The first night shift.

It was a Monday, Monday the 23rd January 1967. I had waited, impatiently, at home all day. I was wishing the hours away and anxious to catch the afternoon train that would take me into Waterloo station. It was my very first shift as an operational London ‘fireman’. It was with a mixture of excitement, and trepidation, that I walked alongside the Thames, past St Thomas’ Hospital and Lambeth Palace, before I reached Lambeth fire station on the Albert Embankment. This would be my fire station’s ground. Somewhere I would get to learn intimately. I would, eventually, know the names of all its roads, its important buildings. I would gain an understanding of its special risks and how to gain access to them. But for now I was just wondering, in fact praying, that something would catch fire tonight.

My training instructor’s (Dave Rees) words of wisdom had been simple as I bade him farewell for the last time. They were;

“Keep your head down Pikey, say little. Look, listen and learn.”

With his advice going around in my head I walked sheepishly through Lambeth’s main front entrance to start my 15 hour night shift. I was self-conscious as I strolled across the multi-bay appliance room and made my way up to the first floor. Finding my locker I changed into my blue work overalls. Trying to absorb the atmosphere of the station was something I found difficult if not impossible. It was as if I were in a dream. I was seeing what was around me but not feeling part of it. I felt very alone. Which is strange because Lambeth fire station had the largest watch strength of any London fire station. Suddenly the thoughts of self-doubt vanished as the house bells started ringing loudly around the station. The noise of the electric bells flooded my head. It was a noise immediately followed by the thud of footsteps running on lino and the crashing of doors. I poked my head out into the long central corridor to watch the excitement as the duty day watch responded to this callout.

Hanging from the ceiling of the long corridor hung a set of appliance indicator lights. Lights that the dutyman illuminated from the station watchroom to let the crews know which appliance, or appliances, were being ordered out. There were another set of identical lights in the firemen’s locker room and in the appliance room. In the main drill yard there was three sided indicator panel with capital letters cut into them. (PE, P, TL, ET, CaV and FB).

Suddenly the bulbs lit up; red, green, yellow, blue and white. All four land appliances (red to blue) and the fireboat (white) were being sent out. The corridor was hushed now but the sound of fire engine bells ringing and tone-tone horns blaring came from the Embankment. I went to the nearest pole house and opened the narrow twin wooden doors by releasing the catch above the doors. The thick chrome ‘fireman’s’ pole rose up through a square opening in the floor. It led to the appliance room floor some 20 feet below. Lambeth had the longest sliding poles in the brigade and I was trying to recall our only sliding pole practice! Gripping the pole with both hands I flipped one leg behind it whilst the other gripped in front before, much too fast, sliding down the pole onto the mat below. It was not a dignified descent. Fortunately all the crews were out, heading to the call.

I wandered over to the watchroom to see where they were going and was welcomed by the dutyman, Ken Hunt, sadly now no longer with us.

“You’re new aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes, I start tonight,” I replied.

“I thought so by the way you came down the pole at a rate of knots. Anyway my name is Ken, how do you do?”

Ken looked smart in his undress uniform. He explained that Lambeth had a manned watchroom twenty-four hours a day because it was the Brigade Headquarters station. He said the machines had gone out to Battersea Power station, on Clapham’s ground, and that Lambeth’s appliances made up the initial attendance together with Clapham’s pair. He spent the next twenty minutes or so giving me a brief tour of the watchroom and showed me the station logbook and teleprinter message book.

“It’s so much better now,” he said before continuing, “at one time we had to write every message by hand and enter it into the log book. If you had a large make up fire you could be writing for bloody hours. Now we just paste copies of the messages in the teleprinter log book. I like progress, don’t you?”

As if on cue the teleprinter bell rang and the teleprinter started printing out the “stop” message from Battersea Power station. Something that turned out to be a small fire in a basement boiler house. With the machines returning to the station Ken said it was time to make myself scarce as only the dutyman was meant to be in the watchroom, especially if his govnor was about.

Fireman Tom Read came into work about 5.30pm and he found me sitting on my footlocker. Tom had showed me around when I had brought my kit bag and fire gear to the station from Southwark T/S the previous day shift.

“Evening young Pikey, you been here all day?”

Tom changed into his overalls and told me it was time to get ready for parade and roll call. There was much activity in the appliance room with oncoming Red watch crews relieving the off-going Blue watch. Appliance lockers were being opened and the contents checked, drivers started engines and conducted their routine checks. At about 5.55 p.m. Red Watch firemen, dressed in their fire gear, started to congregate in a loose huddle at the rear of the appliance room by the stairs. So many faces and all, bar Tom, strangers to me.

Their fireboots and black leggings were polished as were their belts and axe pouches. Axes were worn on the left side and the carefully tied belt line hung looped on to their wide belts. Our torches (which were actually black cycle lamps) were hooked onto the belts and with a narrow loop of webbing fixed to them that went over our heads. (This was to stop us losing them.) Although the fire tunics were brushed clean there was a pervading smell of smoke on most of the tunics, except mine of course! Their black fire helmets were either being carried or worn on the back of the head as the general chatter of conversation, or the laughter of a shared joke, filled the appliance room.

