Service for AFS

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is holding a Commemoration Service to mark the 50 years since the disbandment of the Auxiliary Fire Service in March 1968.

Initially formed in 1938, before the Second World War, the Auxiliary Fire Service served throughout that war and was actively involved in the Clydebank Blitz and other major incidents within Scotland.

Disbanded immediately after the war, it was reformed in 1948 alongside the Civil Defence Corps, starting initially with old National Fire Service equipment. However the role of the AFS was to provide mobile fire fighting columns that could be deployed to areas that had suffered a nuclear attack. The old equipment was not suitable for this task, so in the 1950s the AFS was requipped, this included 1000 Green Goddess fire engines, Land Rovers, motorcycles and support vehicles such as pipe carriers, mobile kitchens, and foam and water carriers.

At Bathgate Fire Station during the 1960s over 20 firefighters were active within the AFS and by early 1968, based at the Fire Station were two Green Goddesses and a Land Rover, the personnel attending many exercises and lectures.

The Service of Commemoration will be held in Clydebank on April 1, 2018, and I would ask that any person who had served in the AFS at Bathgate, contact me through Whitburn and District Community Development Trust on 01501 748708 so we can arrange to meet up again and arrange suitable transport to Clydebank for the Parade and Commemoration Service.

I trust that as many of the 20 or so AFS members who served, will attend on this day and support the service we were once proud to serve.