Get me to the scene on time!

“Giddy Up! It sounds bad!”

Liverpool is a city of many firsts. The very first horse drawn ambulance in the UK which operated from the Northern Hospital, Leeds Street in 1883.

The City of Liverpool Ambulance Service was the first to move away from ambulance bells to twin-tone horns with ambulances turning out from their Belmont Base turning many heads along the way.

Blue light driving may have its fun moments, and we all recall out first blue light run, but it remains to this day stacked with danger. Historical records show that on the 19th of May 1899 a young Police Constable John Young was killed when the horse drawn ambulance he was driving and conveying a man who had been run over to hospital; struck a lamppost on Heyworth Street, Everton with disastrous results. The patient also died and the other crew which consisted of a second Police Office and a Doctor were injured. The jury found a verdict of accidental death and they thought a one-eyed horse was not a proper animal for ambulance work. The jury also asked “Don’t you think it is very dangerous to drive an ambulance through the streets of Liverpool at the rate of 12mph”

In 1964 the modern Ambulance was a Morris Austin LD. It had no advanced braking systems, fuel injection engines, crash test certification, modern warning systems. Power steering wasn't invented, and you needed arms like popeye to manoeuvre. Getting up Havelock Street, Everton was challenging even in good weather. Once it snowed, you simply parked at the bottom and walked. The journey down with the patent was even more challenging.

“Putting your foot down and passing a standby message” to get a poorly ill patient to hospital safely was no mean feat. Every ambulance man or woman detests being called an ambulance driver and we never missed an opportunity to educate the public when called that. However, driving at speed on blue light conditions was an artform and some ambulance staff could easily have changed vocations and been on the starting grid of a racetrack. Joe Mitchell, Alan Gregory, Mike Chandler, Tony Cowley, Paul Poynton, Dave Hart, Frank Wardale, Dave Sullivan and Peter Mulcahy QAM are a few that spring to mind. (This was before the Gatso speed camera).

There were no satellite navigation or computer mobile data systems. We relied on the good old A to Z, the Liverpool Echo Street Guide, local knowledge and the high pitch voice of Freddie Valentine shouting up directions over the airwaves with his call Sign “Six Seven Sixty-Seven”.

An Ambulance response may have started in Liverpool but if it noted it was across the County Boundary on Stanley Road the response would stop and the County Lancashire Ambulance Service tasked to attend. It is a fact that 999 callers would be asked to clarify who emptied their bins to determine which ambulance service would respond.

Buildings have been and gone. As we journey through the streets of Liverpool, we are often reminded of the calls that we attended on places along the way. It is strange but we tend to remember the bad and funny ones.

Do you remember these places: -

• Sir Thomas White Gardens

• Entwistle Heights

• Caryl Gardens

• Gerard Crescent

• St Andrew Gardens

• Myrtle Gardens

• Portland Gardens

• St Oswald Gardens

• Eldon Grove

• St Georges Heights

• Kenley Close

• Speke Road Gardens

• Highfield Gardens

• Fontenoy Gardens

• The Gooree

• Bessie Braddock Hall

• St Nathaniel Street