"Slip and pitch". The Wheeled Escape ladder-a brief history.

London’s fire brigades have their roots embedded in the insurance companies. The insurance fireman’s primary concern was the saving of property, not life, in order to keep the insurance companies level of claims down. The saving of life was a secondary affair. It was in response to growing public disquiet over the loss of life for fire that the Fire Escape Society was originally formed in London in 1828. The wheeled escape ladders were strategically placed in streets to be ‘run’ by conductors to the fire with the object of effecting any necessary rescues. The Society was funded by private donations but failed to secure sufficient financial support and was eventually absorbed by the newly-formed Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire in 1836.

The escape conductor, Mr Wood, at the Blackfriars escape post. SE London.

London’s first municipal fire brigade was formed in 1833, called the London Fire Engine Establishment its Chief, termed Superintendent, James Braidwood reported to the insurance companies. Although Braidwood would see the introduction of the ‘new’ steam fire engine none of his stations housed an escape ladder. Braidwood died at a Tooley Street fire in 1861 and an Irishman, Capt. Eyre Massey Shaw took over the helm of the LFEE.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade was established by an Act of Parliament in 1866. It was funded by the ratepayers of London. In 1867 it took over responsibility for the Royal Society’s escapes, by which time the number of escape stations had reached 85. The Royal Society would concentrated its efforts in the provinces but finally discontinued its rescue activities in 1881 as it was seen as a local authority responsibility i.e. the fire brigades role.

An escape cart at the Cystal Palace fire station (No 88) in Penge.

Operation from its Watling Street headquarters Shaw had over twice as many ‘escape’ stations as he had fire stations. His firemen, who had been on escape duty in the streets all night, often had to be sent straight out to a fire as soon as they returned to the station in the morning. It was not unusual for a fireman to be on duty for 120 hours without a break.

The escape station at Brockwell Park. Herne Hill.

Many of the escape firemen performed heroic acts of bravery. Some died in the process. In 1871 Fireman Joseph FORD was on escape duty when called to a fire in Grays Inn Road. With the aid of a policemen the pair ran the ladder to the burning house. Five times Ford ascended the escape ladder and rescued five with hardly a pause for breath, sliding them down the copper chute situated on the underside of the ladder. Then he heard another in distress, a woman, at the top of the building. Almost exhausted he climbed the ladder and bringing the woman half way down and dropping her to safety. He himself became entangled in the chute for a while. As the crowd watched in horror Ford was being roasted alive by the blaze. Finally, and frantically, he freed himself only to fall the ground where he died. Such was the outpouring of public sympathy that generous donations raise some £1000.00 for Ford’s widow. Ford’s employer, the then Board of Works (the forerunner of the London County Council) promptly cancelled Ford’s widow pension stating the she and his children were now adequately supported!

Capt. Shaw moved to the new Metropolitan Fire Brigade (Southwark) headquarters in 1878. His Brigade strength stood at 48 fire stations and 107 fire escape station. There were over 450 escape ladders situated across London at both locations and many held in reserve. Firemen were still ‘running’ the 50 foot escape ladders to fires. By 1889 the station numbers had risen to 55 and 127 respectively. Although there were 127 escapes manned every night there were no funds available for any day-time escape service!

Shaw tendered his resignation with the now London County Council in the autumn of 1891. His successor, his deputy, was Capt. Simmons. His five year tenure did little to influence the availability of the escape ladders. His term of office end when the LCC effectively sacked him for misconduct and paid him off. It was his successor Capt. Wells RN. who is credited with introducing both the escape cart and the ‘long ladder’, a 75 foot version of the escape ladder. These extra-long escapes were also carried on a horse drawn vehicles and placed strategically across London. It was first the first time that the Brigade had a dedicated life-saving appliance. Escape-carts later became escape-vans, and were fitted with first-aid firefighting equipment. Horses slowly gave way to the introduction of the motorised escape-vans in 1906 and with increased mobility and speed the escape stations were eventually withdrawn right across London. (The first horse drawn turntable ladders were introduced in 1905.)

The No 1 station and Metropolitan Fire Brigade HQ at Southwark.

The 'long' ladder at the Southwark headquarters.

