FIRES OF LONDON.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 279, 7 September 1936, Page 8

FIRES OF LONDON.

INTERESTING RELICS. One of London’s most neglected museums is that of the London Fire Brigade at Southwark. Here are relics and, records of more than a century’s fire-fighting, some of which, as, for example, a row of batttered, dented and blackened helmets, are a grim reminder of the firemen’s perilous calling. For these helmets all belonged to men who lost their lives at fires.

That bogus calls—now received at the rate of 1300 annually—were a curse even in early Victorian times is proved by records in a massive volume of old fire reports. Various other entries strike a whimsical note, such as an outbreak attributed to “a jackdaw' mischievously playing with matches,” and the record of a call from a man who mistook the “Northern Lights” for some terrific Thames-side conflagration. " Other treasures include scooped-out tree trunks that once served as watermains, antiquated leather hoses and hydrants, models of old-fashioned engines, and a still working manual fileengine which a donkey used to whisk round. , Early next year, when the brigade moves into new headquarters on the Albert embankment, these relics will be in a spacious museum to which the public will be admitted.