WalkingSquares: firefighter

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Memorial to firefighter Adrian McGill

Yesterday I walked into town to meet some friends for lunch. My route took me through St George’s Cross where I saw that the memorial to Sub Officer Adrian McGill of the Glasgow Fire Service was decorated with two wreaths. I remembered seeing in the press that there had recently been a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, attended by current fire officers and members of his family.

This is part of a wider Firefighters’ Heritage Trail which I haven’t walked in its entirety, though I found several other images of parts of it in my “unused” file. Here is an unadorned image of Sub Officer McGill’s plaque which is easier to read, and another memorial to a 1920s fire in the East End. The window carvings are from a former fire station on St George’s Road, now, I think, housing.

Memorial to Firefighter Adrian McGill
Firefighters’ Memorial, Graham Square
Old fire station, St George’s Rd

The images below just won’t square, but I want to include them all the same. The bronze sculpture, Citizen Firefighter, stands outside Central Station. It was unveiled in 2001 as a tribute to all firefighters, past and present. The Cheapside Street fire in 1960 claimed the lives of fourteen members of the Glasgow Fire Service and five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps making it the largest number of Fire Service deaths in the peacetime history of the British Fire Service.

Citizen Firefighter
Cheapside fire disaster
Cheapside fire disaster

Linked to Becky’s WalkingSquares. Sorry not to be more cheerful today, but I’m glad to have finally found a way of featuring the memorials to these brave firefighters for whose lives I am very thankful.

Scotland, UK , ,

31 Comments »

  1. We all owe a huge debt to fire fighters. Whenever I think of the attack on the Twin Towers on Sept 11, I think of the line of firefighters going into the burning building, in an effort to save more people. Almost all of them died when the building collapsed.

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  8. I’m at a fundraiser tomorrow for the bombeiros- Portuguese fire fighters. It’s a scary and wonderful job they do, often in the most difficult of circumstances, and they deserve all the help they can get.

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  12. Such an excellent idea to honour firefighters in this way – I don’t think they very often get the acknowledgement they deserve, given the risks they have to take in their work.

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  13. A heritage trail dedicated to firefighters is unusual. Are there any elsewhere? I love the window carvings, the sort of thing you might find on an old headstone.

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