Julian2

Hi, I was really pleased to find this site and wonder if you are all still interested in the Army Fire Service (AFS). My father was in the AFS and I have tried hard to find information over the past twenty years about the service. I visited the Imperial War Museum at London some years ago and found one document, written just after the war, on the history of the AFS, which, if I remember gave some specifications of the lorries and tender pumps. The Oxford Die Cast Co. makes a excellent QL Fire Service lorry, of which I bought one. Presumably, the company had access to the original plans to manufacture so much detail. https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/collections/by-era/products/bedford-qld-army-fire-service-76qld001 I visited The Logistics Corps (what was the old Royal Pioneer Corps, of which the AFS was a part of) at Deepcut Barracks, Woking, and looked from a handful of bits they held and I photographed. There wasn't a great deal there. I tracked down a corps magazine held by the National Library, named 'The Collecting Head' (a kind of manifold that connects onto the tender pump for the hoses) and there were several issues on microfilm. I don't remember any vehicle photos particularly, but some photos of the platoons and various soldier's poems, stories and jokes. I did find a photo of my dad with his outfit in Algiers, which cheered me up no end. At the National Archives, I managed to track down all of Dad's unit diaries, but because the firemen were attached to other Army units, they take a bit of tracking down. Each lorry and tender pump had one Sergeant and a lower rank, and they would be attached and often called on for non-fire duties, such as directing traffic! Anyway, I'm very pleased to have seen what you've found and please let me know if you are interested in more information from me, as I have done a fair bit of digging.