Fetch the Engine…
fire officer whose love of all things fire engine- related has spawned a restoration project that has breathed new life into a 1937 Leyland cab major pump fire appliance so gorgeous that it stops pedestrians in their tracks as it roars by. Wannell acquired the engine – which he calls Belinda -in 1980 as “a wreck; a rolling chassis and some boxes of bits” as he describes it. The unit sat at the back of his shed largely untouched for years. “We bought this three acre paddock to house the engine but that used up all our money so it just sat there for years,” he recalls. “We did get a £500 grant from the Transport Trust which we used to replace the electrics. But shortly after, we were broken into and the vandals ripped out the newly-replaced wiring loom.” But in 2012, the restoration of Belinda was kick- started by Wannell’s daughter,, and her impending nuptials. “In February 2012, she reminded me that I had promised to take her to church in the Leyland. That gave us just eight months to complete the restoration, to restore Belinda to her former glory, and to make her ready for my daughter’s big day,” Wannell recalls. “That rather concentrated the mind.
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