It is a well known fact that Marconi's at New Street Chelmsford had a very well organised Fire Brigade with all Firemen being employees of the Company.
They practised Fire Drill once a week usually on a Friday evening after most employees had left for the weekend.
Apart from practising Fire Drill within the Company premises, the Firemen took their very small Fire Engine at weekends to local Fetes and Carnivals throughout Essex. The Fire Engine was usually driven to the event and around six or seven Marconi Firemen accompanied the vehicle in separate transports.
The actual Fire Engine was commandeered by MWT at the start of World War II from the local Ingatestone Fire Brigade where it was stationed usually in a garage at Mountnessing. The wording on the Fire Engine was changed to read Marconi instead of Ingatestone and was put into use for any incident which occurred on the Company premises during the War.
Following the Armistice, the Fire Engine was garaged at New Street and the Marconi Apprentices Association took on the task of keeping the engine and apparatus in good working order. They even drove it to local Carnivals and other events showing it off to the general public.
The Ingatestone Fire Brigade at some time during the 1990's wrote to Marconi Communications. requesting the Fire Engine be returned to them at Mountnessing. The request some how arrived at The Managing Directors desk and although he knew nothing of the history of the Fire Engine and how it came to Marconi's, decided without any consultation or enquiry, to refuse to return the Fire Engine to its rightful owner and the undersigned was instructed to send a letter to the enquirer to state that the engine would be kept by Marconi Communication Systems.
This statement did not go down very well with the Ingatestone people whom I happened to know very well as one was MD of a local business and we both were members of a local Golf Club. I tried to pacify the Ingatestone people to no avail but they later decided to give up efforts of trying to retrieve the Fire Engine from the Company.
Coming home from a Golf Tournament on the A12 one Saturday afternoon, I saw a low loader lorry on its way towards London with this Fire Engine strapped on the back. On the Monday I rang New Street and asked where was this Fire Engine going. It turned out somebody had agreed without any consultation, that the Fire Engine would be sent to the Midlands for permanent display at a Motor and Transport Vehicle exhibition.
Unfortunately as an agreement had been signed for the permanent display of this Fire Engine at the Exhibition, it was impossible to retrieve it for the Ingatestone people.
A true but very sad story and one which Marconi's should never have let happen.