Firefighter: From Rookie to Chief

By A I Dower

Firefighter: From Rookie to Chief tells the tales of Ivor Dower, a retired British fire officer who served from 1950 to 1983.

His tales provide insight into life in the services at that time, the characters he met, the incidents that took place—some funny, some sad—and the moves he took to climb his way up the greasy pole from rookie to chief and on to inspector.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728388663

A I Dower

Alwin Ivor Dower was born on 2 December 1925 in Todmorden, Lancashire. Ivor, as he is known as to friends and family, was one of six children and spent his childhood and early adult years in Todmorden. Ivor’s working life began in the cotton mill, which was where he remained until he was called up to join the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a flight mechanic in 1943. After the end of World War II, in 1945, he returned to Todmorden and found a job working as a gas fitter. In 1946, he married his sweetheart, Sarah Patricia. Both were 21 years old. They went on to have three daughters, Jennifer, Elaine, and Fiona. Ivor began his British Fire Service career in 1950 and retired in 1983, moving to Menorca, Spain, in 1987, which is where he lives today. Firefighter: From Rookie to Chief captures some of the stories, incidents, and anecdotes that he encountered in his career—in which he started out as a rookie and climbed the “greasy pole” to chief.

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© 2019 A I Dower. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/24/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8864-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8865-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8866-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906326

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Before Fire Service

Chapter 2 Tales of a Firefighter

Chapter 3 Tales of a Leading Firefighter

Chapter 4 Tales of a Sub-Officer

Chapter 5 Tales of a Station Officer

Chapter 6 Tales of an Assistant Divisional Officer

Chapter 7 Tales of a Divisional Officer, Grade II

Chapter 8 Tales of a Divisional Commander

Chapter 9 Tales of a Senior Course Director

Chapter 10 Tales of an Assistant Chief Officer and Deputy Chief Officer

Chapter 11 Tales of a Chief Fire Officer

Chapter 12 Tales of an Inspector of Fire Services

Chapter 13 Post Retirement

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CHAPTER 1

Before Fire Service

THERE IS MANY A TRUE statement in life, but the one I found truest says, What you have never had, you never miss.

Had you been living prior to 1939 and inhabited an area where the sole occupation was the production of one commodity, it was more than likely the schools, apart from grammar or secondary schools, would be turning out factory fodder. The kids didn’t know that, and their mums and dads, if they had a job, were pleased to be employed. When you left school at age 14, it was accepted that you would go into a factory. In my case, it was textiles. Up at what seemed to be the crack of dawn, you walked the mile and a half to the factory for an eight o’clock start. There you toiled away until five thirty and then trudged back home, where Mum would have provided a hot meal for you. In fact, in winter, you wouldn’t see daylight until Saturday at twelve o’clock because, from then until Monday, the works would be closed.

In wartime, there was no unemployment. It was all part of the war effort. And, of course, at the right age, you were called up to do your bit. This was when the scales fell from your eyes, and you saw how others lived and what the real world was like. You never missed it before because you never had it. I, for one, resolved that I was never going back to the factory, and I never did.

I am not for one moment maligning my previous schoolteachers. They were, in the main, kind, understanding human beings who saw no escape for us but the inevitable factory. We, the pupils, were unaware. And but for the war, we would never have known that there was more.

For a time, I was a flight mechanic in the Royal Air Force (RAF), which proved to be a real eye-opener for a former cotton operative based previously on a farm on the Pennines. I have always had a thirst for knowledge and a retentive memory, so I learned how to service Rolls Royce Merlin engines and Meteor jets. But I also knew, if I wanted to get on in life, I had to get some meaningful educational qualifications, so I studied.

To this end, in my career, I gained seven straight A levels and one B. I later passed all the fire service examinations. Plus, I gained graduate and associate memberships in the Institute of Fire Engineers and eventually became a fellow. I also became a fellow of the British Institute of Management, a member of the teacher of management, and a member of supervisory managers.

