Peter Price remembers being a messenger boy for Weymouth's fire service (From Dorset Echo)

Peter Price remembers being a messenger boy for Weymouth's fire service

1:53pm Tuesday 17th January 2012 in Looking Back By Ruth Meech

LAST week Peter Price entertained readers with photographs of past showbusiness glories.

This week he turns to more sombre matters.

In 1940 at the age of 16, Peter joined Weymouth’s National Fire Service as a messenger boy. At the time he was living in Abbotsbury Road and was stationed at a nearby garage.

He sent us a picture of Weymouth’s fire service team at the now-closed station at the bottom of Boot Hill.

Sadly, he was not present when it was taken but it shows how many men, women and youngsters were on fire duty during the war.

Peter said: “I was a messenger boy at the time and when there was a fire or something needed to go to another station or headquarters, I would get on my bike and go wherever needed.

“It was frightening because Weymouth was heavily attacked and when a bomb came down you didn’t know where it would land. But every time a siren went off you’d jump on your bike and rush to do your duty.

“There were a lot of us but we had to cover all of Weymouth and didn’t have much equipment – where I was, we just had one car and one water pump, but you made do.”

The town suffered extensive damage during the Second World War. Chapelhay was virtually razed and the area around the harbour was also heavily hit.

Many lost their lives or were injured as was reported in the Dorset Daily Echo in St Thomas Street – which was itself hit on April 2, 1942, a night when 20 people in Weymouth were killed.

Peter said: “The biggest fire I went to was when the Pickfords furniture depot went up.

“It was in the area behind the Tesco in St Thomas Street and there were bombs all over Weymouth that night.

“I remember being in a bedroom and training the hose out of the window on to the fire over the road.

“A lot of people who had left the town or lent their homes to the Army or Navy had stored their furniture in the depot and they lost everything. It was a terrible time.”