The Swinging 60's

The service approached the 1960's with great confidence, despite the rumble of militant action from the crews.  There had been a call from one of the unions for an overtime ban, but the Surrey crews decided to put the patients first  and call off  any action planned.    Nothing to distract from its achievement so far.  From the Headquarters at Kingston, a new modern control covering the Metropolitan area, three other control centres to cover the rest of the county, a central stores and training school had been established, and mechanics had been employed enabling  the independent maintenance of the vehicles, to a  work force dedicated to their job.

As hospitals became more sophisticated so did the need for  specialised transport,  the call for the service began to increase. Hospitals also realised it was now easy to transfer patients to special units at other hospitals, they could discharge their patients quicker, as even stretcher cases could be brought to and from the out-patient departments.   Probably  one of the changes that had the greatest impact was the setting up of the first day hospitals.   As the needs of the Hospitals and Doctors began to settle , and a good communication system established, it made it  easier to preplan.  So the pattern was set, daily  work would be planned in  the control rooms and passed out to stations, by private phone in C, D, and E, areas, and by teleprinters in the Metropolitan area.  The work would consist mainly of out-patients, some hospital admissions, discharges  and transfers.  In those days, as lots of patients were sent by train, they had to be taken, or met, at the local train station.  Emergencies and urgent admissions  would be dealt with as the need arose.

There were to be many changes within the next decade, staff took all within their stride. New equipment and techniques were absorbed as they became available, as well as the different types of vehicles they  were expected to drive.  The switch from cars, and multi-seated sitting case vehicles, to different types of ambulances.  What about the  efficiency of the service you may ask, as ambulances performed a dual role they could be switched quickly from emergency and maternity cases, to general admissions and out-patients,  obviously in order of priority.  Surrey prided itself on the way in which it dealt with  emergencies and urgent jobs, but there  was some criticism at the time regarding out-patient delays, but  most patients managed to get to their appointments and be returned, very few slipped the net.    How good the service had become was to be tested at 7.30pm March 1961, and it was to prove the worth of the radio system, and also how quickly the various factors of the service worked as one.  There was a fire at The Surrey Hills Clinic Caterham, it was unusual in as much as the call did not come via the usual channels, the alarm was raised by a Croydon Ambulance via radio, that just happened to be there at the time. Although down to emergency cover at that time of day, C. Division quickly mobilised its vehicles, from both the direct and voluntary service, and evacuated 48 patients, mainly with  cardiac problems, speedily and efficiently to various hospitals

In March a new Deputy Chief,  Mr R A Cupid, was promoted from B. Division  to replace Mr Cook who had become The Chief Ambulance Officer of Essex.  March 1961 seemed to be a  busy month for Surrey Ambulance Service,  at the end of the month they  were honoured by being included in a formal parade for the first time.   This was made all the more  memorable because it was a visit by the Queen to County Hall. 30 ambulance men would form part  of the guard of honour, and two of the officers, Mr. P. Watterson and Mr.  E. Luchford, carried umbrellas in the case of rain, for the Queen and her Lady in Waiting.
  
Parades or not the work of the service still had to carry on.  The following month saw them dealing with an eight car crash on the Kingston By Pass, which took six ambulances  to clear the patients.  A problem that was to become all the more prevalent as cars were becoming more powerful.  Although nowadays flashing lights and sirens on ambulances are taken for granted, it was not until early 1962  that the first lights were fitted to all the vehicles, and the first siren fitted  to an Esher vehicle at the end of the same year, with the rest of the Surrey vehicles having them fitted the following year. One of the problems connected to the service are events which occur over which they have no control.   One such event was the proposed extension of The Greater London  boundary to take place in April 1965, when Surrey would  lose nearly 25% of its rateable area to London.  This in turn greatly diminished the service in Surrey.  Because this would leave a smaller compact service (see page 20) it was decided to centralise  the  controls from Chertsey, Guildford and Redhill and what was left of the old met area at Banstead, this would come on line as soon after 1st April 1964 as possible.  As it turned out it would not be until 29th November of that year that it finally came to fruition, working under tremendous difficulties initially from a very cramped location,  (they were actually operating from garages which were part of Banstead Ambulance Station).  In the meantime teleprinters were installed at all stations, and the service reorganised. Three stations were to be retained from the old met area Banstead, Epsom and Ewell, and Ashford would come over from Middlesex in April 1965.

