Yahoo News London’s historic ambulance fleet: saving lives and stirring memories
It is a measure of how the Carry On films maintain a vice-like grip on the public consciousness that whenever the 1965 Morris LD30 Mk3 “Wandsworth” that belongs to London Ambulance Service (LAS) Historic Collection is displayed at events, someone will inevitably refer to it as a “Carry On film ambulance”.
These vehicles would also appear in Robbery, The Sweeney or Villain, as this screen fame reflected their ubiquity during the Sixties and early Seventies on the streets of London, clanging their gongs as they dashed through a Muswell Hill and Ladbroke Grove almost devoid of parked cars.
Today, the historic fleet of the LAS is run by ambulance personnel who voluntarily restore and maintain the 24 vehicles in their spare time.
The custodian of the Morris is Andy Whatling, who has been in the ambulance service for a total of three decades and for the past 14 years he has been an incident manager in central London.
When the Morris was commissioned, it was a different world for, Whatling explained, “at that time, an ambulance was essentially a taxi service to the hospital” and the LD was carefully designed to fulfil this brief.
The origins of this iconic “London ambulance” date back to 1956 when the London County Council (LCC) arrived at the conclusion that its existing Daimler DC27 ambulances were too heavy and too uneconomical. It decided to use the British Motor Corporation’s (BMC) LD2 van chassis as a basis for a new fleet, with bespoke coachwork devised at the service’s workshop in Wandsworth, in the south-west of the capital. Hence the vehicle’s colloquial name.
In 1959 an Austin with a glass-fibre nose and floor went on display at the National Health Service Exhibition and the subsequent Mk2 version became the country’s first GRP-bodied ambulance.
Whatling observes that the Wandsworth “was built purely for London” and the third-generation versions, introduced in 1963, had a simplified chassis, a double-skinned body and a more powerful engine.
In 1965 the LCC merged its operation with the city’s eight other ambulance providers to create the London Ambulance Service and CYH 540C is believed to be its oldest surviving vehicle.
Compared with modern appliances, Whatling finds the LD30 to be “an interesting drive. The Morris has a 2.2-litre petrol engine and it weighs two tons, with no power assistance for the steering and you soon develop Arnold Schwarzenegger-style muscles”.
As for the braking, this is via drums: “You have to plan your drive well in advance in case of an emergency stop,” says Whatling.
However, by the standards of 53 years ago, the Wandsworth offered an excellent ride quality and the Series III was even fitted with “Selectraride” adjustable dampers. In 1964 the reporter from Commercial Motor magazine “travelled for several miles lying on the stretcher bed and was highly impressed with the smoothness of the ride: it was certainly far and away better than I have experienced with other ambulances”.
The device mounted above the offside door is an amplifier for the bell, to ensure it could be heard above the capital’s ever-increasing volume of traffic.
BMC discontinued the LD range in 1967 and to encounter the Wandsworth today is to be reminded of a now impossibly remote London of Austin FX3 and FX4 taxis and black Wolseley 6/110 police cars.
In 2015 the Morris was reunited with her original crew for her 50th birthday and while most observers still associate it with Jim Dale and runaway hospital trolleys, ambulance veterans - and many others - regard it as a vehicle that helped to save countless lives.
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