By Fireman M.N.(Retired)

They say that there is no peace for the wicked or in my case the unwicked. Life was fairly cosy for a retired old “puff of wind” like me. Then Janet’s computer started to smoke - it’s Tony looking for another instalment of “Crust” and then my ears started to smoke, too, as I am last in the pecking order. So here goes!

As well as working on site for Bryco Concrete I provided some metal fittings for the concrete buildings. One such job was making cleats for bolting sections together, made from 1 ½” x ½” bar. I would buy two tons of bar at a time and cut them to length on a circular cut-off saw ready for drilling and bending. The drilling I found easy - Janet did it. She sat in front of an ancient “Denbigh” pillar drill quite happily drilling 5/8” holes, 2 or 3 in each bar. The bending wasn’t so easy so I did that with a hand bar bender. As more and more of these cleats were wanted I had to make life easier so I made tooling to do the job on a 10 ton power press.

Now for the drilling - it was time for an upgrade so I bought a new “Arboga” radial drill with all mod cons so that now we could really motor. One small snag - Janet hated the new drill, couldn’t get on with it, wouldn’t use it, so the boss did them. Ironic really. You try to look after the staff and end up paying £2000 to drill a hole for a farmer for two and six, (Oily Rag No. 97).

The dealer (shyster) who I did the work for on horse drawn vehicles, went to a factory closure sale in Birmingham, part of the Ruberry Owen Group. He bought a load of scrap and amongst it was a “Merryweather” horse drawn steam fire engine. We found out that it was part of the works fire brigade; and was last used in 1944. The scrap he resold as it was, loaded the engine onto a trailer and brought it back to Somerset.

I had a phone call, “John come and see what I’ve got!” “I’m busy, I said”. “Never mind that, it will be worth your while”.

So I went across to Nether Stowey and there it was at the side of the road. “Can you fix it up” he asked?

Playing it cool I said, “Maybe”. Then a car pulled up and a reporter and photographer from the Bridgwater Mercury got out .We posed for a “Bull droppings” photo for the paper. I was starting to think that I was committed or perhaps I should just say “committed”.

I freed it up and cleaned it down and it looked a lot better. Next thing, Robin said, “How about firing it up?” Instead of saying a big “No” to him, I only said a small “No”. So the conversation then went like this. “Why not? You need special coal! Don’t worry, I know a fireman on the West Somerset”. Two days later came a phone call to ask me if we could fire up on Friday? Reluctantly I agreed.

On Friday it went well. Two bags of coal, hand picked, no dust or smalls and a heap of dry wood. I took off the safety valve and filled the boiler with water and got a good fire going. There was an extension for the chimney and a blower. In no time at all the gauge was at 100 PSI and it was blowing off! So we crept out from behind the garden wall and I opened the drain cocks and the stop valve and off it went with the scotch cranks just a blur. I shut the valve, and it ticked over like a dream.

When things are going well you should stop whilst you are ahead - which is why I wanted to shut down, but Robin said, “Let it go a while longer”, as he looked at his watch yet again.

The water was down to half glass by now so I thought that it was time to top it up, On with a nice bit of coal, then I opened the injector. Nothing happened - not even a wisp of steam from the overflow so I shut the valve, hit it with the shovel and tried again. Still nothing, but not to worry as there was a pump driven by the crank shaft. I tried that but nothing - it wouldn’t even suck air. By now the water was near the bottom of the glass, the fire was going well with no ash pit dampers to control it and the safety valves had lifted. The old stokers maxim came to mind - “If in danger or in doubt put the bloody fire out”. So I knocked out two fire bars and started to dump the fire.

Just then a BBC West film crew arrived in the yard. They were making a film about life and characters on the Quantocks and Robin had lined them up. That was why he was the looking at his watch so often (they were late). I managed to put on a bit of a show, but to this day I swear the pump was running on the expansion of hot air in the boiler.

That rig had last run in 1944 - there was no safety certificate and neither had any sort of test been done, so I could have sent us, the film crew and a chunk of Nether Stowey to kingdom come.

Be warned some accidents do happen but most of them are caused.

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