London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Fire Guards Training at Bedford Square
A group of volunteers at Bedford Square practice extinguishing fires with a stirrup pump, though some even find the overalls a bit of a struggle
From the collection of:
Overview
Fire Guards were volunteers recruited to operate in the vicinity of their own home and street and were formed into small teams of 3 to 5 persons and trained to tackle small fires caused by incendiary bombs or to extinguish the incendiary bomb itself using water supplied by a stirrup pump. Unlike an official goverment film, this amateur film lets us see the men joking about before getting on with the training - extinguishing smoke bombs and controlled fires.
This film is from the collection of Hillingdon Local Studies, Archives and Museum Service, a member of the London's Screen Archives Network.