Over the next thirty years things improved both in equipment and a marginal improvement in firemen’s conditions but the 50 wheeled escape ladder remained the same. However, how it was carried changed in 1934 with the introduction of the first dual purpose appliances capable of being either a pump-escape or a pump. That policy would remain to the present day with the most commonly used front line fire engines. Self-propelled appliances had replaced all horse drawn engine, the last withdrawn from service in 1921. With the increased acquisition of turntable ladders the 75 foot wheeled escapes were scrapped too.

The escape ladder was the fireman’s preferred ladder of choice. It was strong and stable but did have some limitations when it came to pitching it restricted spaces. However, used in conjunction with a first floor ladder (placed at the top of the escape ladder, or providing a platform to use hook ladders to scale further up a building, or bridged to span a gap at lower levels it was an extremely versatile and robust firefighting ladder.

During WWII its use was restricted to London’s regular firemen who rode the pre-war pump escapes and despite the wholesale devastation caused by enemy bombing and the fires they caused day-to-day fires still occurred across London and the escape ladder remained the primary rescue ladder of the Brigade.

Sadly, in December 1951 three London firemen died and many more were seriously injured when a wall collapsed at the major fire at Eldon Street. The upper walls crashed down on a number of escape ladders being used by crews to direct jets into a burning warehouse. They were the first operational firemen deaths involving a wheeled escapes since Victorian times. Tragically other firemen also died engaging the pump-escape competitions, where crews raced against each other in slipping and pitching the escapes to a drill tower and performing a rescue by a ‘live’ carry-down. The pump-escape competitions were later suspended and then cancelled altogether by the 1960s.

The demise of the wheeled escape ladder came in the mid-1980s. Cost and problems of maintenance and difficulty in replacement were cited as the cause, but firemen of the time bemoaned the ladder’s passing. A ladder that had served firemen and firefighters well was consigned to the history books and to fire service museums.

Fenchurch Street in 1983. The last London hook ladder rescue and the escape ladder next to the replacement Lacon ladder.

The wheeled escape ladder. Circa 1830 to 1984. RIP.

The King's Cross Underground station fire.

On 18 November 1987, at approximately 19:30, a fire broke out at King's Cross St. Pancas tube station, a major interchange on the London Underground. As well as the mainline railway stations above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan lines, there were platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines. The fire had started on a wooden escalator serving the Piccadilly line and, at 19:45, erupted in a flashover into the underground ticket hall, killing 31 people and injuring 100.

At King's Cross, as well as the mainline railway station above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan line, there are platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. There were two separate escalator shafts leading down to the Victoria and Piccadilly lines.

At about 19:30 several passengers reported seeing a fire on a Piccadilly line escalator. Staff and police went to investigate and on confirming the fire one of the policemen went to the surface to radio for the fire brigade. Four fire engines and a turntable ladder were sent by the fire brigade control room at 19:36. The fire was beneath the escalator was  impossible to get close enough to use a fire extinguisher. There was water fog equipment but underground staff had not been trained in its use. The decision to evacuate the station was made at 19:39, using the Victoria line escalators. A few minutes later the fire brigade arrived and several firefighters went down to the escalator to assess the fire. They saw a fire about the size of a large cardboard box and planned to fight it with a water jet using firefighters wearing breathing apparatus sets.

At 19:42 the entire escalator was aflame, producing superheated gas that rose to the top of the shaft enclosing the escalator, where it was trapped against the tunnel’s ceiling, which was covered with about twenty layers of old paint. As the superheated gases pooled along the ceiling of the escalator shaft, all those old layers of paint began absorbing the warmth. The ceilings had been repainted several times in the past without removing the old paint. (A few years before the fire, the Underground's director of operations had suggested that all this paint might pose a fire hazard. However painting protocols were not in his purview and his suggestion was widely ignored by his colleagues.)

Three minutes later a flashover occurred. A jet of flames came up from the escalator shaft filling the ticket hall with intense heat and thick black smoke. It killed killing or seriously injuring most of the people in the ticket hall. The fire trapped several hundred people below ground, who escaped on Victoria line trains. Several policemen with an injured man attempted to leave via a platform, but found their way blocked by locked gates. These were later unlocked by a station cleaner. Staff and a policewoman trapped on a Metropolitan line platform were rescued by a passing train.

Thirty fire crews, over 150 firefighters, were deployed. Fourteen London Ambulance Service ambulances ferried the injured to local hospitals, including University College Hospital.

