Fetch the Engine

Alan Griffin’s account of the earliest days of Southam’s Volunteer Fire Brigade is available from the Southam Heritage Collection at Tithe Place Community Rooms, High Street, Southam CV47 0HB for £5.00 (P&P £2.50) – please make cheques payable to Southam Heritage Collection. You can also order and pay online (or instore) using your credit/debit card by clicking on this link.

Or email southamheritage@hotmail.com if you are purchasing from overseas or call Linda Doyle on 01926 814214 for more details.

Old newspaper cuttings about the Southam Volunteer Fire Brigade contain many references to the various incidents attended over the decades, they also make mention of the attendance of the Brigade at Church parades, local fetes and celebrations of every description to say nothing of the many social occasions that they themselves promoted. An article in the local column of the Courier in February 1886 reported that at the annual Southam Fire Brigade Ball the dancing commenced at nine o’clock and ‘was kept up with sprit until about five o’clock in the morning’.

Reading through those old cuttings, what comes across is that the membership of the Brigade provided not only valuable public service but also great fulfilment and enjoyment to all those who became members of the Brigade ‘family’. the length of many of the hands with twenty, thirty and even forty years is testament to just how much membership of this team meant to them and how reluctant they were to have to give it up with advancing years.