Fire crews from all over North Wiltshire and one from Oxfordshire paraded on 13 October to present cheques totalling nearly Ł88,000 donated by the people of the county to a fund set up by Wiltshire firefighters in aid of the families of colleagues who perished in the New York terrorist atrocity on 11 September.

Ten fire appliances and some sixty firefighters from the three Swindon stations, Calne, Devizes, Ramleaze and the Defence Fire Services unit at the Royal Military College at Shrivenham in Oxfordshire honoured the dead in the Fire Department of New York.

Assistant Divisional Officer John Popowicz said the events in New York had deeply saddened firefighters everywhere and had moved the people of Wiltshire to magnificent generosity. The people of Swindon had raised Ł46,000 of the Ł87,738 raised across the county and the total is expected to top Ł90,000.