大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the 大象传媒 Learning Centre on behalf of Jim Wyatt.

I lived in the Forest of Dean in my early days and went to the school which is now Dean Magna. When I left school I worked for the local vicar for about six months and then had a job on a farm with three horses pulling timber out of the woods. This turned out to be a reserved occupation which I really didn't want. I had really wanted to be a fireman ever since I was a youngster so I tried hard to get into the fire service but I couldn't because of my age.

But when war broke out big industries were advised by the government to form their own brigades and Gloster Aircraft Company was one of the industries that was forming one of these brigades.

It took me more than six months to battle my way through red tape to get in and when I got in I was sixteen and a half. I got in as a cadet.

I hadn't worked with a lot of other people before and we had a very strict chief fire officer. I was issued with a uniform which I've still got withg brass buttons. We had parade every morning so you had to clean your brass buttons. I was naive then. I would clean my kit and hang it back up. When I went on parade, it wasn't mine. Someone had pinched mine that was clean and left me one with dirty buttons.

From then one I was trained to be a firefighter and really all I was allowed to do was drill, train, drill, clean. It went on like that until Easter 1942 when there was a raid on Gloster Aircraft and bombs dropped on the car park which was alongside the fire station and many people were killed. I was told to man a pump and from then on I never looked back. I was part of a crew and that was the start of my career.

People think that the fire service was made up of Green Goddesses during the war but that's not true. It was very difficult at the beginning of the war to get appliances. Cars were adapted to take tow bars with trailer pumps and one of the biggest problems was that turntable ladders were made across the channel in France and of course when war broke out that supply dried right up and we had to develop our own ladders in this country.

There were other bombings in Gloucester. I remember January 2 because bombs dropped in Napier Street and Montpellier.

There was plenty of camaraderie between us all and it was easy to work with other crews so it was a good time really, because everyone worked together. I wouldn't chnage anything because I put a lot of work into it and got a lot out of it and enjoyed it. I was lucky - I didn't get any injuries.

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