These stories have provided our family with such comfort as Tom, my Grandad, passed away in recent days. I am unsure how to contact you directly but the family wanted you to know that his funeral is taking place at Our Lady Help of Christians in Rickmansworth on Thursday 20th Jan 2022 at 11am if anyone would like to come and pay their respects. He will be laid to rest in his fireman’s uniform that is still in immaculate condition. He was a character until the end! Thank you once again for your stories!
I remember tommy carter as a fireman on white watch at Watford in the early 1960s; he was a clown then too. The last time I saw him was at Rickmansworth when he was made-up to Leading Fireman in 1965. I do not remember a lot about him after 50 years, except that he had a wealth of home spun philosophy, that he was happy to share with you.
I was stationed Hemel Hempstead for 9 years before moving to Suffolk FS but went regularly to Watford on out duty. My first memory of Watford was Station Officer Tom Carter. What a clown he was. Always when a new man appeared on the watch he challenged them to a game of chess. Later he moved to Rickmansworth and was even more of a pain. But Watford during the Strike like many stations they had their opponents. One was Huw Marshall. He didn’t follow the FBU line so was marginalised. I remember they smashed his favorite mug. Huwie gathered all the bits together and with a tube of Araldite stuck every piece together to make a waterproof mug…..again. This happened at least twice until there was nothing else to stick. In my first month John Raven of Watford Red Watch’s funeral began at A division HQ in Hemel. He’d been driving Watford’s hydraulic platform and was killed at the Kellogs warehouse fire in Welham Green Hatfield when a gable end wall fell on the truck while he sat on the operators seat. He’d jumped down but masonry claimed him first. Watford produced some characters especially the probys. One springs to mind when he was ‘kitchen man’ on his first night shift. The mess manager had bought sausages, a good filler for nights and he told the boy to pierce the skins with a fork before putting them into the oven. Everything was going fine until drill had finished and we all came up to the rec room and laid the table. Knives we had, Spoons we had, but where were the forks. We searched everywhere. Another lark prepared by the Station Officer until Tom Carter started looking. Then someone had the presence of mind to look in the oven. Yes there they all were. Each of the sausages had a red hot fork sticking out of all 36 of them. I don’t know whether dear old Tom Carter is still with us but his antics live on in my memory and probably many other peoples as well. . Wherever he went chaos reigned. One day on Fire Prevention duties he came upon a house with an airing cupboard fire. He radioed it in and then advised the householder to open all the doors and windows to allow the smoke to clear. Watford were held up in traffic by the time they got there Tom had used up the FP vans 2lb dry powder extinguisher and the house was well alight from ground floor to loft. If only he’d left the cupboard door closed. I could write a book, in fact I will, but know I cant write anymore my sides hurt.
By Norman Edward Cordell (Deputy Fire Chief retd) (07/11/2019)
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These stories have provided our family with such comfort as Tom, my Grandad, passed away in recent days.
I am unsure how to contact you directly but the family wanted you to know that his funeral is taking place at Our Lady Help of Christians in Rickmansworth on Thursday 20th Jan 2022 at 11am if anyone would like to come and pay their respects.
He will be laid to rest in his fireman’s uniform that is still in immaculate condition. He was a character until the end!
Thank you once again for your stories!
I remember tommy carter as a fireman on white watch at Watford in the early 1960s; he was a clown then too. The last time I saw him was at Rickmansworth when he was made-up to Leading Fireman in 1965. I do not remember a lot about him after 50 years, except that he had a wealth of home spun philosophy, that he was happy to share with you.
I was stationed Hemel Hempstead for 9 years before moving to Suffolk FS but went regularly to Watford on out duty. My first memory of Watford was Station Officer Tom Carter. What a clown he was. Always when a new man appeared on the watch he challenged them to a game of chess. Later he moved to Rickmansworth and was even more of a pain. But Watford during the Strike like many stations they had their opponents. One was Huw Marshall. He didn’t follow the FBU line so was marginalised. I remember they smashed his favorite mug. Huwie gathered all the bits together and with a tube of Araldite stuck every piece together to make a waterproof mug…..again. This happened at least twice until there was nothing else to stick. In my first month John Raven of Watford Red Watch’s funeral began at A division HQ in Hemel. He’d been driving Watford’s hydraulic platform and was killed at the Kellogs warehouse fire in Welham Green Hatfield when a gable end wall fell on the truck while he sat on the operators seat. He’d jumped down but masonry claimed him first. Watford produced some characters especially the probys. One springs to mind when he was ‘kitchen man’ on his first night shift. The mess manager had bought sausages, a good filler for nights and he told the boy to pierce the skins with a fork before putting them into the oven. Everything was going fine until drill had finished and we all came up to the rec room and laid the table. Knives we had, Spoons we had, but where were the forks. We searched everywhere. Another lark prepared by the Station Officer until Tom Carter started looking. Then someone had the presence of mind to look in the oven. Yes there they all were. Each of the sausages had a red hot fork sticking out of all 36 of them.
I don’t know whether dear old Tom Carter is still with us but his antics live on in my memory and probably many other peoples as well. . Wherever he went chaos reigned. One day on Fire Prevention duties he came upon a house with an airing cupboard fire. He radioed it in and then advised the householder to open all the doors and windows to allow the smoke to clear. Watford were held up in traffic by the time they got there Tom had used up the FP vans 2lb dry powder extinguisher and the house was well alight from ground floor to loft. If only he’d left the cupboard door closed.
I could write a book, in fact I will, but know I cant write anymore my sides hurt.
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