A LONG-SERVING Winchester retained firefighter has died aged 90.

Denny King passed away on July 12 and his funeral was last Friday with a tribute from firefighters at the station on Easton Lane.

An appliance accompanied the cortege on Denny’s last journey to the funeral service at Richard Steel and Partners’ Chesil House.

His connection with the fire service stretched from the 1950s to the first decade of this century.

Denny was Darlington-born but moved to the city when he was two years of age, and served the city as a retained fireman at the North Walls station from January 1958 until he retired as a sub officer in June 1985. He also worked at the fire service workshops, as a metalworker, from 1970 to 1995.

He had two daughters, three stepsons, seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

His first wife Wendy died in 1985 and his second, Gladys passed away earlier this year, aged 96.

In his spare time Denny, a resident of Moss Road, Winnall for nearly 60 years, also worked with the benevolent fund (better known now as the Fire Fighters Charity) as the representative for retained sector, for over 30 years, going up to Harcombe House (fire fighters retreat) and doing all sorts of maintenance, such as building bridges, painting, any job that needed doing they did it. He retired from that in the early years of this millennium.

The tribute outside of the fire station holds a close connection to him as this was where the workshops used to be before the fire station moved to Winnall Manor Road.

Paying tribute at the service at Chesil House, the celebrant Janet Powell, who conducted the service, said: “I have been told by many people that he was a man of principle and beliefs, he would have his opinion but would respect yours, mostly! Apparently, with Denny ‘what you saw is what you got’. Another colleague described him as a caring guy, who would help anyone, he was respected ‘all over the county’.”

“He recalled attending a fire at a farm where the farmhand accidentally struck him in the knee with a pitchfork, Denny accidentally got him with the water hose!”

Ms Powell recounted that Denny was again lucky to escape with his life at a fire at Marwell House. “He had been crawling over a first-floor bedroom in thick smoke and realised that it was too soft under his hands and knees, so was concerned about the stability of the floor. When he returned outside, he could see that the floor had gone and only the carpet remained intact. As the ground floor had also disappeared, he would have fallen down into the cellar.”

Granddaughter Georgie White said: “He was an amazing man, always had an answer for everything. He was more then just a grandad he was an incredible role model. A minute didn’t stand still that he wouldn’t be doing something, rewiring or building shelves. He was a well respected man and served with pride. I haven’t met anyone to say a bad word about him yet.. Maybe they weren’t brave enough.”