father and mother moved into the rooms above the station and became responsible for raising the alarm at all times.
Two bell-ropes ran down from the beam into the ground floor of the building and if she were alone my mother would face the
task or ringing, unless a passer-by came to give a hand – not too difficult (in daytime) when the chance was only too welcome
to many!
At night men were roused by electric bells in their homes. A leap out of bed, hurried dressing, and a mad dash - in almost
every case on a pedal cycle - to the Station, to don brass helmet, belt with axe, wrench and lifeline, tunic and boots. But
not before taking a numbered brass disc from its hook by his uniform, and re-hanging it on one of a vertical row of hooks
screwed into a board on the wall. This would accommodate 10 discs before a white line was reached, thus qualifying the 10
men lucky enough to form the crew. The numbers would be listed and some small payment was made for the service. Unlucky
men would be free to return home.
The telephone was not the universal home furnishing of today, and kiosks were not numerous in the town. As a supplement a
number (12-15?) of street alarm boxes were dotted around the town. These cast-iron pillars were topped with glass-fronted
boxes. “Break glass, turn the handle, and wait for the Brigade,” read the notice in the box, and the firemen would get the
details of the fire from some poor wretch who had run frantically from his home to call them.
In the Station, each call-box handle turned would trigger its individually labelled “tell-tale”, a round glass plate, normally
blanked out, but revealed by shutters opening like those in a camera lens. “Bishopric”, “St. Leonard’s Rd”, “New Street”
etc. they would announce, and every Friday morning without fail my father would visit every one in a rigid order (to avoid
confusion), unlock the box and turn the handle for half a minute or so, to ensure a satisfactory response, checked by my mother
at home. (I should say here that these call boxes would also trigger a bell in the firemen’s homes (without indicating location),
but I believe they were only switched on to do so at night.)
The Fire Station was a wood block floored area, fronted by wooden doors sliding and folding sideways from the middle for access
and exit. Behind this area was a stone-flagged area used by my father to hose and scrub clean the 40(?)-Foot lengths of hose
(canvas) after use. A sloping glass roof above featured a separately framed section, which could be allowed to slide down
to provide an opening. Each wet hose had a piece of chain around its middle, and was hauled on a rope and pulley to hang
from a massive “scaffold” to dry, after which it would be lowered, carefully rolled and put away for its next outing. (The
hose-drying scaffold from the old Station can still be seen in Amberley Chalk Pits Museum.) This washroom also provided a
deep white sink, an old-fashioned “copper” boiler, and mangle for my mother’s washing days. The kitchen of our rooms looked
out over this glass roof and over the back gardens of a terrace of houses. One memorable day my sister was talking through
the open window to her friend in a garden below, while I idly leant on a piece of string strung across the frame (for drying
small pieces of laundry). The windowsill must have been very low; because when the string broke nothing stopped my weight
going over the sill and through the glass to the stone slabs below. What my mother expected to find when she reached me I
never knew, but apart from a tiny scar on my knee, which I think I got then, I suffered no ill effects. (I believe the broken
glass was replaced with a sheet of corrugated iron in due course.) I was then about 3-4 years old.
Now for the fire-fighting equipment. At the back of the Station, dim and neglected, stood an old manual fire engine. Originally
horse-drawn, its shafts were hinged to fold back along its sides for the crew to hold and pump up and down alternately. What
sort of jet they could produce, or for how long, I shudder to imagine. I have a faint memory of horses being put to it, but
I suspect this was a stunt to participate in the Cricket Week Carnival, which was the highlight of the year in those days.
Old and forgotten as it was it had the driver’s seat with leather cushions, iron rail around, and brake lever high above the
old box hose-locker, on its great iron-tyred wagon-wheels – all any boy could wish for to sit in and lash his team beyond
the reach of a screaming Red Indian horde in the dust behind him. (I delight in having one of its old side-lights illuminating
our porch to this day, and sometimes spilling spots of century-old candle-grease on the floor.)
Beside the old “manual” stood the “modern” pump
In front of it, with a gigantic drawbar poised for dropping onto its towing hook, stood my father’s pride and joy. Built
in 1908 as a 44-horse-power Mercedes-Benz touring car, its chassis now carried a voluminous wooden locker for the storage
of hose and spades, hay-knives, etc. etc., since once away from home the machine and men must be entirely self-dependent.
I remember my father attending one fire that lasted for 3 days (and nights of course!) and saying that when he got his turn
at the farmer’s rabbit-stew, “there was only heads in it!”
