Life of the Harbour
Handing over ceremony for fire boat Phoenix II, 1934
The handing-over ceremony for the fire boat Phoenix II (later renamed Pyronaut). Chief Fire Officer, Lord Mayor and chairman of the Watch Committee are among those in attendance.
'I remember on, on one of the, in, round the ships, they were all, it was, it was, quite close to the main entrance, we always had, as I said, bicycles in those days, and we had a call. Well a fax, it wasn’t, there were no faxes in those days, but we had a call from one of the shipping lines saying, “Have you, have you lost one of your bikes?” We said, “Why?” He said, “Well, there’s, there’s a bike in…where is it? Down in the Persian Gulf, near the Abadan”. He said, “It got Police, Dock Police number 4 on it”. Course in those days they used to book out the bikes, I was the last one to have number 4. …in fact the bike did eventually come back…'
Ref: UFT2, p.9, para 5
