Fire Drill

This memory comes from the Somerset village of Axbridge,

“An excitement was the local Fire Brigade, which consisted of a four wheeled horse drawn manual pump operated by local volunteers. It was kept in the Town Hall and the Fire Bell was on top of the roof coming down to a glass faced box at the front of the Hall outside, and one gave the alarm by breaking the glass to ring the bell. There was rarely an actual fire but fire drill was held at quite frequent intervals. The pump was filled manually from the two wells at the bottom of the Church steps. The target was usually Lloyd’s Bank premises, the Manager being the Chief Fire Officer.