大象传媒

This was way back in 1943, Putney got a real bashing, the dance hall in the high street was bombed Ron and I were on fire watch we were just 17 year olds and worked in the projection room of this old theatre, which had long been converted to a cinema, after hearing this loud explosion we looked out from the side exit, there was a mass of flames reflected in the windows of the Bull & Star public house across the road, this was coming from Perrins the furnishers just a few yards from our theatre it was well alight.
We remembered the hoses situated at the rear of the stalls the circle and the gallery a strict council requirement for an establshment such as the Hippodrome, and rushed up to the gallery,locating the hose we started uncoil it, it was wide and flat and seemed to be somewhat damp as though it had not been used for years, we had a resident fireman this another council requirement but neither of us re call him ever testing this gear, the only item ever tested on a regular basis being the dropping of the safety curtain every so often.
We dragged the hose line out to the gantry which overlooked the blazing fire and managed to get the water flowing at a good pressure,dircting it on the flaming building for several minutes,the connection was not water tight and quite a bit of the water came back over us, this we did not notice at the time and indeed the fears we had of the situation were momentary forgotten as we concentrated in getting the fire under control.
After a while the fire brigade appeared on the scene and one of them shouted "your not doing any good up there now", we were so angry the way we spoken to, we had tried our best and were by now soaked through to the skin, we just pointed the jet in his direction for a couple of seconds and made our way back inside,
After replacing the hose we made our way to the boiler house where the the boiler was maintained in a damped down mode and dried off as best we could,
Our clothes were cleaned at the companys expense the next day, and it was ages before we stopped thinking and reliving this traumatic experience of wartime London.

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