The report that PCSOs are to train as firefighters, and Councillor Bill Matthews's comments on this, are interesting and, perhaps, contain an element of history repeating itself.

Until 1941 the fire brigade in Hereford and its surroundings was provided by an inspector, a sergeant and some constables of the Hereford City Police. They operated two very basic fire tenders, one of which, “the county engine”, had been purchased jointly by several district councils to cover rural areas. So, while these police officers' writs as constables ran out at the city boundary where the county constabulary took over, their duties as firemen could take them further much further afield. (I believe “the county engine” once went to Hay-on-Wye.)

Fire brigades as an integral part of the police were quite common in larger cities such as Bristol and Liverpool, but Worcester City Police and the Shrewsbury Borough force also provided fire cover. Some police fire brigades operated an emergency ambulance service too.

Faced with the increasing threat of war, central government took an interest, for the first time outside the London County Council's area, in the fire service and passed the 1938 Fire Brigades Act. This obliged local authorities to provide a fire brigade. Although the prospect of war hastened this act, it essentially covered provision of a peacetime fire service and it recognised the incompatibility of police officers undertaking firefighters' duties and set out to terminate the arrangement. The Act, however, was overtaken by war and it took the “Blitz” to prove that incompatibility, with police fire brigades disappearing when the National Fire Service was established in August 1941.

Their return was specifically ruled out when the fire service returned to local government control in 1948.

Are there any lessons here?

Yours etc

Michael Smith

MALDON

Essex