Thirty-one people died and 100 people were taken to hospital, 19 with serious injuries.  London Fire Brigade Station Officer Colin Townsley was in charge of the first fire engine to arrice at the scene and was down in the ticket hall at the time of the flashover. He did not survive, his body was found beside that of a badly burnt woman passenger at the base of the exit steps to Pancas Road. It was believed that Colin Townsley spotted the passengher in difficulty and stopped to assist her to safety. Neither of them reached it.

The funeral of the late Colin Townsley. GM.

 

Assistant Divisional Officer Cliff Shore was the station commander at Euston fire station. He was first senior officer to arrive at the Kings Cross fire. He was later awarded the MBE for his work that night. The following are his own words:

"From the time that I received the call I had an uneasy feeling about the incident that was to follow. This feeling was compounded by the presence of smoke some three quarters of a mile from Kings Cross and the heavy traffic build up. I was forced to park in York Way and was unable to see the blue flashing lights of the appliances due to the density of smoke.

When I got to the scene I was confronted with two persons in a collapsed condition. I immediately got two firemen to render first aid. On initial reconnaissance dense smoke was coming from three entrances in Euston and Pancras Roads, and the concourse of the main line station was rapidly filling with smoke. I was unable to make contact with any officer and quickly realised that a serious and chaotic situation was in progress.

I assumed control and made Pumps 8, Ambulances 4, Persons Reported. I was desperately short of officers and men to carry out all the tasks that were needed. I was informed that two members of the public had been found inside and that four members of the Brigade were missing. The heat coming from the entrances was extremely intense.

It was obvious that there could be large numbers of people involved, therefore in my planned rescue attempts and attack on the fire from three different entrances, I was forced to put firefighters through punishing conditions. It was therefore conductive to have experienced BA crews with a minimum of a junior officer in charge and probationary firemen not to be included as part of the crew.

A short time after I took command I was present when Station Officer Townsley was brought out and with a negative response from the ambulance resuscitator, and with three other members of the Brigade still missing, I feared the worst. When I was relieved of command I was able to get below and immediately the true horror of it all started to unfold when I came across eight bodies. I was most relieved to reach two of the missing members of the Brigade, who had been cut off since the flashover, both of whom were uninjured. I returned to the main area of fire, and satisfied that it was now under control, returned to the Control Unit and reported this to the Officer in Charge.

I would like to commend the work, dedication and heroism of all the members of the Brigade at this incident, which I feel was attributable to many more lives being saved, and I feel most proud to have served with those involved".

The fire was declared out at 01:46 the following morning.

At the time of the Kings Cross fire, the fire kit worn by London’s firefighters consisted of thin yellow over-trousers, a woollen tunic and cork helmet, which left much of a firefighter's neck and ears exposed, even when wearing breathing apparatus. Their PVC protective gloves would have been more at home in the garden. Improvements were made to personal protective equipment for firefighters - the combed-helmet was replaced by Kevlar headgear, and some fire and rescue services have opted for a design that encloses the ears. Padded over-trousers and more substantial tunics, with collars, were also introduced. 

Many heroic acts took place that horrific night. Not all were recorded and placed in the public domain. The London Fire Brigade convened a special Honours and Awards Board to consider the actions of its firefighters that fateful fire. It concluded that Station Officer Colin James TOWNSLEY, attached to Soho fire station, be posthumously awarded the Chief Officer's Commendation following the Kings Cross Underground fire. He was the Officer in Charge of the initial attendance, riding Soho's Pump Ladder. He and his pump ladder crew had made their way to the station concourse, at the head of the escalators, where activity at the station appeared normal; although a small fire was apparent about one third of the way down of the right hand escalator. Ordering his crews to rig in BA and get a jet to work, he sent a priority message, 'persons reported'. The resultant, and unexpected, flashover tragically leaves questions as to what exactly happens next as to firefighting operations, but his own escape was delayed to  assist a badly burned young woman along the St Pancras subway. As a fit and strong man he would have certainly reached safety but for his courageous and selfless act of helping another. For heroism, supreme humanity and outstanding leadership he was subsequently posthumously awarded the GEORGE MEDAL.

Assistant Chief Officer Joe Kennedy (North East Area HQ): Assistant Divisional Officer Clifford John Shore (North Area HQ): Sub Officer Vernon Ronald Trefry, Firemen Paul Henry Hale and Robert Edward Moulton- all attached to Soho fire station, were awarded a Chief Officer's Commendation; the highest London Fire Brigade honour.

