A new digital exhibition has made the recordings of a heroic Sheffield Blitz firefighter

Doug Lightning – who was the last surviving firefighter to have been on duty on the night of the Sheffield Blitz in 1940 – died aged 99 in 2017.

Transcript

00:00Doug Lightning's stories are really inspirational for us, especially being in Sheffield.

00:09Doug passed away at the age of 99, and we managed to get hours of him talking about his life in the fire service.

00:15And Doug was also the last surviving city fireman that worked on the Knights of the Blitz.

00:21And again, Doug talks about his stories at City Hall, where they were fighting a fire at the City Hall,

00:28and then after the firing they evacuated everyone from it, a police officer took them inside, down into the cellar,

00:33and there was a whole team of people just working away, ignoring the fact that there was a war going on,

00:38and everything outside, and they were just carrying on like nothing had happened.

00:41And sort of, they'd just turn around and give Doug a clap, and sort of round of applause for everyone,

00:45and then everyone would turn around and carry on, sort of with their life.

00:48So, I think having Doug physically tell you his story himself, that's sort of,

00:55you can write anything, and you can make a really cool book and a really cool story,

00:59but having the physical person telling you, and remembering it, that vivid as well, sort of really important.

01:06We'd gone down to put the fire out on the roof of the old town hall.

01:11I put that out, because these lads that come from out of town didn't climb.

01:15Took about half an hour, probably half an hour, yeah.

01:19When it was all over, the Chief Constable came out under there, and he complimented me,

01:24and he says, I'll show you something.

01:25He took me down underneath the town hall, down some steps, and there was a big underground place,

01:30and that was the telephone communication for all South Yorkshire.

01:34I was there, and he said to the people, he said, just a minute, like, hush a minute.

01:39He said, this fireman here, with his co-comrades, has put the fire out on the top.

01:44You're not quite safe.

01:46There was a bit of a cheer went up then.

01:49Doug's physical recordings are great, from the family point of view, remembering,

01:56and having, again, in his own words, rather than us retyping or enacting,

02:00sort of speaking it out for a museum exhibition.

02:03But also, for a lot of the kids as well, having the pandemic sort of links in one way to the Blitz,

02:10when you speak to people that was alive during that era.

02:13So again, having Doug physically tell children and visitors of all ages sort of their story,

02:18and having it in the archive, in theory, for the rest of time, is important to all of us.