Charlie Poulson, interviewed by Terry Segars of the Fire Brigades Union 20 July 1977.
The Fire Brigades Union made its name at the beginning of the Blitz, after the very first night because there was an incident down the docks in which I think nine firemen were killed. A bomb collapsed a building; nine men working inside it and the pump man outside were all killed by the debris. It was one of the first in which a number of firemen were lost; there was a large number afterwards. But apparently the authorities had not made any plans at all for this kind of contingency and their mates from the surrounding pumps got their bodies out, they were all dead, and laid them in a row. It was reported back by the officer in charge -nine fatalities- and after about half an hour a lorry came out and the bodies were placed on the lorry and were taken to the nearest hospital mortuary. The next day, the widows of these men were informed by a D.R. (Dispatch Rider) who was sent round to knock on these doors and say "Sorry Mrs. Smith to tell you your husband was killed last night on duty and here's your pay, his pay, made up to the time he was killed." And the next day or two days later (the bodies weren't given to the families-they had enough to think of down the East End at that time, especially those with kids,) were taken by lorry, with very crude coffins to a cemetery and there the families were asked to witness the burial and that was done all very crude and inefficient with no finesse about it at all, and the men's widows were paid up to the time, up to the hour to which they were killed. The union thought this wasn't a very good precedent and got to work on it, although the men were not members of the union from the East End station. Eventually we got condolences for the women from Fire Force Commander and a sum of money given them as a gratuity and apologies for the ham-handed way the whole thing was done. A small ceremony of some kind at the graveside would not have been inappropriate-didn't even drape the coffins with Union Jacks, nothing like that. It was a shocking business! Of course, this was very quickly canvassed all round, because anybody did not know who was going to be the next one in their box. The union came well out of it, got a large sum of money in compensation in the case of death, methods of burial and all the rest of it. Sending a D.R. (Dispatch Rider) round and knock on the door saying "Mrs. Smith your old man's been killed" is not good enough, it's just not good enough. That was only the beginning of the union.