Assistant Divisional Officer Clifford Shore was subsequently awarded the MBE (Gallantry); Sub Officer Trefry and Firemen Hale and Moulton were each awarded the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct.

The Chief Officer's Letter of Congratulations were also awarded to; Station Officer Peter Kenneth Osborne of Manchester Square fire station: T/Sub Officer Roger William Bell, T/ Leading Fireman  David Charles Flanagan and Firemen Joseph James Boland, Manjit Singh of Clerkenwell fire station: Firemen Stewart Button, John Edgar, David Charles Priestman, David Robert Smith and Steve John Bell  all attached to Soho fire station: Station Officer Alan Pryke of North Area Staff and T/Station Officer Roger De Monte North East Area Staff.

Firemen Button and Edgar were subsequently both awarded the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct.

A public inquiry into the incident was subsequently conducted by Desmond Fennell, OBE, QC., assisted by a panel of four expert advisers. The inquiry opened at Westminster's Central Hall, on 1 February 1988 and closed on 24 June, after hearing 91 days of evidence.

Smoking on Underground trains was banned in July 1984. Following a serious fire at the Oxford Circus underground station in November 1984, the ban was extended to all underground stations in February 1985. However, smokers often ignored this and lit cigarettes on the escalators on their way out. The inquiry found the fire was most probably caused by a traveller discarding a burning match that fell down the side of the moving staircase on to the running track of the escalator.

London Underground were strongly criticised in the report for their attitude to fires underground, underestimating the hazard because no one had died in a fire underground before. Staff were expected to send for the Fire Brigade only if the fire was out of control, dealing with it themselves if possible. Fires were called smouldering and staff had little or no training to deal with fires or evacuation.

In a House of Common debate into the Fennell report findings and its recommendations Frank Dobson, the then MP for Holborn and St Pancras, made the following comments to the Secretary of State for Transport; Michael Portillo. 

“The inquiry, although absolutely necessary, was in itself an additional cruelty for many who had to give evidence. It forced them to relive the horrors of that night, and also subjected their every action throughout the crisis, minute by minute, to the harshest, most clinical public scrutiny. Something to which few of us would like to be subjected even for an afternoon at the House of Commons, where nothing more than our reputation is at stake.

I found it a humbling experience to read how my ordinary fellow citizens reacted when faced with a fearful combination of fire, fumes, smoke, darkness, noise and panic, all of it below ground. In that heat and horror many ordinary people performed extraordinary deeds, saying afterwards that they were only doing their jobs. No words of praise or admiration from me, at least, can do justice to, for example the fire fighter Station Officer Colin Townsley.

When Colin Townsley arrives on the scene he goes down to the booking hall, reconnoitres down the escalators and instructs other members of his watch to go back to the surface to order more pumps and bring breathing apparatus for themselves and for him. He himself stays down there, in that dangerous, horrible place, to urge passengers to get out. The flashover fire occurs. The booking hall is engulfed in flames. Flames so hot that they melt aluminium. Colin Townsley gropes around in the dark, and picks up a woman who is badly injured and burned. He makes for an exit where light and air would represent life to both of them, but the fumes poison him before he reaches safety. The report says, in its prosaic way: his was a heroic act.  St. John's Gospel says: Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. Colin Townsley laid down his life for a stranger.

Constable Hanson of the Transport police, although himself very badly burned and injured, risked his life to save more people, more strangers. We should remember that to the members of the emergency services the risk of injury and death is an ever-present part of their workaday world. When a catastrophe occurs, the rest of us run away, but the people in the emergency services run towards it.

The Fennell report rightly makes it clear that the fire and the shortcomings in the response to it were not the fault of the people working at King's Cross that night, nor were they the fault of those working in the emergency services that night. But the fire should not have occurred and, having occurred, it should have been dealt with more promptly and more effectively. The responsibility for any failure lies with the managements of London Regional Transport and the emergency services, with those who laid down the priorities to be followed by those managements and with those in Government whose job was and remains to secure the safe operation of all our railways. At the pinnacle of that pyramid of responsibility is the Secretary of State for Transport."

The London Fire Brigade honours the memory of the King's Cross Victims.

Footnotes on the Kings Cross fire.

