大象传媒

Born in 1900 Jack Hobbs (my father)was 39 years of age when war was declared on 3rd September 1939.Next morning he presented himself at the local fire station in Pinner Road,North Harrow, and signed on for the 'duration'.He arrived home carrying his cap, his first piece of uniform as a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS ),later renamed National (NFS ).

I was eleven years old when war broke out and proud of my dad,who saw much fire-fighting action in the London area during frequent air raids.
Mum never knew when he would be brought home in an ambulance,swathed in bandages.Arriving home from school I would be told:'Don't disturb your father; he's on the sofa and he's been badly burned.'

Then came the great London fire blitz, and dad never arrived home for his rest day. Mum commented about his absence to the milkman.'Your Jack won't be home today,Mrs Hobbs'he said. He'll be up in London fighting the fires.See that red glow in the skyline? Thats the city on fire!'

Hundreds of incendiary bombs had set the city alight and as the firemen worked the enemy bombers dropped high explosive bombs into the flames.As warehouses and office buildings collapsed,dad and his team were ordered to move to a special task-that of trying to save both St Paul's Cathedral and St Bartholomew's Hospital from catching fire by playing their hoses on to the walls.Dad was known as the 'monkey man',the one who was fastened to the turntable ladder by a strong hook(no safety cage like those used today)and the hoisted high into the air,swaying perilously back and forth.So great was the heat from the fires that the walls dried out as fast as they were watered.That night the firemen worked for 19 hours without even a cup of tea, but they saved those two fine buildings.

Dad arrived home exhausted and so blackened that it took three baths and the aid of Mum's floor scrubbing brush to get his skin clean!Three days later he took me to see the devastation, he in his fireman's uniform, me in my school uniform.It was a sight I have never forgotten.Abandoned fire hoses still lay across the huge mounds of rubble,some of it still steaming from the intense heat it had undergone.As we stood in the charred framework of a burnt out shop front across from St Paul's I never dreamed that many years later I would be working in Queen Victoria Street at the rebuilt International Headquarters of the Salvation Army and that from my 5th floor office window I would look out daily at the golden cross on the dome of that great cathedral and recall how those to fine centres of physical and spiritual healing were saved by a team of brave firemen-and my dad was one of them!

Submitted by Doreen Hobbs
e-mail via shesandys@aol.com

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