At the time of the  boundary changes, the service was given the responsibility of supplying the transport for the Social Services in Surrey, which they did for a number of years.  A not particularly successful venture, for although ambulance personnel are very flexible they never seemed to enjoy this particular work, and even when separate drivers were employed for the work, the venture for some reason did not seem to jell.

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Another significant change took place early in 1965 when the Deputy Chief, Mr R A Cupit was promoted to Chief Ambulance Officer in another county and was replaced by Mr E. Bates, whose influence was to be felt for a good many years.  He had been promoted through the service, and it was he, as Control Superintendent, that had been responsible for the uniting of A and B controls.   At the time of his promotion he had just finished organising the new central control for the service.

 The Deputy's job was to oversee the day-to-day running of the service, and one of the first things he was to be confronted with was a withdrawal of the St Johns Ambulance Brigade in Surrey from paid ambulance work.  A  quote from the local press at the time:-  "Since 1948, when the National Health Service began, the St. John Ambulance Service has provided drivers during normal working hours on an agency basis on behalf of the County Ambulance Service.   These  drivers are paid for by the county, and it is this point, (it rubs against the ideals of the Order of St. John), which forms the basis of the brigade's decision to with-draw."  A spokesman for county headquarters said this week:  "There were various considerations which have caused this decision to be made. In principle, however, the acceptance of pay by members of the brigade is fundamentally out of keeping with the ideals of the Order of St. John, whose members undertake to devote their spare time to the alleviation of the sufferings of the sick and injured.  It is therefore desired to restore complete these ideals of voluntary service."

A flurry of activity took place over the next few months, it was agreed that Surrey Ambulance would rent the stations, or part of them, being vacated by  St John Ambulance.  The men from the stations involved  were quickly kitted out  with Surrey Ambulance uniforms,  and enough vehicles and equipment were found so that within a few months the full time work being  carried out by St John Ambulance at Ash Vale, Caterham, Cranleigh, Farnham, Guildford,  and Reigate, had been switched to the Surrey Ambulance Service.  This just left one agency station in the county run by the British Red Cross at Godalming, and they too were having difficulties covering their night shifts. (More about them when we look at the 1970's).    

Although there had been two women on ambulance work for a number of years, it had not been the policy of the service to recruit them.  Shortage of staff was to see this policy change in 1965 when the first  five women were employed at Chertsey Main, they were, and are, expected, to carry out the full range of ambulance duties, and from that time on women became an integral part of the service. The services commitment to Civil Defence was at its peak during the 60's, with a number of officers diverted to concentrate on this work, as well as numerous other staff who become instructors.  All staff were expected to be conversant with Civil Defence requirements, and ambulance drivers could often be found ferrying Civil Defence vehicles across the county.   But like St John Ambulance and the Red Cross it was found there was a lack of volunteers, so most of the C.D. units, although very dedicated, were rather small, and as the world situation  steadily improved the need for Civil Defence began to decline, it, like the old soldier, gradually faded away.

The end of the decade,  the crews were getting restless again, with the threat of militant action, , one could put it down to the sign of the times, except for the fact they were still calling for better recognition and training.  One move in this direction came at the end of 1969 when the requirement to hold a St John or Red Cross certificate came to an end,  in future the service would be responsible for the staffs proficiency.  The service was involved in aircraft crashes on both sides of the county in the late 60's, the first at London Airport in 1968 when a twin engine freight plane crashed into two parked tridents that were waiting to load passengers.  Six people were killed and six more injured, this would have been a lot worse, but fortunately it narrowly missed a trident with 50 passengers waiting to take off.   At  Gatwick in January 1969 there was an horrendous crash, a Boeing 727 of Afghanistan Airways came down on approach in fog 2 miles from the airport into the side of a house.        Of the 62 people on board only 14 survived, two people and a baby were in the house at the time but only the baby survived.  It was not all doom and gloom in the latter half of the 60's,  at end of the year, a new Ambulance Centre was completed, built on three floors and situated at The Horseshoes Banstead.    The top floor housed a state of the art control room, on the middle floor the training school, who were soon to attract students from as far away as Hong Kong.  

Doug Harrage in the new control at Banstead

At ground level  there was a large fitters workshop, central stores and numerous offices, a hall that could be used as a dining area during the day and for recreational purposes in the evenings and weekends, also a kitchen attached to cope with the needs of staff and students.  Last but not least a room with a bar for the use of the social and benevolent side of the service.   The centre was to become the focal point for the service, and with a few changes over the years, remains the service's headquarters

    1970's