ST. HELENS COUNTY BOROUGH
Until local government reorganisation in 1974, St. Helens was a County
Borough Fire Brigade, then on April 1st that year it became Station E1
in the newly formed Merseyside Fire Brigade.
Dating back to 1950, Dennis F7 BDJ247 was seen
leaving the station c.1963.
[Apologies for the quality of this scan ~
the original was extremely poor.
I am very grateful to Brian Baxendale who
has further enhanced the original picture.]
Prototype Dennis F24 GDJ642 was seen in the
station yard at headquarters.
[Copyright picture ~ Pete Ashley and reproduced
with permission.]
Pump ODJ 311 seen in attendance at a grass
fire in Haydock in the early 70's.
Dennis ODJ311 and GDJ642 can be seen at a major
fire in Parr, 2 March 1966.
Dennis F28 pump escape TDJ629 ~ date
unknown.
[Copyright picture ~ Ron Henderson and reproduced
with permission.]
Land Rover Hose Layer VDJ319 was seen in Merseyside
days but still in County Borough livery.
[From the Gary Chapman collection and reproduced
with permission.]
Albion Emergency Tender - LDJ 999E is
in attendance at its very first incident,
an overturned lorry in West End Road Haydock,
31 May 1968.
Part of the St. Helens 'white' fleet.
New delivered Water Tender HDJ244J,
a Leyland Beaver with bodywork by Carmichael,
and on the left the
newly repainted Albion Emergency Tender LDJ999E
seen in 1971.
St. Helens also had a large number of appliances
for the Auxiliary Fire Service, including 3 'green goddess' 4 x 2 pumps,
2 Land Rovers with field telephone trailers, 2 Matchless motorcycles (Dispatch
Bikes), a Control Unit, a Pipe Carrier/Bridging Unit, and an Austin Gypsy
Personnel Carrier.
Control Unit NYV669 based at St. Helens up
to the abandonment of the AFS in 1968
NYR350 was pictured at Washington Hall in Lancashire
just prior to the AFS being disbanded.
It was one of 3 such appliances based at St.Helens
and has been rescanned from
a recently discovered negative ~ 3 March 2006
In St. Helens' days, computer mobilising was still
a long way off. Every message was handwritten in the Occurrence Book
and a copy (as below) given to the Officer - in - Charge.
Note the references to County, i.e. Lancashire
County,
and to Pilkington's which was the Pilkington
Glass Company Works Brigade
which regularly attended incidents in the
borough as well as within the works.
One of the famous St. Helens 'white' fleet
- WrT HDJ244J
Another 'white' Leyland was UDJ752L seen here
on the station forecourt.
[Copyright photograph ~ D. Carville and reproduced
with permission.]
When this picture was taken, Orbitor YDJ278H
was languishing in Birkenhead Docks.
[Copyright picture ~ N. Glover and reproduced
with permission.]
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