Nostalgia: How our Sleaford fire service has changed

The photographs were taken by The Standard’s staff snapper Gordon Brotherton during a feature on the newly built Sleaford fire station, situated in Church Lane.

It had been completed just a year before and this was a behind the scenes look at the firefighters and their new base, having relocated from the old building in Watergate.

It seems appropriate to look back at these images as the town’s full-time and retained fire crews are now based in a brand new fire station shared with East Midlands Ambulance Service colleagues that opened earlier this year costing £6m.

The black and white images show the on-call crew heading out on a ‘shout’, clambering into their protective gear in the back of the fire engine, and you get a crew’s eye view looking out of the cab at Southgate level crossing approaching from Mareham Lane heading towards Grantham Road.

Notice how the scenery has changed - or stayed similar.

We also see the training tower, a distinctive landmark at the Church Lane site, now redundant in favour of the new premises, which have their own, state-of-the-art brick tower capable of a range of scenarios for firefighters.