Seconds before 6.00 pm short rings of the house bells announced the start of my first shift. The milling crowd suddenly formed into two neat lines of men facing towards the rear of the appliances. Tom kept me at his side and in the front row. There were eighteen of us on parade that night and the acting Station Officer, the late Dick Richardson, told his deputy to;

“Detail the riders.”

The acting Sub Officer called us to attention and he detailed the riders for the night shift.

“Pump Escape. A/Sub O Lambert; Fm Howes; Fm Read; Fm Burns; Fm Pike.”

He then moved on to the Pump; followed by the Turntable Ladder; Emergency Tender and finally the Canteen Van. (The canteen van crew doubled as the dutyman, taking it in turns to cover the duty.) After the riders were detailed the govnor made the briefest of announcements saying that I was joining the watch. I was now officially on duty.

With parade over Tom introduced me to the other firemen riding the PE that night and Eric Burns said,

“Thank f… you’re here I’m no longer the junior buck.”

We carefully checked over the appliance, noting any equipment that was found to be missing and were expected to find out if it was in for repair, or had been left at a fire somewhere. Whilst Lambeth’s PE and pump were amongst the brigade’s more recently acquired appliances, most of the equipment they carried had not changed in design for years. Wartime firemen, looking over the PE or pump, would have recognised virtually all of the equipment being carried and probably had used most of it.

“Pikey, put your gear in the middle of the back seat,” said Tom and he suggested that I went with Eric. Eric had been at Lambeth for about five months, having come from Southwark training school as a recruit. He was in his early twenties, well-built but not fat, and spoke with a slight lisp. He was clearly delighted that there was a new ‘junior buck’ on the watch and he willingly passed his baton to me. Eric was very thorough in his checks, taking time to explain what he was doing and why.

“Don’t forget that when we go out on a shout that you and I have to wear the hook belts. Never go into a job empty handed, make sure you always take something with you like a line, extinguisher, or large axe”.

After fifteen minutes of checking Eric said;

“Let’s go for tea.”

Tea was served in the first floor mess and TV room, but as there was a staff canteen at headquarters, unlike other fire stations Lambeth did not have its own kitchen. However, it did have a small galley and an aging gas cooker on which stood a large metal kettle, simmering away, ready to make tea at any time of the day or night. It was in the mess, filled with over four hundred years of combined operational experience, which my fire brigade education would take on a new meaning in the months ahead.

Just five days after my eighteenth birthday I was the youngest fireman ever to join the Red Watch, possibly on any watch on the station. I felt ill at ease suddenly being thrown into this very adult world. I was ill-equipped, not having the life experiences or knowledge to counter the quips and comments that were rapidly being thrown in my direction. The age span of the watch was considerable with some firemen in their early fifties, the same age as my Dad.

Most however were in the thirties and forties like Tom, the remainder in their twenties, like Eric. I was bottom of the pile. Uneasily, I took my tea from Ken Thorne, the mess manager, who immediately asked for my mess money for the month. Ken had started his brigade career in 1938 and had served for twenty-eight years at Lambeth, and always on the Red Watch. He had joined prior to the outbreak of war and served during the Blitz. He had won Brigade pump escape and pump competitions in the fifties and now, together with Charlie Watson and Les Porter, were the watch’s senior hands. Ken only ever driving the Emergency Tender.

My first night was a catastrophe, from my point of view at least. Evening drills were interrupted with shouts for the pump and then the TL. Supper-time saw the ET get a call and each time I raced for the PE but just watched it stood there, motionless, as other appliances left the station.

‘Lights out’ was at 11p.m. although most “hands” stayed up until at least midnight. Some stayed down in the bar while others were in the mess having a drink, playing cards or watching TV. I had laid out my bedroll at eleven but knew tonight, of all nights, that sleep was the last thing on my mind. I eagerly waited for my first shout. The call that would send the PE out. Further calls came in the early hours of the morning for the pump and TL and even the fireboat got a call.

Finally, with the station quiet about 2.00am, I lay on my bunk wide awake and pulled the rough blankets over me. I was wearing my overall trousers and tee shirt ready for a quick reaction to any summons for help. Many of the firemen slept with their overall trousers either on the end of their bunk or folded on the floor ready to step into as they got out of bed. I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep only to be woken by the house lights coming on and the house bells ringing out breaking the silence of the sleeping station. In a flash I jumped out of my bunk, slipped on my shoes and was sliding down the pole. A clatter of feet followed me and I was sitting on the engine and pulling on my boots and leggings then slipping into my fire tunic. The sound of the fire engines starting up filled the appliance room as crew members mounted their various appliances.

The dutyman passed out the teleprinter call slips to the officer in charge of each engine. One by one they left the station, the pump; the TL and finally the ET. I was left behind, sitting in the back of the PE on my own. Tom had at least followed me down and looking into the rear cab said;

“Come on Pikey, it’s not your turn yet son.”

Rising early, and ever the optimist, I watched the minutes pass by as the time moved up to 9.00am and the end of our shift. Finally, with only minutes to go, the house bells dropped again and I moved purposefully towards the PE only to see the yellow light come on indicating another shout for the TL. The whole night shift and not one bloody shout for the PE, not even a false alarm! I was gutted.