With
the battle weary Green Goddess making another appearance on the streets
we thought it would be a good idea to start this page which can include
any tales and pictures from the current situation (2002) or from 1977 or indeed
any times that they have been deployed, for example pumping out floods
Bill
Laidlaw sent in this "Gaggle" of Green Goddess's
& crew from
RAF Honington, Op Fresco 2003.
A
Goddess for the 21st Century
In July 1991 TNT
Truck Care Ltd won the contract for storage and maintenance of the Green Goddess fleet. In a bid to
secure a long term contract with the Home Office TNT decided to create,
(At their own expense), a vehicle for the 21st Century. In late 1996 the Home Office provided TNT with 'RXP 884' as a test bed vehicle. Over the coming 18
Months various engine and gearbox combinations were tested until they
finally settled on a Cummins B Series 112bhp 4 cylinder engine and
a ZF 5 speed manual gearbox.
Other
modifications included..........
A complete rewiring
Heated cab and mirrors
New floodlights and beacons
Blue and red front, rear & side flashing lights
'White noise' siren
PA system
Alluminium roller shutter side locker doors
Day-glo flourescent lime green paint job with red and white stripes
The modifications produced a very acceptable vehicle but alas the cost
(Research finds figures of £12,000 and £20,000 quoted)
was considered too much for the Home Office to upgrade the whole fleet and to date RXP 884 is the
only vehicle to have undergone this transformation.
I was already aware of TNT's work on RXP 884 but had never seen it 'in the flesh', despite it's appearance, on the
6th November 2000 in York when it was loaned (Amongst other vehicles) to North Yorkshire brigade to help deal with
the flooding of the river Ouse.
The vehicle is now in the hands of the 'Museum of RAF Firefighting' at RAF Scampton, where I managed to catch up
with her.
Duncan
Wright has just purchased PGW 326 and wondered if
anyone knew any of her history.
The
paperwork shows that she served during Op Fresco in
2003/2003 with the RAF based at RAF Innsworth.
Any
information would be appreciated.
Hi
Ian.
Thought
I would send this, it was at Redlands in Bristol, Fireman's strike
1977, God was it 32yrs ago?, that's me far left with the DMS boots
on, we were stationed in a disused hospital, that building behind
was a nurses home (still in use!!!) over the road from us was
Tiffany's Night Club which we got into for free, in fact we got
into all the Night Clubs in Bristol for free, God it was a hard
life!!.
That
Goddess we are with blew up at a fire and we had to be towed away,
laugh or what?? great times.
I
am sending you these pictures of the Green Goddess, I am not in
the pics as I took them. They were all taken around Christmas
time on duty in Blackpool, I was part of a relief crew going
from place to place mainly Chorley, Burscough, Blackburn,
Preston, Lancaster and Blackpool, if my memory serves me well we
did approx. 4 days in each place 24hrs on 24hrs off.
During
a recent visit to the Linton on Ouse museum I found this picture (as
well as mine at the foot of this page) in an archive album
from '77'. The driver on the left hand GG is Graham Joyce (top left)
I would like to congratulate
Cpl
Mick Kent for his appearance on HTV Wales news program Dated 23rd
November 2002, where his impressive rear was spotted climbing in and out a Green Goddess.
Now that Rick Waller has been kicked off celebrity fat club I feel it is only time before he gets the call... once again well done
Mick, keep up the good work!!!!
Love from Port Talbot
B shift
Green
Goddesses at Cottesmore prior to
deployment in 2002.
North Luffenham detatchment 2002
My Goddess is "Danii" SYH121
Ian Boldy (MTD) drives "Kylie" NYV811
Hello Bill and
Ian, I have a tale to tell about a laugh we had recently involving our GG and a police escort car.
This tale involves a Green Goddess and the police car which escorts it to incidents. It is currently operating from an anonymous MOD base and both vehicles are stored in a shed when not in use. Myself and the other driver had just returned from a few days stand down and went to give the Green Goddess a good check over. We were handed an envelope containing both the keys for the GG and the police car. Naturally our human curiosity took over and we decided to have a practice doing some response driving with the Green Goddess and police car around the base. Of course we had to have the works switched on, blues and twos, flashing headlights etc!! All was going fine until we returned to the storage shed to discover a
Volvo T5 traffic car with two real policemen waiting for us, clipboard in hand, to take particulars of the theft and misuse of the said police vehicle!! I can tell you we saw our careers flash before us! Fortunately we
persuaded the two coppers that they would have done the same had they been in our position. Funny enough we had one of them as our escort driver for real to a fire the next day! We even let him have a go at driving our Green Goddess on base to return the
favour!
Hello guys, I will try and send some
photo's again. I am back on 2MT and this is a picture of all the 2MT drivers covering the strike in North Wales. Based at Sealand I have had a boring time of it but elsewhere the lads have been busy and I'm sure there will be tales to come.
Although Richard Thompson isn't an MT driver he has given permission to use these pictures from his website which covers emergency vehicles in the UK.
This engine is on standby a few hours before the start of the strike in Chester-le-Street, County Durham. It was
built on the Bedford S chassis between 1953-6 and can attain 50 mph with its four-wheel drive system.
SYH 135, on standby during the strikes. The two small circles above the windscreen were used to show amber lights
when responding to emergencies, a forerunner of the modern blue lights.
The rear view showing inlet and outlet controls.
A
Green Goddess responding to a call...................
.....................
followed by a BART.
Two further pumps attend to the front of the store.
The next
two photographs were taken at the scene of a major shop fire in Lewisham, South London. This first photo shows a Green Goddess parked up next to the rear of the property. A
soldier is cooling the door near the seat of the fire.
Thankyou Richard - Ian
Hi Bill and Ian,
Another picture for the Green Goddess section of the website! Featuring
the GG and slightly more modern Scania, along with the Police escort car
attached to Llanelli and Llangennech in Mid-West Wales.
O.K.
I'll start the ball rolling with my clips from 1977, you'll have to
excuse the quality of them they were taken from
slides...................................
I did my
nine week stint in Kendal and the first picture shows SYH 292, It would be
nice to hear from anyone who knows where it is now.
Update
07.05.06 After a bizarre twist of
fate I have now bought SYH 292 - Full details here
Next up
is a shot of the 'entire' team, a Police escort to the front and a Landrover 101 carrying some first aid appliance equipment to the rear.
Practicing
usually took the form of putting out the local river, or even more daring,
chasing up into the hills to attack a road sign.
The boys needed no excuse to play with their hoses.
And finally the
mugshots, do you recognise anyone?
