1 Pump Wholetime.

1915 to ?                                         Firemaster Charles Angus

1948 to 1970                                   Western Area Fire Masters

Darnley was a 2 Bay Station with a  watchroom to the left of the bays. The watchroom window had an arch to match the arches of the bays and the glass was etched ERFB. There was a covered wash to the rear of the bays. There was a large sliding door at the rear of the appliance bay (Half Glazed) with a wicket door in it. The wicket door was the usual route from the yard into the station. This door was too small to move the appliance through it - both in height and length. It was usually opened on a Saturday morning when the crew played 'soap hockey' and it was handy to squeegee the wet floor out into the wash bay at the rear. But for all practical purposes, it was of no use for appliance movements between the yard and the bays. I suppose when the station was built one of the small appliances of the day could squeeze in by this route. The Appliance had to be driven round into the small yard and always reversed back into the bay from the street. There were 6 firemen's houses above the Station. The ground floor to the left of the watchroom was the Station Commanders house.

The station opened with a Firemaster and 6 permanent staff.

Clarkston station open in 1970 as a 1 pump wholetime station, with the closure of Darnley.

HESS 

How the fire service got involved in major drama of World War Two 

The men who served at Darnley No. 1 Fire Station during the last war were among the first to become involved in a bizarre story which started on May 10, 1941, and has yet to reach a final conclusion.
On that night a Messerschmitt 110 fighter bomber of Germany’s Luftwaffe crashed in a field at Bonnyton Farm, Eaglesham, near Glasgow, and it was the men from Darnley who extinguished the blazing wreckage.
Nothing particularly important springs to mind from those brief details because a great many aircraft, both enemy and allied, crashed all over Britain during the war years.
But the one fact that does place the incident in the history books is the name of the pilot — DEPUTY FUHRER RUDOLPH HESS.
The Officer in Charge of Darnley was Firemaster Charles Angus, now deceased. But his nephew Jack was also a fireman at the station and he recalled part of the story.
“In those days you got a warning through the Civil Defence system”, he said.
“It went Yellow — enemy plane approaching: Purple — enemy plane overhead: and we had to stand-by.
“Red was enemy plane attacking and the fire bells had to go on, but we did not turn out until the siren was sounded and it was controlled by the Fire Station.”
Mr Angus explained that all this warning procedure was done by telephone and he then went on to relate his recollections of the incident.
“After the red signal we received a message that a plane had crashed in the vicinity of Floors Farm. When we arrived the plane was all over the field and some men were helping a German officer into the farmhouse, but at that time we did not know that it was Hess.”
Another survivor of the Darnley crew of that period is Former Deputy Firemaster David Manson of Thornliebank who remembered that it took the station’s appliance about 20 minutes to get to the scene of the crash.
He said that the throttles on the aircraft were apparently wide open and it crashed into the ground doing about 400 mph after Hess had turned it upside down to bail out.
Mr Manson (77) recalled: “When we arrived wreckage from the plane as spread over about five acres and while trying to put out the blaze the men used up all the water on the tender and all the extinguishers.
“There was no hydrant nearby and eventually we had to use earth to smother some of the burning debris. I remember that we had great difficulty in putting out the burning magnesium flares that the plane had been carrying.”
Thirty two years ago Frank Taylor (73) and now living in Dunfermline, was the Darnley Brigade Engineer and he actually drove the appliance out to the Messerschmitt.
He stayed with the fire engine in case it became necessary to move it away from the burning wreckage.
While standing by a police sergeant came up to him and told him that the captured pilot had said he had a broken ankle, claimed he was Rudolph Hess and wanted to see the Duke of Hamilton.
Both Mr Taylor and another ex-Darnley fireman, Mr George Buchanan of Barrhead, said that the Fire Record Book was filled in by the station’s watchroom attendant, Mr James Whitelaw, who died about five years ago.
It seems unlikely that the book was actually written up at the time the appliance returned to the station, because it was the Firemaster’s personal chronological record of the incidents the Darnley firemen attended.
However, Mr Buchanan said that he guessed the pilot was Hess at the time of the incident and he said that the Firemaster hinted that his guess was correct at about 9.00 a.m. on May 11.
Whatever the recollections of the men who were there, a read through the Fire Record Book entry reproduced on this page brings the events of 38 years ago and the inmate of Spandau Prison into the history of Strathclyde Fire Brigade.
As far as it is possible to check, the crew at Darnley Fire Station in 1941 were led by Firemaster Charles Angus (deceased) and Deputy Firemaster David Manson of Thornliebank. The firemen were: George Buchanan of Barrhead; Jack Angus of Castletown, Caithness; Frank Taylor of Dunfermline; Charles MacGregor of Barrhead; William Angus (deceased) and Jack Beattie who is now believed to be at Bulawayo Fire Station, Rhodesia.
(Strathclyde Fireman, No.4 January 1979. Page 4.)

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