AUXILIARY FIRE SERVICE

Sussex Express Article - February 2011

By Carol Walton

For this month’s photo from Our Newhaven we go back to the early days of World War II, with a snapshot of some of the members of Newhaven’s Auxiliary Fire Service. They are pictured standing in front of their ‘fire car’, for want of a better term, behind which is the pump engine trailer. The location is the AFS base at the rear of what was Hughes’ Garage, at the bottom of Mount Pleasant. This later became the Blue Star garage and the site is now Frosts car showrooms. Note how few houses have been built in Mount Road!

So far, the Our Newhaven team has managed to identify some of the faces in the photo. Jim Strudwick is standing at the right and Frank Gilbert is fourth from the left. Fred Bailey is one of the two men standing on the running board of the car. From other photos of the AFS on the site, we think that the man second from the left is the officer in charge of the unit. Can you help us put some names to the other faces?