Founding firefighters recall forces that shaped Helensburgh station

In 1975, a dozen men joined their local fire station, hoping to make a difference. It was the start of a tradition of community service and camaraderie that would endure for five decades.

Last August, Helensburgh's Fire and Rescue Station 325 celebrated 50 years of service, and five of the original 12 members returned for the event. 

Leslie Kiddle, who joined the brigade in 1987, served as captain between 2007 and 2010. 

“I loved everything about being in the brigade,” he said.

“I loved the arguments when we would travel. I was in the brigade for nearly 25 years. We saw a lot in that time – there was the train crash, the 2001 fires, we had guys go down to the Victoria fires.

“We had the community fire units we’d set up – we had 350 members at one stage! We had some great times. It’s all good stuff.”

Ross Fagerstrom was an inaugural member in 1975 and played his part until 2008. 

“When we came into the brigade, we were all younger blokes… we all had families, the majority of us had young families,” Ross said. “I’m talking young – some of them starting had toddlers at home. And when we came in, our wives all supported us. It became a family affair, the whole brigade. We used to have parties for Christmas, some birthdays out here, different things. It was just a group of people that were all good hearted.”

“I was number 12 when we started, then a few guys left and they changed the whole system, so we became 325-001, 002, etcetera – can you guess what I was? 007. Just call me James Bond! And I had that right till the end. I was in the brigade for 33 years, three months and four days.”

“We had a few incidents that got a bit gruesome, some road accidents… these are things that we go through, and we keep a lot of it to ourselves, but we’ve had to cut people out of car accidents. We were the people who had to cut roofs off cars and all that.”

“The fires, they look terrifying in the pictures, but it’s all smoke and bubbles - a fire is like when you cut your hand, and there’s blood everywhere, and it’s like oh! No! I’m gonna die! And then you wipe it off, and it’s fine, and you’re back to life. But when the 2001 fires came through, now that was a fire."

Kerrie Gardner, a member for 15 years from 1975 to 1990, loved the mateship and the demonstrations.  

“We used to go to a few demos where all the fire brigades met. We went to Bowral, Nowra, doing various exercises. All our get-togethers, the Santa runs… they’ve been going on for about 45 years or something and I got to be Santa! I was 04 of the original crew.”

John Rands was a part of the brigade from 1975 until 2005.

“I first had the thought that I’d like to contribute a little bit of voluntary work towards the community,” John said. “I liked contributing to looking after the community and also the camaraderie between the members and the families. We were all young people, I was only 27 or something like that... and as young people we all socialised and played sports together as a team.

“Being a quiet station, there was always the chance that we could join in other activities around the town – we played squash up here in the old days. Every now and then, we’d all socialise and admire all the new babies and bring the children up here for Christmas time, birthday parties – nearly every year we’d have an anniversary party.”

“One of the good memories… I used to have a close friend who owned an oyster farm up in Sydney somewhere, and of course everybody wanted to get the oysters, so he’d supply the oysters, and the rest of us would supply the beer and we’d get stuck into it, have big parties – it was good!”

For a decade, John looked after maintenance on the equipment, kept the records and oversaw getting help with repairs and service the brigade truck.

“In my own personal life, I'd been a handyman, a maintenance person, and I got stuck into the engine keeper's job,” John said. “There was another chap here that took it on for the first 10 years that the station was open; he then progressed to being captain, and so I took over the engine keeper.”

“We had quite a few major incidents as a fire brigade, even two or three years after we opened, we had a big bushfire come through, and support from other brigades.

“There were a few horrific car accidents - one was a truck on the old Princes Highway that ran into the bridge down here, and the bricks went straight through the cabin, there were some yucky jobs we got to do… There was a house fire where we lost three people, but luckily when the first crew attended, they saved three other members of the family there.”

James (Jim) Powell was captain for six years from 2010, having joined in 1975 and stayed until 2016.

“I was captain, but you learn to delegate, hand tasks on – we only had a few problems within the crew, but we were a great team overall,” Jim said. “We originally used to have our Christmas party here as a family at the station. When the old hose roller would be down and the kids would sit on it and use it as a swing… you wouldn’t be doing that these days!

“There’s two big events in Helensburgh every year: one is the Lions Club Fair... and the other one, of course, is our Santa lolly run. By '78, we decided that there were more kids coming that weren’t our families on the street, and we were giving lollies out to them and 'hello, Santa' and all that. So we had help from our local Lions Club... the Lions Club would buy the lollies and Santa would be one of ours and we'd go around on the truck all around town.”

Dennis Foster, the brigade's original captain in 1975, remained a member until 1991.

“I think more of, and remember more of, the things that we had to do, where several times there’s no reason to go there, you get these false alarms,” Dennis said..

“Then accidents, house fires ... a fella jumped out of a car down near Stanwell Tops, he was going to off himself by burning himself, but running along, he lit the bush on fire as well as himself. Things like when young fellas were speeding and rolled cars and lost parts of their bodies… those things I remember.”

“They don’t worry me, but I remember, and I find that if you talk about them, you’ve got less chance of dwelling on them.

“And then I remember our Christmas runs, coming down here and sorting out the lollies, packing them into the truck, going down to put a fire down in the chimney at the hotel down the road, and big Kerrie’s got one leg in the chimney and the other out, the kids come past saying ‘look, there’s Santa!’ ... there’s funny stuff like that I remember – I enjoyed the fire brigade because of the friendship and camaraderie.