The “Merc” ran on solid rubber tyres. There was minimal protection for the driver, almost invariably my father. Round an
enormous steering wheel ran a corrugated brass circlet with an “Advance and Retard” marking on a pointer vaguely connected
in my mind with something called “ignition”. The cutaway side of the driver’s seat enabled him to put out his right hand
to two long brass levers, one engaging the handbrake, the other operating gear changes through a solid-looking “gate”. A
brass tube led from a rubber bulb to a warning klaxon hooter, with even sharper warning provided by a large brass bell. From
an on-board generator, acetylene gas was fed into brass headlamps whose lenses must have been 9-10 inches across. The gas
was produced by water dripping onto lumps of calcium carbide. It made a most unpleasant smell, but was popular since it gave
a brilliant white light, and on the unlit narrow and winding country lanes of those times must have been a blessing to the
driver.
I believe my father learnt to drive on a De-Dion Bouton van used by a local furnishing company he worked for, and it may have
been in this service that he acquired his encyclopaedic knowledge of the rural area around the town, probably some 10-15 miles
radius from the Station, and it was necessary to know not only the road to the fire, but the location of the farm which might
be set back from the road; and with the weight of the steam pump, 10 men clinging for dear life to seats or the hose-locker,
and the hose load itself, to “back up” from an over-shot turning, or a “3-point turn around” would have been unthinkable.
The “steamer”, as it was always called, had a firebox slung under the boiler between the iron-tyred wheels. This was always
cleaned out and carefully re-laid immediately the machine returned to its standing position ready for “next time”. A fan
in (or on) the chimney provided a forced draught to the fire for rapid heating, but much cunning and experience went into
the decision whether to light-up before leaving the Station or at some point en route – the ideal solution finding the correct
working pressure on arrival without waste of fuel or steam while merely covering distance.
The fuel was always Welsh steam coal. There were two cupboards under the stairs leading up to our flat; a “stand-up” one
where the ordinary coal for our kitchen stove was stored, and one for the dwarves, where the sacred Welsh steam coal was to
await its dedicated use in the fire service. But my mother was only human, and I was only too ready to fill a scuttle in
the Holy of Holies if the other store ran low. (Dad was never deceived.)
Once arrived at the fire the steamer would have to be coerced into a working position by the lake, stream, pond, well or other
water supply. This might involve making a ramp to a level position or hardening up a surface for it. A length of reinforced
hose ending in a brass cylinder with rows of holes ("the strainer") went into the water (in a small pit to ensure its being
totally submerged, having first been strapped into a heavy wicker basket as a coarser strainer.
The hoses were then screwed onto the delivery [pipe] and further lengths were run out and joined up until the fire could be
attacked.
It can be imagined what the hoses looked like after lying for hours across wet clay, farmyards and lakes of sooty water.
All next day the Station would reek of smoke, soot, dung and unnameable odours in a mixture, which I privately adored and
found indescribably exciting. My father would set to work unloading, unrolling and scrubbing the filthy canvas before putting
it up to dry. He would then scrub the Station clean of the muck fallen off the hose, wheels, boots and uniforms of the men.
There was a large amount of brass work on the steamer, the effect on this of
The smoke, heat, sweaty hands and the elements would have been
Heartbreaking, yet my father would get out his Brasso and cleaning rags, and
Patiently restore all, to glittering brightness.
Another inhabitant of the Station was the "Hose Truck". This was a large box on (iron-tyred) wheels with a single central
T-shaft at the rear obviously intended to be pushed by running men to the fire. It was topped by a ladder, which could be
set against the side of a house and winched up to its upper floors or roof. A large iron disc on each side of the ladder
top would have eased its progress over irregularities. Finally, once erected, a canvas chute could be dropped from a frame
at the top, the lower edge was drawn forward clear of the ladder itself and a [survivor] dragged from the burning [structure]
slid down it.
My impression is that it was exercised on isolated "drill nights" (alternate Tuesday evenings) possibly for devilment by the
lighter minds (or initiation of new members?).
The usual drill was to drive to the bottom of Denne Road, where it crosses the Arun, and is itself crossed by a railway bridge.
There the "suction tube" could be easily dropped into the river on one side of the road and the water pumped back into it
on the other side.
However, there was one glorious hour of fame for me and (I think) my brother Roy.
Some enterprising salesman had interested the Brigade in another escape device. A metal drum could be fastened to a building.
