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Row upon row of gleaming firemen\u2019s helmets, a bug-eyed fire engine called Barkis from the 1930s and another, older vehicle, made just as the 19th century turned into the 20th, gaze out across each other behind plate glass.<\/p>\nRow upon row of gleaming firemen\u2019s helmets, a bug-eyed fire engine called Barkis from the 1930s and another, older vehicle, made just as the 19th century turned into the 20th, gaze out across each other behind plate glass.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an unlikely spot, a holiday park clubhouse, for this collection of fire brigade memorabilia. You can almost picture it coming alive during the small hours, when the visitors are bedded down for the night in their comfy caravans, holiday lodges and glamping pods.<\/p>\n
The impressive display at Martin\u2019s, the new name for the bar and restaurant at Highlands End Leisure Park, Eype, is something of a focal point for both holidaymakers and visitors. But park proprietor Martin Cox never set out to build up a collection and house it here. It just sort of happened.<\/p>\n
It all began with a couple of copper branches\u2014nozzles that go on the end of hoses\u2014which Martin had on display at the house he shares with his wife, Vanessa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we had our son, James, now 29, we thought they weren\u2019t appropriate to have at home. So we put them on the wall of the clubhouse. The collection started to grow and there was a gradual interest from customers, who used to come and bring me things every year. Each item has a different story behind it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a friend in Reading who is a very useful contact and he lets me know when something comes up. We\u2019ve got just under 1,000 logged items, all secured and alarmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin was a retained fireman for 31 years, joining at Bridport in March 1976, just before the busiest summer of his firefighting career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d be called out every weekend,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI\u2019d be out from 11 o\u2019clock on a Friday night right through until Sunday afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later and he was at Dorchester, where he worked at County Hall in the Personnel Department. He comes from a family of firefighters with his uncles, Peter, Phil and David Cox, firemen at Bridport and his cousin, Carol, working in the office in the station at South Street where the library is now. His nephew, Tristan Cox, is still with the Fire Service at Bridport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got me away from the day-to-day work and it was something that interested me. It was community spirited, there was great camaraderie and I gained skills I wouldn\u2019t have otherwise had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin, who has been with Highlands End since 1984, retired from the Fire Service in 2007 but is still involved from time to time. Recently, he helped work out pension entitlements which had become due for retired, retained members, following a long process through the courts and pension regulators.<\/p>\n
Pride of place in the Highlands End display goes to Barkis, the 1936 Leyland Pump Escape fire engine, named after the character in Dickens\u2019 David Copperfield who is always willing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted a name that had a link to its task,\u201d Martin says. \u201cIt was at Weymouth originally and ended up at Dorset Fire Brigade. From 1963 to 1967 it was in Bridport. My uncles used to drive Barkis and rode on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barkis was lost until the mid-80s when Martin was contacted by someone with whom he used to work at County Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a railway enthusiast and, through these links, he saw Barkis advertised in Halifax. I went up and brought it back. We had it completely rubbed down and resprayed and put it back to its 1936 spec by copying the photos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across the room from Barkis is an even older vehicle, the 1902 fire engine from Bridport.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometime in the 1980s it was rescued from the glass greenhouse down at West Bay on the green near the George. It was deteriorating so we took it to the fire station in South Street. When the new fire station was built in Sea Road South in 1996, there was nowhere to put it. The district council gave it to the museum and then it came up here on long term loan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything in the Highlands End collection has a story attached to it. For Martin, an item\u2019s history is part of its appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cA chap turned up here about three to four years ago and his father had been in the Dorchester station and he asked me if I\u2019d be interested in buying a brass helmet. When I picked it up he gave me the whole history of it, including the medals his father had got for rescuing someone in the Lulworth Castle fire in 1928.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are cap badges, helmets, old fire marks (years ago, if you didn\u2019t have one at your house it meant you hadn\u2019t paid for fire insurance so if there was a blaze, the fire brigade wouldn\u2019t put it out), photos, posters and postcards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came across an old chap in here once who was looking at Barkis and crying. I sat down with him to find out it was the same as he used to drive in the war during the Blitz. It brought all these memories back for him. He spent his whole holiday talking about it and looking through the whole collection.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there is framed collection of buttons, brought in by a teenager about 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came back recently, to see if they were still here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The display of memorabilia is a testament to Martin\u2019s enthusiasm for the Fire Service and has become a firm favourite with customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe collection makes the bar very different,\u201d Martin says, with a philosophical shrug. \u201cIt keeps stuff together which otherwise would have been lost or destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Row upon row of gleaming firemen\u2019s helmets, a bug-eyed fire engine called Barkis from the 1930s and another, older vehicle, made just as the 19th century turned into the 20th, gaze out across each other behind plate glass. It\u2019s an unlikely spot, a holiday park clubhouse, for this collection of fire brigade memorabilia. You can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,23],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","category-history-community","tag-margery-hookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}