These were the brave volunteers who kept the townsfolk of Abingdon safe in their homes.

They were the town’s fire crew, who posed for the picture with the mayor, Mr P Holmes.

The picture comes from retired firefighter and regular Memory Lane contributor Bill Law, of Faringdon.

He writes: “When this photograph was taken, Abingdon was a retained fire station.

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“It didn’t have a whole time crew until the present fire station was built some time in the 1960s.”

Like some stations even today, they relied heavily on workers in other occupations being able to stop what they were doing and dash off with their colleagues to an emergency.

Thanks to two other retired firemen, Dougie Edwards, from Abingdon, and Fred Holmes, from Wantage, we are able to name a number of those in the picture.

But unfortunately it wasn’t possible to identify everyone in the picture.

Back row, left to right, J Chapman, B Hibbary, A Dyson, ?, M Gamage, ?, A Winter, B May, ?, B Cox, B Bullock, front row, C Fisher, T Ballard, Mayor P Holmes, ?, A Ackand, N Bragg.

It is thought the unnamed man sitting third from the right was a full-time fire officer from Reading.

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At the time, Abingdon was in Berkshire and the town was part of the Berkshire and Reading brigade.

The fire stations in North Berkshire came under C Division headquarters at Didcot and all had their own identification numbers – Didcot 17, Abingdon 18, Faringdon 19, Wantage 20 and Wallingford 21.

They were transferred to Oxfordshire when local government was reorganised in 1974.