大象传媒

FIREWATCHING

It had been discovered that the enemy dropped incendiary bombs on towns and cities,which in themselves were not too devastating if they were prevented from setting buildings on fire. These bombs had small explosive charges, and then started to ignite. If the fires were put out very quickly, little damage was done. If however, they went undetected, huge fires could result. At night, the buildings in the centre of cities and towns were left, in the main, empty. It was decided, by the government that teams of people should patrol these buildings from the moment the shops and offices closed until they opened again in the morning.

Once a fortnight, Norma and I had to go into an upstairs room in the building opposite to where we worked. We spent the time from when we closed the office unti1 9.30pm to ensure that if there were any incendiary bombs dropped during an air raid, we would be on hand to put them out. Thankfully, we never had to put our skills with a stirrup pump to the test. We had all the gear in this room, the pump, the water buckets, axes and tin hats. I was very glad we were not put to the test, because I not very much faith in myself in being able to cope with a stirrup pump. We had been given tuition on how they worked, but I had never actually handled one. Mary, another colleague, who lived out of town, was excused this duty as the last buses left town at 9.30pm. Trams didn鈥檛 stop until an hour later.

The men who worked in neighbouring offices and shops did the fire watching duty from 9.30 pm till morning. They were able to sleep if there were no air raids.

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