Fire Brigades 1890

[hanes teulu]

Just about to post same plus
Kentish Express, 9 Aug 1946

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I shall tuck these snippets away for local history. It is not so easy finding things for post 1939, and I have been asked to give a talk on these villages.

[hanes teulu]

Pictures (distant) of old exchange Nonington
https://nonington.org.uk/parish-views/holt-street-in-nonington-photo-gallery/

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I haven't seen those particular pictures, but it is a great website I often find myself using.

[Claire64]

I have researched our local volunteer brigade in depth but found very little about how the men would be summoned.  It usually involved sending a young boy, running, or someone on horseback, to the Captain's house.  I suppose most men lived near where the engine was housed and could be sent for by runners.  The biggest problem was catching the horses! In later years the local Work's alarm was used.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I think we decided a lad on a bike or horse was the most likely messenger. On reflection, the horse sounds more useful. As for fetching the men, maybe a loud bell? Post-war here the air-raid "all clear" siren called them - my mother disliked hearing it, as she spent part of the war in London.

[Chris Doran]

Here, a London suburb but on the outskirts at the time, and still including some sparser areas of farmland, there were electric call points at various places -- a "lollipop" consisting of a break glass alarm button (I think) on a short pole. The volunteers were called out by firing maroons, just as always depicted in films about coastal lifeboats. The horses were supplied by the bus company, presumably those resting between shifts.

Caveat: written from memory of the old records which I haven't been able to make time to re-read.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Maroons would be another idea. Electricity only arrived in the depths of East Kent in the late 30s, at least to homes and churches.