Fire at 5 Bridge Street

This was a fire starting under the hearth. Even when I joined in the 1950's these were fairly regularly occurrences.

The advent of the building regulations changed hearth construction and much of the fire brigades work was to extinguish the fire and to trim the hearth so that it would have to be replaced with a regulation constructed hearth. This is listed here as cutting away.

The Crew
Cpt F A Beale
Sub Cpt W Stevens
Fm J Stevens
Fm J Davis
Fm J Bull
Fm C Jerome
Fm W Blake
Fm Alexander
Fm Archer
Fm Cornelious
Fm Noyce

This is probably the first time the new recruits have witnessed the work at a hearth fire and opportunity will have been taken to instruct them. Indeed I suspect that the labour would have been theirs and the established firemen the role of instructors with the governors overseeing the instruction.