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Further to Ian Dransfield's bit about Waterton Hall.....in fact it was in Royston's station area until 1974, and Royston was on first call.

When I joined at Royston in 1962, my first job was to open the gates for the horses, as well as quietening the mares when they got frisky..

Seriously though, the appliance room was a garage in the council yard, and the accomodation (HA!) was about 50 yards away.

Turning out involved doing a 3 point turn with the appliance, and if it was between 1200 and 1300, the council dustbin wagon would be parked in front of the doors! The other problem was the mortuary next door. If there was a PM taking place, everything had to be done quietly!

The second (retained) pump was parked, fully kitted, on the green opposite the station, and one old Leyland had the old method of cooling (direct or indirect?) which meant that anti-freeze couldn't be added. In the case of a two- pump shout in winter, the cook started filling buckets of hot water which the watchroom man took across to start filling the radiator!

You can't make it up, can you? The nearest I've seen to it is the film with Will Hay!

This old Leyland had a siren on the front wing which could be started by just flicking the vanes. The locals soon found that out on their way home from the pubs late at night! That was the only bit of trouble we had. Nothing was ever nicked and no damage was done.

We had a residential StnO whose name I won't mention. His favourite trick was to ring the station and order a test turnout to his address - against the the watch!

That stopped when we went to the 56 hour week and had a StnO on each watch. I was on Red Watch with Harold Amos as StnO and Bob Hayhoe as SubO. Les Noble from Castleford was the LFm.

Thank god those days are gone!