Alex Hastie
Alex belongs to: Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade
Alex joined the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade in 1950. He is now the Brigade's chairman. Alex worked as a fish merchant on North Shields Fish Quay and is chairman of the Fishermen's Mission.
Alex was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 15 February 2006. The interview took place at the interviewees's living room and lasted 29 minutes and 48 seconds.
Call out routine
"The maroon going off, you then had to report out to the watch house"
The maroon going off, you then had to report out to the watch house, go down. And of course everybody’s got cars nowadays; we used to run like hell. Down the bank, or go on your bike, or whatever method you had. We even had one member who lived in South Shields, he used to come on his bicycle, Captain Hunter, down to the pilot cutters’ station near the groyne, he used to get the pilot cutter across with his bicycle then peddle like mad up, off the Fish Quay up to the brigade, just to attend the incident.
When we arrived at the brigade house, they then had, were collected, it was what we called the muster, the rescue muster, we then went with the Land… not a Landrover in those days, it was a wagon, we used to load the gear onto a wagon, take the gear away and go to the rescue accordingly, if necessary. Nowadays, of course, we have the Landrover on station where you just go straight away with the gear.
Alex has 11 memories in the memorynet:
Alex's memories with a Environment theme:
Changes at North Shields Fish Quay
The Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade watch houseAlex's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Change | Roles and Routines | The North East | Volunteering
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