The 'rat-run.'

London's Southwark training school did not only train recruit firemen. Other firemen also attended it and undertook a range of practical training courses. One such course was the breathing apparatus (BA) course. From the 1960s firemen had to have served a minimum of a year before attending the BA school and learnt to wear, use and test the Proto oxygen BA set. I had returned to Southwark to complete my basic training and had seen some of these firemen training, wearing their sets, as they shuffled and felt their way around the perimeter walls of the training school. Blindfolded and wearing their blue bagged Proto sets they practiced the skills necessary to move in smoke and darkness safely.

Occasionally we saw the firemen exiting the smoke chamber, an underground maze and obstacle course. As they came out, either carrying equipment or a training dummy, they were shrouded in the chemical smoke forcing its way out of the chamber at the end of a exhausting training exercise. I was in awe of these real firemen, seeing them standing proud in their breathing apparatus sets. I looked forward to being one myself when the time came.

It was our instructor who announced that the following day the squad would to go down into the smoke chamber. There were excited mutterings as we left Southwark that evening, thrilled and full of anticipation for our first taste of real smoke.

The visit to the smoke chamber came at the end of our normal training day. In fact we thought the instructor was having us on or he had completely forgotten all about it! He had done neither. True to his word he was providing some extra-curricular activity but after the Training School senior officers had left for the day. This was an unofficial lesson. As surprising as it must seem firemen going into smoke during basic training was not something contained in our training syllabus.

There was conspicuous odour as we walked through the smoke chamber door. The aroma of decades of use of chemical smoke bombs, canisters ignited by a fuse, filled our nostrils. The smoke chamber comprised a extensive multi-roomed basement area. It was divided into sections. As our squad walked down the single flight of stairs into the chamber the electric bulk head lights threw out a strange glow of orange light. Their original clear glazing obscured by the build-up of greasy tar residue from the training smoke over the years. However, late on this afternoon we would experience some real smoke.

Directed into the chamber the tang of smoke hung everywhere. To the left was a purpose timber built ‘rat-run’. It comprised an elongated, narrow, enclosed obstacle course. It was built on various, interconnecting, levels and incorporated hazards firemen might experience in any building fire including missing floor boards, ball-bearing rollers, small openings and vertical ladders. The configuration of the ‘rat-run’ could be altered by the BA instructors. Using a series of lockable gates they ensured that only their selected route could be followed by BA firemen undergoing training. Additionally, the design of the ‘rat-run’ allowed those inside only move through it in single file.

“Right” said our instructor, as he guided us towards the entrance of the ‘rat-run’. “Through you go. There is only one possible route to reach the other end.Now find your way out.” He opened the access door and said, “Right you go first. Oh, and there are some dead-ends in there.”

Then, as we waited to enter he switched all the lights off.  We were plunged into total darkness. You could not see a hand in front of our faces. We could taste the stench of the smoke impregnated timber rat-run. It was then the reality of this extra-curricular activity suddenly hit home.

Crawling through on hands and knees or stooped low we moved forward slowly and unsteadily. Some missed their footing, others banged their helmeted heads on low beams, two rolled backed down the industrial rollers they were trying to climb. I took a wrong turning. I led them down a route only to find it blocked by a locked gate! Confusion reigned, as we groped and felt our way through the inter-connected galleries. I had to back up causing a log jam as those trying to move forward pushed against those trying to move back.

Our instructor moved around effortlessly in the blackness. He had a self-assured stride as he monitored our progress to the end of the ‘run’ and before he turned the lights back on. Some exited with sore knees, others with grazed knuckles and we were led into the adjacent, larger, room. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet. This room served as a ‘search’ area by those undergoing their BA training and by proper firemen doing regular BA training exercises. In the centre of the concrete floor room stood a metal ‘crib’. It was piled high with waste sawn wood.

“Right you lot stand back against the walls” he said, in an unusual conciliatory tone.

 “If any of you has had enough smoke make your way out and wait in the drill yard,” he said, pointing to the metal door which opened onto the staircase leading up and out to the drill yard.
“After I have lit the crib and I will put some horse-hair stuffing on the fire. It’s the same horse-hair you might find in a mattress or in a settee or an armchair; just look and learn.”

Even standing some 10 feet away we felt the temperature rise in the confined space. The heat of the fire was reflected on the squads' faces as our eyes smarted and watered from the pungent wood smoke.

As the flames engulfed the wood in the crib the instructor moved closer to the blazier. Taking large handfuls of the horse-hair from a sack he piled it onto the fire almost smothering it. The nature of smoke changed immediately as did the smell. No longer was it a light translucent smoke with a blueish tint, but became an ugly thick brown smoke that quickly obscured our vision. For some of the recruits who had smelt burning hair they quickly recognised the unpleasant odour. It was a smell that we recruits would, in the months ahead, become all too familiar with when attending fires in private dwellings. The smell was noxious. It was pernicious.