Firem. Harry Lord
Auxiliary Fire Service
from:Blackpool, Lancashire
Harry Lord was my grandfather, the youngest son of 11 surviving siblings, he was born in Blackpool, Lancashire in 1909. Being too young to have fought in the Great War of 1914 and being 31 years of age with poor eyesight in 1940, he volunteered to join the AFS. He was deployed in the Solent area of Hampshire primarily in the Gosport dockland and close by residential streets which were hit by ferocious bombing. He also served on the Solent fireboats.
Harry would never speak about his service during the war but returned home and continued with his life as a husband to my Nanna Marion, and Dad to my Mum Joan, who was only young at the time. Following the war, my Aunt Vivienne was born and Harry became a postman up until his retirement.
It was only later that stories began to emerge about him through someone who knew him during his service, who told my father that Harry was a bit crazy or a hero, whichever way you wish to look at it, and that he would enter burning buildings with no equipment to save people. He saved several women and children from bombed houses either by digging them out with his bare hands or entering unsafe properties. My father never questioned Harry or discussed it with him further, you just didn't in those days.
Before my Mum passed away, she gave me an old handwritten letter from Harry, sent to her on one of her birthdays when she was a kid because he would miss it. He had also enclosed some chocolate and some new stockings for my Nan, presumably from the black market, since these things were not readily available at that time. I also have a small silver pin badge shaped as a crown at the top and with the insignia of AFS.