In it a long cable passed through rollers and a reduction gear. A waist belt at each end supported a body, the weight of
which descending would gently draw up the other end, and the process could then be repeated for a second victim.
A demonstration was arranged and I duly went down from the Station roof on it! Tributes to my daring amounted to 2d! [Tuppence
in pre-decimal money!] I never heard any comments from my mother on the subject! Nor am I aware that the device was ever
purchased.
My father would sometimes admit a visitor to the Station, often inviting them to start the "Merc" (with a starting-handle,
of course). He would warn them not to grip the handle between thumb and fingers (the natural grip) as a backfire could break
a wrist in that position.
The Mercedes engine was very high compression, actually too high for any average man to swing over, and my father was a smallish
man. The designers had therefore included some sort of relief valve, which could be opened for the initial swing and closed
at the critical moment.
The visitor having failed to turn the engine over, Dad would unobtrusively pull out the tap, give a final heave, at the same
time kicking in the tap (still unseen) and the engine would start.
The living quarters above the Station were very poor. A flat lead roof (perforated for bell ropes) invited leaks, and there
were many. Only the front rooms had electricity, and the main living room, heated by a coal-fired range, had one tiny window
so high in the wall that the light had to be switched on all the time. The only other light creeping in through a window in
the wall of the front bedroom ("borrowed light").
In 1928 a new purpose-built Station was opened in Horsham (formerly "Hurst") Park and we gladly moved there. My father was
delighted to have a garden at last.
The occupation of the Station had always meant that Mum or Dad must always be at home, and could never go out together. In
the Park they could occasionally slip out together after dark, leaving us [children] with a football referee's whistle to
blow if the phone should ring, although we were not expected to take the call. They perforce had to stay within earshot!
Although we had always had the phone it was NEVER used for an outgoing call (which might block an incoming one), and when
I left school and started work I had never spoken on a telephone!
The new Station had a recreation room for the men, but they obviously had little occasion to use it. The delight of sliding
down the pole from it soon palled for me, but my brothers became good table-tennis players.
At one time after the move some of the Parish Councils around the town decided not to charge their ratepayers a Fire Brigade
rate. This resulted in a huge map almost covering one wall, with the penny-pinching portions suitably coloured, and calls
from those areas could not be accepted!
In 1939 the outbreak of war put the Brigade on a permanent paid basis and the volunteer era ended.
A siren for alarms had superseded the fire-bell when we moved to the Park, and this now was used for Air Raid "Alerts" and
"All-Clears".
The Brigade was sent to London when the fire raid on the docks was at its heights, and my brother Jack was with them on that
occasion.
Later my father went with them to Portsmouth, where another blitz was raging. In the confusion he lost contact with the group
to which he had been assigned, and heard later that they had never been seen again. He himself came home clutching the cast-iron
lion, which had formed part of the Royal Arms on the shop-front of Gieves, the tailor whose uniforms were de rigeur for all
aspiring officers. This treasure stands outside our backdoor to this day.
Dad was not the man to welcome the conversion of the old spirit of camaraderie among independent deeply experienced firemen
to "militarised" "Watches", "Station Officers", "Leading Firemen", etc, and I can vividly picture his mood on being sent for
a week's course at a Training Camp.
A clash was inevitable, and came when he was brusquely informed that he was "improperly dressed" and badges were not allowed
to be worn with his uniform. He replied that there was an identical one being worn by another man in the Camp, and until
[that one] was removed, his would stay on. This brought an immediate promise to discipline the other offender on being given
details. "It's the Camp Commandant", said Dad. "You're looking at the Fire Brigade Long Service Medal!" The matter was
dropped then and there!
Just before his retirement he was watching a selected team of young (now peace-time) firemen practising for a hose-running
competition at some Sports Day event, and he ventured to offer advice. The offended man threw down his hose and challenged
dad to do better; which the old man quietly did, reducing the team's time for the drill by significant seconds, and was bitterly
told "you're wearing shoes and I'm wearing boots". I am not aware that Dad made the obvious point of his years versus the
boots, but there was a suggestion that he should be included in the competition team!
Before the wartime "Wellies" the volunteer's leather boots had always been made to measure for each man by Russells (at the
sign of the Golden Boot) in West Street. Dad regularly applied a mysterious coat of "Leather Seal" to his boots to soften
the leather and defy water penetration. I never knew its formula. I was once stupid enough to drop a tennis ball into one
of his boots standing ready for action at the foot of the stairs. A call came, he stamped on his boot as far as he could
and then endured precious wasted seconds in the violent contortions required to escape its craftsman-fitted embrace. I never
repeated the offence!