For 16 years, he was 'body 115'. Then in 2003 the mystery victim of the King's Cross fire was finally identified as Alexander Fallon. The small, unnamed grave in a corner of a north London cemetery had held on to one of the last secrets of the King's Cross fire. But the mystery of body 115 (named after its mortuary tag number) – was solved. Forensic experts from the British transport police confirmed that the remains belong to 72-year-old Alexander Fallon, a homeless Scot. No one knows what the pensioner was doing at King's Cross station just after 7.30pm on November 18 1987, when a fireball swept up the wooden escalator and into the ticket hall, killing 31 people.

According to his family, Fallon's life had begun to unravel 13 years earlier when his wife died from ovarian cancer. He sold their house in Falkirk, and in the early 1980s headed south to London where he began sleeping rough. He kept in touch with his four daughters, two of whom were in Scotland and two in the US, with the odd letter and phone call until 1987 - then nothing. But Fallon was just one of thousands of "missing people" in London, and officers trying to identify the badly burned remains had little to go on. When the body of "115" was recovered from the wreckage of the station, detectives trying to establish the identity had little to go on. They knew they were looking for the family of a man who was 5ft 2in tall, a heavy smoker and had recently had brain surgery. But they believed the victim was in his 50s or early 60s - 10 years younger than Fallon. 

Sadly, tragedy visited the same underground station again in the terrorist attack on London on July 7, 2005. A bomb exploded on a train in the tunnel between King's Cross and Russell Square. The London Fire Brigade rescued victims trapped below.

When, following the London Tube bombings of July 7 2005, it was revealed that radios used by most blue-light emergency services still did not work underground, despite recommendations made 20 years earlier in his report into the King’s Cross fire, Fennell drily observed: “If the Americans can communicate with a man on the moon, then it seems extraordinary that the Brits cannot get a system going down to people 20 yards beneath the surface.”

First National Firemen’s Strike. 14.11. 1977.

No pain, no gain…and it was painful for many of that era. A particularly unforgettable period for lots of reasons in the late 1970s. Now it’s very much part of fire service history now. But for those of us in the London Fire Brigade then the date reminds us, if it be needed, of the 9 week struggle of the first national Firemen’s strike. A struggle that helped forge a better future. So some London images, together with personal reflections, from that late autumn of 1977 and winter of 1978.

Four decades have passed since firemen across the UK walked out of their fire stations in that first national strike. It would not be the last. However, as long ago as 1961 fire service wages had suffered badly because of last minute interventions caused by various government pay policies. By 1971 a qualified fireman (someone with proven skills and four years’ service) was paid two pound fifty pence above the then average male earnings, but by 1977 it was almost thirteen pounds per week below the same comparative pay position.

The Callahan Labour government had insisted that from the 7 November 1977 any pay award to the fire service must be within their ten per cent guidelines. A position which was unacceptable to the FBU’s demand for a twenty pounds per week increase for qualified firemen. My own salary had only recently been increased by twenty quid from my Sub Officer rate at Southwark to a newly promoted Station Officer at West Norwood. I earned the princely sum of £303.00 per month for a 48 hour week, which included the £17.39p monthly under-manning allowance. Inflation was standing at almost 16% in 1977.

I, like many others, was uncomfortable about the prospect of going on strike. I had voted for it but passionately hoped that it would be settled and a fair pay deal would be struck. I did not want this strike to happen not least because we were putting our own families’ safety on the line too. It was inconceivable to me that a Labour government would allow the fire service to strike. The consequences seemed all too horrid to contemplate. Many of us grew increasingly anxious as each day the strike drew nearer. But with no positive news of a resolution to the situation things were not looking good.

Across London it was a White Watch night duty immediately before the strike started. At West Norwood it was a strange night shift to say the least. There was an unnatural hush that hung over the normally vocal faces which made up Norwood’s White Watch. The conversation was stilted, gung-ho feelings that some had expressed weeks before had completely disappeared. The clock was ticking, in truth time had already run out. The battle lines had been drawn and neither side had moved their position.

The strike started at 9 a.m. on that Monday morning of the 14th November. It was the normal time for a change of watch only that Monday there was no change of watch. As the station house bells rang out it signalled the end of the White Watch shift and the start of the first national firemen’s strike.

At stations around London the on-coming watches gathered on station forecourts together with off duty personnel in a show their solidarity. As we walked out of our station the fire engines remained, unmanned, in their appliance bays. Troops, the Army, Navy and later the RAF, had been thrown into a new front line. They had had only the most basic of firefighting training. I think I covered more when I did my Boy Scout’s firefighter’s badge! The military crewed the Green Goddess fire engines and operated out of army barracks or TA centres around the country.

