The triumphant return of a 156-year-old brass bell from outside the Thames Fire Station has brought a boost to the brigade’s morale, after the hefty piece of memorabilia was stolen last month.
The bell, located outside the fire station on Pahau Street, caught the attention of two thieves on July 26, when CCTV showed them stealing it from its stand and fleeing on foot in the early hours of the morning.
It found its way home on August 1, however, when a scrap metaller recognised the bell and brought it back to Thames.
The brigade’s chief, Greg Rendall, told The Profile the roughly 75kg bell carried a weighty slice of history.
Constructed in England in 1869 by the same makers behind the Big Ben bell, it was one of three that once rang out across Thames, alerting the local brigades to action.
But before those bells arrived, church bells sounded the alarm.
Sirens were only introduced in the mid-1950s, he said, when power reached the town.
“So it’s good to get a bit of memorabilia back,” Greg said. “We were always hopeful, and humanity played out the right way.”
Greg said Deputy Chief Fire Officer Siobhan Flanigan deserved “all the credit” for tracking down the historic bell.
She emailed scrap metal yards across Waikato and South Auckland, and it was the latter that turned up a result.
But even Siobhan wasn’t convinced the bell would ever come back.
“Honestly, we really didn’t expect that we were going to be hearing anything. I know that I kind of put it in my mind that we probably weren’t going to see the bell again,” she said. “So it was pretty cool [to have it returned]. It’s really lifted morale.”
Greg and Siobhan said the brigade was undecided on where to put the bell now it was back home. While it had been out in public for decades, Siobhan said they needed to protect it.
“We really have to take into consideration the safety and the security of it,” she said. “It’s hard because it’s still a community object, but we are also kaitiaki [guardians] of it and we have to protect it.”
Police confirmed they received a report of the stolen bell on July 26.
Thames Community Officer Acting Sergeant Gareth Carter said while inquiries were being undertaken, police received information from Fire and Emergency that the bell had been located at a scrap yard in South Auckland.
It was then returned to the station on August 1.
Police have since charged a 34-year-old man with receiving stolen property in connection to the incident. He was arrested on Wednesday, July 30 after police making inquiries in Thames went to a local property where several people were located on warrants to arrest.
Two people at the property were arrested in connection with a spate of shoplifting offences, while the 34-year-old man on warrants to arrest fled the property. He was subsequently located and arrested.
He is due to appear in Thames District Court on Friday.
BY KELLEY TANTAU
