Dennis Merryweather fire Appliance, 1940 T.1966.1
"You only had one chance to position the ladder. You had to get it right first time. It was no good if you could go no further and you hadn’t reached the blaze."
Wilf Peers, former Liverpool firefighter
The fire fighting and rescue work done by the Glasgow Fire Brigade during the Clydebank Blitz wasn’t considered to be as heroic as serving overseas. But I think it was just as important.
It was not uncommon for an internal staircase to collapse in a fire the ‘50s and ‘60s, due to poor maintenance - so a Turntable Ladder would be used as an external stairway in these cases.
Have you dialled 999?
I clipped on then went up the ladder. And then we started battering into this fire. And there were rats as big as cats appearing on the roof. We had great fun washing these things off the roof.
There was a woman trapped and two firemen got up and they led her along the canopy of the building, holding on to them. And they brought her down the ladder. They got the Corporation Medal for gallantry.