In the RAF, I experienced a few fires, mainly caused by stupidity. Sources of ignition and petrol don’t mix! The RAF fuelled its piston engine planes with 100-octane petrol from tanks known as bowsers. They were equipped with a boom on either side with a flexible hose attached and a hand-controlled nozzle. Planes had their tanks in the wings, and blokes like me climbed on the Lancaster’s wings via the fuselage to insert the nozzles into the neck of the tank. The power to propel the fuel through the delivery pipes came from a small petrol-driven pump situated at the rear of the bowser, adjacent to the bowser’s control valves. If that little pump wouldn’t start, it was routine practise to remove the spark plug and give the engine a turn to see if the plug sparked. Of course, there were always small drops of petrol which had fallen from the valves, and from time to time, a small fire would happen. It would be quickly extinguished by the man on the fire extinguisher, and then normal operations would ensue.

No one ever told me that this refuelling business had to follow certain precautionary measures. For instance, all the delivery nozzles should have had a metal cable and clip attached to them, which had to be inserted into a metal orifice adjacent to the aircraft’s filler cap. This was to ensure an electrical bond between the tanker and the aircraft because petrol flowing in pipes generates static electricity. Also, the tanker should have been equipped with cables and earthing spikes driven into the ground in two places to make the operation safe. I never knew about this precaution. Nor had I seen why it needed to be taken until one night when a four-engine plane was being refuelled in a hangar. I later found out not using the spikes was a strict no-no.

Of course, it fired while there was a man on each wing. I was luckily able to cast my hose line away and seal the tank shut before sliding down the wing and landing on the floor beneath. My colleague broke his ankle. And, fair play, the fire was swiftly brought under control. But the truth of the matter was that none of the safety measures were employed. For my part, I was completely ignorant of the existence of these safety measures. Rumour had it that those responsible practised all night with hand torches until they found a faulty torch which ignited, and that got the blame. I am speaking of events that happened more than seventy years ago, and I am sure such slackness no longer exists.

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CHAPTER 2

Tales of a Firefighter

Can you scrub floors?

I SPRINTED FROM BROOK STREET in Todmorden, past the White Hart Pub, got to the booking office, and purchased a return ticket before legging it to the platform, where the train was just leaving. I wrenched the door open and plunged on all fours into an empty carriage. The journey had begun!

It started because he was sitting on the doorstep a few doors up and across the street from me, enjoying the evening sun. I went over and started chatting. I asked him what he did for a living, and he said he was a fireman. I was interested in knowing what being a fireman involved, and he said, Let’s go for a pint, and I will explain.

I’m not a drinker, but we went into the Golden Lion Pub. He told me that his name was Eddie, and he hailed from Barnsley. Quite quickly we became friends. He explained that, as a fireman, he worked shifts of twenty-four hours on and twenty-four hours off.

I asked, What do you have to do?

And he asked, Can you scrub floors?

I must have said I supposed I could.

He said, They want someone at the moment.

The money was better than what I was getting as a gas fitter. And I had recently serviced the fire station’s multipoint water heater, so I knew where to go.

I met with the officer in charge and filled in the forms. I think they had a policy of recruiting tradesmen, so within a few days of that chat with Eddie, I was on my way to tests, medicals, and interviews.

I’d never been to Leeds before, so I had to do a lot of asking. But I arrived on time. There must have been twenty of us, and the first exercise we had was to climb a hundred-foot turntable ladder, which was fully extended and resting on nothing. Quite a few of the candidates bottled out there and then. This left about twelve of us to carry on through the assessments. For the next exercise, the instructor showed us how to pick up a man (about twelve-stone worth) in a fireman’s lift and carry him a hundred yards in one minute. I picked the instructor to carry and did the deed. He informed me after that he would have been more comfortable on a bloody camel.

Next, we had written and oral tests, followed by a medical by the local police doctor, who slapped me on the back and said, There’s nowt wrong with thee, lad.

