with other town information and views

For pretty obvious reasons the amount of information available in both written and picture form is very little. It is though somewhat surprising that it took some time for it to be realised that some very positive organising would be necessary albeit that things were hotting up by mid-year in 1939. By December the circulars to Local Authorities nationally from The Under Secretary Of State, Home Office (Fire Brigades Division), Cleland House, Page Street, London S.W.1 were pouring out thick and fast, most of which were also duplicated to "The Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade".

In the background can just be seen an Austin TV (Towing Vehicle). These were NFS standard vehicles and were relatively 'lightly' equipped painted mid grey in colour. They were very 'square', similar to a 1960's - 1970's Box Van, carrying a 30' extension ladder on top and standardised 2½" canvas hose and other equipment housed under boxed seats that ran the length of the vehicle both sides, for the crew. In a sense this seating was an innovation as the crew were protected from the elements, the open back being capable of being closed by canvas curtains! The fire fighting capacity was provided by towing a Trailer Pump which carried two sections of 4" suction hose connected to which was a wicker filter basket over a pieced metal one. Again, these trailer pumps were pretty standard either made by Coventry Climax of Coventry or Dennis Bros. of Guildford. Sawbridgeworth had the Coventry Climax. For those technically minded, the difference between the two types of Trailer Pump was that the Coventry Climax created the vacuum to lift water from rivers etc. by diversion of the engine exhaust through a venturi and had to be run at very high revs. to pick up water and the Dennis by a reciprocating piston twin  'pot type' vacuum pump driven by the engine. I believe both types had a single stage centrifugal pump with an output of around 250 gallons per minute but there were larger versions too.