AS a young reporter I remember standing next to Newton Abbot Fire Chief Derek Packer while a few feet away his crew fought a huge blaze in a warehouse off the town’s Wolborough Street.

It was late at night and just behind us firefighters were also spraying an object resembling a bomb, and was, I discovered, a massive acetylene cylinder.

I remember asking Derek what it was and he replied: ‘Don’t worry about it. If it goes off you won’t know anything about it.’

The experience is one I have never forgotten and brought home the reality of how firefighters put their lives on the line to protect their community.

Derek, who spent 30 years as a retained firefighter in the town – 23 of them as station officer until retirement in 1986 – recently relived a handful of the thousands of fires the Newton Abbot crews tackled over the years.

On one occasion while fighting a blaze at the then Rawlinson Army Barracks, Denbury (now Channings Wood Prison), an acetylene cylinder exploded.

‘We were incredibly lucky. It sailed over our heads and landed on the grass behind us,’ he said.

There was the inferno that destroyed Trago Mills, Liverton, and a particularly difficult blaze at Newton Abbot’s Queens Hotel. The latter saw the fire go up through a chimney before hitting the roof and then the heat mushroomed downwards.

‘It was a question of chasing the fire and trying to find where it was breaking out next. Fortunately no-one was injured,’ he added.

Derek, now aged 86, has never forgotten his first call out. ‘I was in town when the siren sounded and we were sent to Ogwell to tackle a chimney fire. I spent the whole time trying to hold my leggings up because I did not have a belt.’

When called to the station the firefighters never knew what lay ahead – it could be anything from a road accident and domestic property to a huge gorse fire – one at Trendlebeer Down, near Bovey Tracey, was fought for three days.

On one occasion they spent the night guarding the royal train which had pulled into a siding just outside the town.

A photograph of Derek and members of his crew also appeared on the front cover of the book Great Bales of Fire, by Malcolm Castle.

It was in the early ’80s and they had received a shout to Lustleigh when the differential failed on their Bedford fire appliance. They are pictured pulling the vehicle up a hill.

As a youngster he had never nurtured any aspirations of becoming a fireman.

At the age of 21 following two years’ National Service in the RAF in Cornwall – it had been deferred so that he could complete his motor mechanics apprenticeship – he intended to have a break but Ted’s Garage, next to the railway station in Queen Street, contacted him and within a day of returning to civvie street he was working again.

The former Major’s Garage which had been bought by Ted Carpenter and Jim Willcocks was to be Derek’s workplace for 21 years, climbing from brush in hand to service manager.

‘When I came out of National Service I vowed not to join anything again,’ he recalled.

Only a month later that changed dramatically. Retained personnel numbers in Newton Abbot were so low that Jimmy Hatton, the station officer at Torquay, visited every garage in the town looking for recruits.

‘Ted Carpenter was a fireman during the war and pointed Mr Hatton in my direction and I was given seven days to make up my mind.

‘When he came back the following week my full intention was not to join, but before he left I had signed the dotted line and was in uniform,’ said Derek.

In those days the fire station was in Market Street where there were 20 retained firemen and 20 members of the Auxiliary Fire Service who had their own Green Goddess which occasionally turned out to provide extra manpower. There were two fire engines and an auxiliary tender. The fire station had no drill tower and on practice nights the firemen used to pitch their ladders against the wall of the Butter Market.

The building was unheated – it was bitterly cold in the winter – and there was only one wash basin.

Derek oversaw the transition of the fire station from Market Street to its present home at Balls Corner, which officially opened in 1971.

‘When we moved we didn’t know ourselves. It was like going from a country cottage into a town house.

‘The new building featured central heating and showers, as well as a drill tower. Getting there was the problem at first. The crew was alerted by siren and we all had to find new routes to the station,’ he stated.

From Market Street they were answering some 300 call outs annually and, with the town growing, the new station was soon up to the 500 mark.

He says for many years Bill Bailey was the sub-officer and the station’s crew of retained firefighters were a magnificent team and deserve the praise. ‘It was a pleasure to guide and work with them,’ he added.

On his retirement Devon Fire Brigade presented him with a plaque in recognition of his long service, he is the holder of the Queen’s long service medal, and Newton Abbot Town Council awarded him a citizen’s award, the first of its type the council had presented.

Retained firefighters have still got to do their day jobs and on leaving Ted’s Garage he ran his own business at the Newtake Garage for nine years, before moving on and operating CD Repairs in The Avenue with his then partner Christina.

Then for five years he worked nights for Ashburton-based Aid Call taking calls from any person in distress, while there was also a further five years in a Heathfield fish processing factory.

‘I had had a very active life and could not get used to doing nothing. I enjoyed every minute in the fire service and was delighted to have the respect of a great team working with me,’ said Derek.

Recently he visited the fire station to meet watch manager Phil Scammells who joined shortly after Derek retired, and crew manager Rob Barr who spent five years under Derek’s guidance.

‘He was totally respected by everyone. He was really fair and looked after his crew. It was a real pleasure to work with him and wonderful to see him again.

‘He led from the front and he would never expect his men to do what he would not do himself. You learned so much from his knowledge,’ said Mr Barr.