I have referred to the 24-hour nature of the volunteer days, when I had never enjoyed the company of both Mum and Dad on an
outing of any kind, and it was a doubly red-letter day when they were both present at my wedding in 1941. Returning from
[the Church at] Colgate to the Station to collect my suitcase before catching our honeymoon train it occurred to me that the
house key was still in Dad's pocket back at the reception! Fortunately one of the Duty Watch was able to obtain entry through
a bathroom window, and an “honour guard” cheered us off.
During the war I found myself one of a party in Avonmouth Docks [near Bristol] ostensibly receiving training in the use of
a fire pump. The instructor was demonstrating the "snap-together" hose connections, which had long replaced the old "screw-together"
type. "This", he explained, "is the male end. It pushes into this female end, and the lengths are then said to be married."
A languid voice from the back floated forward and in a spirit of total disinterest asked "Are we here for fire-training or
just **** sex education?"
With breathing apparatus, walkie-talkies, heat-seeking cameras in helicopters, today's fire crews obtain superb results.
Perhaps, somewhere, someone of them may become thoughtful on reading what the oldies achieved in days gone by.
That is all my father had time to write before the brain tumor overwhelmed him. Although the purpose of this web site is
to record the history of the Horsham Fire Brigade, the following brief notes on some of the people mentioned may be of interest,
especially to any readers who grew up in, or knew, Horsham in those days. The “I” in them refers to me, not my father!
“My sister” was Eva Richardson, the oldest of Frank’s children. She eventually married Alf Street, and when I was growing
up Auntie Eva and Uncle Alf lived on Madeira Avenue (?) in Horsham and worked at a bakery called, from memory, Dendy-Napper.
“My brother Roy” was the youngest. He was killed in an army accident in the closing days of WW2 in Europe. His widow, Jean,
later married “my brother Jack” and when I was growing up auntie Jean and Uncle Jack, together with my cousin Colin, lived
on Stanley Street in Horsham in a house whose back garden was just at the end of the house at 83 New Street in which Frank
Richardson and “Mum” (my grandmother) lived. It was just across the street from a pub called, I think, the Black Horse.
I believe they moved to New Street after Frank retired from the Fire Department. After Gran died, Frank moved to a bungalow
in Winterton Court, and soon after that large portions of New Street, including #83, were redeveloped. Jean and Jack still
live in Horsham.
My father – full name Frank Ronald Albert Richardson but always known as Ron – married my mother Joyce (nee Hurd) in Colgate
in 1941 as described in the later part of his memoirs. There is a curious tie-in to the Robert Blake memories that form the
main part of the web site. In those notes he mentions a raid on Colgate in September 1940 in which three firemen, the district
nurse, and a first aid worked were killed. My mother was living with her parents in Colgate at that time. Her father – Albert
J. Hurd – who served in the Grenadier Guards Band in the trenches of the Western Front in WW1 – responded tot he village hall
at the beginning of the raid together with the District Nurse and the first aid worker, whose name, my mother vividly remembers,
was Heather Barnes. (I think Grandpa Hurd was an Air Raid Warden or had some similar duty.) At some point the District Nurse
went back to her house to get more supplies, and was there when the bomb fell on the house. Hearing the explosion, Grandpa
and Heather Barnes went to see what had happened. They found the District Nurse on the edge of the crater, clearly very badly
injured if not already dead. They carried her back to the village hall for care. Grandpa was just going out of the hall
again, and was standing in the porch when the direct hit on the hall was taken. This not only ended any hope of saving the
Nurse, but mortally wounded Heather Barnes. The slight additional protection of the porch structure probably saved Grandpa’s
life, but he couldn’t hear anything. After the immediate needs of the dead and dying had been taken care of, Grandpa eventually
sought first aid himself, when it was found that both his ears were totally packed with compacted dust, and once that debris
was cleaned out, his hearing was restored!
Digressing once again, but continuing the theme of Sussex history, Grandpa (Hurd) was a professional gardener who was, for
several years, Rudyard Kipling’s head gardener at Bateman’s. In later years, he was organist at the Congregational Church
in Petworth. The historically important organ there was restored in his memory after he died, and bears a plaque in his honour.
|
|
|