After successful completion of all they threw at me, I was offered a post at some far-flung station. This did not appeal to me, as my wife was expecting our second child. I explained this and asked if I could be posted locally until then. Luckily, the fire service were in agreement, so I reported for duty at the local station in 1950, aged 25, and began a career which lasted thirty-three years.

I never thought then that I would be writing my memoirs seventy odd years later.

The sprog

The leading fireman took me in hand and instilled as much information as he could into my brain before I left for training school. There I distinguished myself by getting top marks and a carbuncle on my neck (which the crew later burst in a lowering-down drill).

When you are the new recruit, you are known as the sprog, and you get all the lousy jobs. After drill, the work routine is read out, and it invariably went like this: Ivor, will you scrub the stairs? My best advice is to keep your trap shut and do whatever you’re assigned. I think they are testing you.

My station watch was composed of a station officer, a sub-officer, a leading fireman, and four or five firemen. Every quarter we had a kit inspection. An individual’s kit was laid out and checked for his number, condition, and so on.

Now, I had two daunting experiences. The first involved a pair of leather knee-length sea boots. Mine were as hard as iron, and as luck would have it, I read an article by Tommy Lawton of England football fame about how to mould a pair of soccer boots to fit your feet. In essence, you immersed them in boiling water. When they were softened, you packed them with newspaper so that, when they were cold, they would retain the shape. I tried this, but mine didn’t. In fact, you couldn’t have fit a kipper in mine they were so flat! What to do?

I approached the local cobbler, Freddy Pennington, who popped them in a bucket of water and assured me, That will soften them. It didn’t.

Kit inspection was drawing ever closer, so Freddy said, Get a pint of whale oil. That will soften anything.

So off to the chemist, where I had to sign a form to get whale oil; I still don’t know why. Into the boots went the oil, but still no change! Desperation stakes now. An advert in Exchange and Mart offered similar boots from Claude Rye for twenty-nine shillings and sixpence. They were magnificent, and in the kit inspection, I was complimented on what a good job I’d done.

In another uniform-related escapade, my little dog chewed my brigade cap. These caps had a special braid, which now needed to be replaced on mine. We eventually found some similar braid in white, which my wife, bless her, dyed black, and I was able to change the cap when the stores van came around, another narrow squeak.

Our station had been owned by the town. After 1945, though, it was handed back into local authority control from the National Fire Service, except it became the County Fire Service. We had a pump escape (fire engine) with a rare fifty-foot escape ladder, which was all steel and underslung. It bore the name of James E Webster, who I guess must have been a former mayor.

We could turn out in twenty seconds by day and thirty by night (the crew slept with boots off). One of us did watch room duty, as there was no centralised control room in those days. We accepted fire calls from the public, turned out the appliances, summoned the retained firemen, and informed divisional control of activities. Divisional control maintained a huge wall map full of markers, so they had control of how the division’s resources were deployed. The fire engine was numbered 50, so whenever that flap dropped, the watchman yelled "Five ho!" The riders jumped into their boots, opened the doors, started the engine, and clung on for dear life as the machine roared off down the road. Thrilling or what!

As a new recruit in my brigade, I did an initial one-month training, followed by a further two-month training some time later. In that initial month, my star was, for some reason, in the ascendancy. I topped the course with marks of 95.5 per cent. I think my experience of gas fitting must have helped because it came fairly easy for me. I was taken on a tour of the division, much to my surprise.

Most of the watch was composed of former National Fire Service men who had served in the war. We new guys were ex-service men. We knew our new mates had seen lots of action and survived the blitz with three blankets and a storm lamp. None more so than the men who tackled the biggest fire that Britain had ever seen. The Manchester Blitz had happened at Pembroke Dock, where a petroleum facility had been bombed by the Germans, and it lasted about seventeen days. Only eight of these huge tanks were left standing out of the seventeen tanks involved. There was no publicity; it was wartime, and the RAF was fighting head to head with the enemy