Family of Cyril George LIDSTONE and Ann L WILLIAMS
| Husband: |
Cyril George LIDSTONE (1912-1978) |
| Wife: |
Ann L WILLIAMS (1914- ) |
| Marriage |
Q3 1935 |
Plymouth, Devon, England |
Husband: Cyril George LIDSTONE
Wife: Ann L WILLIAMS
| Name: |
Ann L WILLIAMS |
| Sex: |
Female |
| Father: |
- |
| Mother: |
- |
| Birth |
8 Mar 1914 |
|
Note on Husband: Cyril George LIDSTONE
During the night of Monday January 13th/Tuesday January 14th 1941 there was an air raid on Plymouth, described by Mr Twyford as a "nightmare". It was the City's 256th alert. The raid lasted for three hours from 6.30pm and killed 24 people, seriously injured 55 and slightly injured 62. Two members of the Auxiliary Fire Service won George Medals during this raid. An unspecified oil tank caught fire and 29-years-old Patrol Officer George Henry Wright, of 71 Neath Road, Lipson, and Leading Fireman Cyril George Lidstone, aged 28, of 54 Durham Avenue, Lipson, were detailed by Divisional Officer R M Easton to deal with it. If it had exploded it would have burned for days and provided a target for the German raiders. The roof of the tank was quite low in the frame that surrounded it and the fire was in the sealing ring between the roof and the tank itself. To get at it, the two men had to haul their apparatus up the external stairway and then clamber down 32 feet to the top of the tank. Patrol Officer Wright went down first but the water supply failed and he had to climb back out again because of the heat. All this time there was a risk of the tank exploding. Once a water supply had been restored, he again climbed down and started to play foam on the fire. Leading Fireman Lidstone then followed to assist him. High explosive bombs were falling all around them as the air raid was at its height. The two men were ringed by a wall of fire from the the seal but they did eventually manage to extinguish it. Half-blinded, they then were able to clamber out again, a very serious disaster having been averted. As Mr Wright put it afterwards: 'I simply took the job in my stride.' In April 1941 Patrol Officer George Henry Wright, who had been a house decorator before the War, and Leading Fireman Cyril George Lidstone, a plasterer by trade, were awarded the George Medal for gallantry.