In that November “Operation Burberry” swung into action on orders of the Government. It put stored Home Office fire engines on UK streets and, perhaps for the very first time, exposing the British public to these Green Goddesses on a nationwide scale. But some of us had ridden these slow and cumbersome machines from the days of the ‘AFS’ and when they were put on the run as a ‘front line’ appliance. I had ridden one for a couple of nights at Lambeth fire station because it was placed ‘on the run’ as a spare. It was a pig of a fire engine; uncomfortable and unreliable. It did not stay long at Lambeth either, an irate principal officer ordered the “green monstrosity” removed from his beloved Headquarters fire station. He demanded a proper red engine be put there and it was.

But now red engines across the Capital, in impeccable readiness, stood behind closed appliance room doors. Many were obstructed by parked cars and motor bikes of the firemen and officers standing on the station forecourt on that bleak late autumn day. At West Norwood we were soon standing around a warming fire blazing in a cut down oil drum, many of us thinking that we could not really be standing here on strike!

Day one rolled into day two of the firemen’s strike. Forty years ago the walls did not come tumbling down! It wasn’t all over in the first 24 hours. The London night sky wasn’t illuminated by countless fires burning out of control; nor was the air full of acrid smoke filling London’s streets. The pay claim had already turned into a poker game, at the very least we had expected talks. None came.
However, there was never any ill feeling towards the troops from striking firemen; in fact there was considerable sympathy and understanding for the unenviable task that had been foisted upon them by the Labour Government. I was the FBU’s Divisional Officers’ rep. I travelled around the ‘B’ Division stations speaking with the other union officers on the picket lines. In Bermondsey a Green Goddesses was spotted going to a ‘shout’, Peter Jansen (the Divisional FBU secretary) and I gave chase to see how our “understudies” were performing.

We followed the engine to a small car fire in Rotherhithe. Well it was small when it started. With such a small car fire firemen armed with a fire extinguisher, and quickly applied, would normally have dealt with it. But not here and not today. The car burnt out before our, and the troops’, eyes. First they could not get the fire engine’s pump to work as the small fire in the engine spread to the car’s interior. Next, as thick black smoke rose high into the air, the intense heat caused the car tyres to burst with an explosive BANG, something which sent the troops scurrying for safety behind their fire engine. When they did finally did get the pump engaged and got a jet of water to work the pressure was so great that the two squaddies could not control it and drenched the crowd of onlookers who had gathered to watch the performance. I did think, ruefully, that I would probably shoot myself in the foot if I had to assemble, load and fire a rifle given the same amount of training these young lads had, and they were all very young!

Christmas in 1977 should have been my first Christmas leave ever! But democracy ruled the picket line at West Norwood. There had been a crew on that picket line for every day of the strike. However, it had been decided that the fairest way to see who picketed over Christmas was to draw lots. Needless to say I drew the short straw, and along with four others, we spent Christmas Eve night on the 10pm - 6am shift in the makeshift hut. Neither were we alone as many of the local community continued to visit well into the early hours of Christmas morning dropping off bottles of drink and Christmas nibbles.

I, like so many others on strike, had been concerned that that Christmas would be a difficult and stressful family time. We had no money coming in since the day the strike had started. There was no strike pay from the FBU. What little savings we had was paying off our mortgage interest. Already my wider family, friends and neighbours had been exceptionally kind and generous ensuring that we did not go hungry. Now they gave us a Christmas to remember as they provided for our every need, including presents for the children and a completely decorated tree and a Christmas dinner. Such acts of kindness and generosity were repeated across thousands of firemen’s homes that Christmas as communities showed, in very real terms their support for us and the high regard which they held for their firemen.

With a final settlement agreed the strike was over in late January 1978. We at West Norwood’s returned to our normal duties. We had stayed solid on the picket line throughout the dispute whilst some other stations stood empty and with only the occasional token presence on their forecourt. At B31 we had none of the recriminations, and bitter feelings of resentment, experienced at other fire stations between FBU strikers and non-strikers. We had managed to stay unified throughout and now it was time just to get back to work, so we did.

For me the strike remains a badge of pride. Unified together and with a result that lasted for the rest of my career plus, of course, a fireman’s pension that I am forever grateful for.