It’s nearly half a century since the doors were first rolled back as sirens blared at a new fire station. Michael spice shares his memories of being a long-serving Larkfield crew member
This June will mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of Larkfield Fire Station. Commander D.S.E. Thompson RN, then the chairman of Kent County Council, performed the honours on June 6, 1967. Procol Harem’s A Whiter Shade of Pale was number one in the charts.
The station ran in tandem with the old West Malling Fire Station for 18 months until that closed in 1969.
It then became responsible for a “fire-ground” of approximately 112 square miles, stretching from Snodland to Wateringbury and from Alllington to Addington. Significantly it was to later include large parts of the M20 and M26 motorways.
Michael Spice, of Cygnet Close, Larkfield, was one of the crew for almost half that time. He moved to Larkfield in November 1970, after a spell at first Strood and then Medway Fire Station.
He said: “There were 12 of us. We split into four shifts, with two on and two off at any time, under the daytime manning system.”
In practice, that meant the men would work a day shift from 9am to 6pm, and then be on call overnight, for four days on the trot.
Part of the attraction for Mr Spice, who had married two years before, was the posting came with rented accommodation at the back of the station.
Mr Spice said he loved the sense of comradeship. He said: “There were so few of us. You soon got to know each other very well.
“You knew you could trust your colleague with your life – and never hesitated to do so.”
The station then had its own social club, with a bar, and regular activities which were shared by the firemen’s wives.
Mr Spice’s wife Maggie was never employed by the brigade, but recalled that as the wife of the leading firefighter, she had a Mother Goose role in looking after the other men’s wives.
Although Mr Spice attended countless incidents during his long career, there are two that stand out.
One is reminiscent of a more recent disaster on the M20.
It occurred when the motorway was still being built. Workmen were constructing a bridge over the motorway, when it collapsed.
Mr Spice said: “The cement was still wet and tragically when we arrived we found one workman buried underneath with just his legs sticking out. He was killed. It was an awful mess.”
His biggest blaze was perhaps at a storage warehouse on what is now the Quarry Wood Retail Park. He said: “The building had been the regional stores for the Post Office, but some of the building had been taken over by Kimberly Clark [paper manufacturers] who were storing thousands of rolls of toilet paper there.
“When they went up, it was a make-12 incident [12 units called],” he said. “It was a massive building, but we managed to save about threequarters of it, and importantly stopped the blaze spreading to other buildings nearby. Even more importantly, no one was injured.”
Mr Spice said the crews couldn’t help but be affected by the some of the incidents they attended, but the comradeship helped them through it.
He said: “We hadn’t heard of counselling in those days, but we would sit round with a cup of tea afterwards and just talk to each other. It helped no end.”
Mr Spice left the fire service in 1996 after becoming profoundly deaf. He said: “I had always had trouble with my hearing but I think the job affected it too.
“If a car is on fire, for example, quite often the alarm goes off and you have to work alongside the noise.”
Mr Spice endured several operations and countless hearing-aid fittings to no avail. But to end the story on a happy note, he recently was fitted with a new type of hearing aid that was advertised in the firefighters’ charity magazine. It has restored his hearing after 20 years of deafness.
Larkfield Fire Station will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a public open day on Saturday, June 10. All welcome between 11am and 4pm.