Three Herefordshire brothers reach milestone of working 100 years at hometown fire station
The Vickress brothers, Dave, Graham and Robert from Leintwardine, have between them completed 104 years at the village’s fire station
Three north Herefordshire brothers have reached a special milestone after together dedicating more than a century of service to their community as on-call firefighters.
The Vickress brothers, Dave, Graham and Robert from Leintwardine, have between them completed 104 years at the village’s fire station, where a crew of 11 male and two female firefighters serve.
Watch commander Dave, who has also worked for Hereford & Worcester fire and rescue service as an on-call support technician for the last 15 years, is the longest serving of the trio after signing up in November 1981.
Crew commander Graham joined the service in August 1990 and firefighter Robert, who is a carer, completed 27 years of service last December after first taking on the role in 1997.
All three have followed in the footsteps on their father Derick, who served for 32 years until 1984 when, under the rules in play at that time, he had to retire on reaching the age of 55.
“There’s been a lot of changes though the years,” Dave said.
“Equipment has come a long way, like cutting equipment for road accidents, that sort of thing, and our breathing apparatus has also just been upgraded to a new state of the art system.
“We're getting into the end of our careers and I don't know whether there's anybody to take over and keep it going, but hopefully one of our nephews or sons might take it on in the next couple of years but we will see.”
Their dad Derick joined the then Herefordshire fire service in 1952, meaning that there’s been at least one Vickress at the village fire station for the last 73 years.