24/7 FIRE SERVICE IN BRIGG CONTINUES OVER CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR

 

Brigg Blog asked people to spare a thought for members of the emergency services on call or on duty over the festive period, and on New Year's Day we watched a fire appliance on its way down Wrawby Road, with siren sounding, answering an afternoon call-out.
The Humberside Fire & Rescue service's online log did not subsequently indicate the reason for this 'shout' but it did record a local crew's 'gain entry to property' visit to an address on the Springbank estate at 12.45am yesterday (Saturday) at the request of the ambulance service. In the end, no action was required by firefighters.
The fire & rescue service was also summoned to a property in Worlaby on Wednesday, December 30. A chimney blaze had been extinguished with water by an occupier but crew members carried out checks to confirm the fire was out.
These call-outs set us thinking about the importance of our local fire service.
Its history can be traced back to the late Victorian era, but it faced a real test some years later, in 1910, when the extensive Yarborough Oil Mills, adjoining the New River Ancholme, were gutted by a huge blaze. Brigg's fire engine was the first on the scene but it was necessary to summon many others from as far away as Grimsby to assist. The mills were rebuilt, only to be demolished in the late 20th century. The site now forms part of the Waters Edge housing development (in Broughton parish).
Lincoln-based Lindsey County Council established a fire station in converted premises on Wrawby Street - replaced in the 1970s by the purpose-built facility on the corner of Barnard Avenue and Grammar School Road - long before the inner relief road was created.
The old fire station was eventually converted to retail use and now hosts Blyton Ice Cream's popular parlour.
Today we were hoping to post pictures showing fire service survivors in the town.
Until relatively recent times, a couple of domestic properties still carried plaques adjoining their front doors which had the inscription 'Fireman'
This showed local residents that retained (part-time, on-call) firefighters lived there - useful to know if the fire tender's attendance was needed at a particular property at a time when very few Brigg households had 'landline' telephones...and decades before mobile devices.
However, a check yesterday (Saturday) revealed these plaques have now been removed.
One was on Grammar School Road and dated back to when Mr Shemmings lived there. He was the local school attendance officer as well as being a part-time firefighter. His wife was a long-serving teacher at Glebe Road School who retired in the 1960s.
The other plaque was on Central Square; a Mr Fowler occupied this property in the 1960s.
Before cars became commonplace, Brigg's part-time firefighters would have pedalled to the station on Wrawby Street to board their appliance.
We need to ask those with local history knowledge for answers to two questions:
Before house phones became standard, did a siren located in the tower behind the fire station sound to summon local fire-fighters?
If so, was the same siren used during the Second World War to warn townsfolk of air raid alerts?

PICTURED: The current Brigg Fire Station and a modern appliance, a poster currently being used to recruit men and women into the service, and part of the old Lindsey station's frontage on Wrawby Street.