Frank Bourn – Rye's Own Magazine

SAP 201 Comes Home on Sunday

SAP 201 Will be at the Rye Fire-fighters Open Day on Sunday (10 September 2017)

The men featured in the picture are part of a team of brilliant firemen who kept this town safe while they were ‘on watch’ with their famous Fire Appliance SAP 201.

On Sunday (10 September 2017) SAP 201 returns to Rye, 45 years after she left service in Rye, restored to her original condition by Mike Garrett, to be at the Rye Fire-Fighters open day.

The very latest picture of SAP 201 on her first road trip under her own power

Surviving members of her old crew will be there to greet her plus the rest of Rye’s fire-fighters including Rye Fire Chief Gary Bourn, whose grandfather and father both fought many blazes with SAP 201.

The Open Day runs from 10 am. – 2 pm. at the Fire Station in Mill Lane. Come along and see one of Rye’s greatest fire fighting machines looking just as she did 50 years ago.

The Last Shout

They came in their Hundreds

They came in their hundreds to St Mary’s Church on Thursday 21 April to say last goodbyes to one of Rye’s best known heroes, George Michael Albert Bourn M. B. E. The Church was packed, every pew was filled. Rye Firemen and Firefighters from other stations were there in force.

There was a hushed silence as Gary Bourn paid tribute to his father’s life and recalled many of the incidents in Michael’s very active and eventful time from his birth on 16 August 1938. Continue reading The Last Shout

Ex-Rye Fireman Dies in New Zealand

by Roland Jempson.

How strange, that in the April edition of “Rye’s Own” there should be an article of the Rye Fire Brigade in 1952. This edition dropped on my doorstep in Bristol at the same time as I heard the news of the Death and Funeral of my brother in law Harry Martin., once a member of Rye Fire Brigade. Born in Scotland in 1917, Harry came from a family of fishermen. The family lived at Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre, he was the eldest of five having three brothers and a sister. Continue reading Ex-Rye Fireman Dies in New Zealand

Fireman Bob

The dreadful fire at the Central Garage at Rye in 1960 led to Rye Fire Brigade getting a new recruit.

Bob Rogers was only a lad at the time but heroically entered the blazing cottage at the rear of the garage, where he lived with his Mum and brothers, and attempted to save their budgie. He was burned on the hands by the wire on the cage which was so hot. Continue reading Fireman Bob