JERRYCAN FACTORY 1953
"KEEP ON FOAMING"
As Remembered ByJohn Reading
I was in the Jerrican factory in Fanara in ’53. I created two gardens there and was also responsible for keeping the presses supplied with sheet steel.
Next door to our camp was a Shell petrol storage compound manned by local, mainly Egyptian, labour. Naturally they had their own ‘Firefighters’. Their equipment seemed to consist of an old flat back lorry with what I think was foam etc.
The Jerrican factory had a large paint shop which was situated behind the first two large doors at the front. One morning the fire alarm sounded and our own firefighters were quickly assembled. The fire was in the paint shop and the lads from the Shell compound came racing round with their ‘firetruck’ but by this time the fire, which had been very small, had been put out.
Just as the Shell lads arrived at the doors, behind which was the paint shop, the large doors were opened and our “popular?” sergeant who stood in front of the paint shop holding his arms out to denote that we did not need any assistance. Too late – a chap on the back of the Shell firetruck swung what looked like a very large axe and one of the canisters of foam suddenly sent a huge cloud of foam into the paint shop – needless to say our sergeant was lost in the resulting mess
The following two or three days we had to be very wary of the sergeant as he
was sure that the above action was not an accident. It would have made a good
scene in the “Carry On” films though.