Right…It's Friday and I'm getting far too technical for my own good!
In a vain effort to acquaint myself with the intricacies of Social Networking, I have signed up with Twitter. Hopefully I've linked this blog with my Twitter account and, for anybody I know on FacePaint or whatever it is, that one too.
If I Tweet it should appear on here, and if I blog it might just appear on Twitter!
So, why not follow me on Twitter. With any luck there'll be information on shouts and much more.
Keith Boyce was a nice bloke.
I first met Boycie on my retained recruits course back in 2002. His laid back, humourous and calm ways helped many a nervous recruit master the intricacies and vagaries of the Lightweight Portable Pump…
Keith retired barely three years ago and, not long into his well deserved retirement, he suffered a massive stroke. This was felt so keenly by all those who knew him and remembered him so fondly, especially his 'old Indian tricks'.
I last saw Keith when he dropped in on our Christmas lunch at the Fire Station. Although obviously frail, you could see a sparkle in his eyes as he mixed with colleagues and friends.
And today Boycie was buried. He passed away last week…
St.Michael's church in Oulton saw members of Keith's family come together with friends and members of his 'other' family to celebrate his life.
Pall-bearers, drawn from Fire Service volunteers, said their farewells along with so many former colleagues and officers from across the county.
The cortege then moved off, led by one of our pumps, heading in to Lowestoft for the burial service.
All the vehicles at Normanshurst had been pulled out in front of the station and our flag was flying at half mast.
As the cortege drew closer the single rank of over 30 firefighters and officers came to attention. I hope that Keiths family, on seeing so many honouring him, could begin to understand how highly he was regarded in Suffolk Fire and Rescue.
The command was given to stand at ease. And, on cue and in some a way fitting send off, the bells went, our alerters sounded.
Farewell Boycie…
Or should it be Flaminator?
Head over to the BBC website and watch how a 'crew' of robo-firefighters deal with a cylinder in a van.
It's all aimed at keeping firefighters safer and being able to more rapidly reduce the 200m exclusion zone.
However, when you get to 1:30 in the clip you may wish to keep that exclusion zone intact. Shame the video wasn't of a cylinder that had been involved in a fire because at 1 minute and 30 seconds I would be diving for cover!
Enjoy…
It's a sad day as we mourn the death of a fellow firefighter.
Ewan Williamson was tackling a fire at the Balmoral Bar in Edinburgh as part of a BA team working on the ground floor. Reports, so far, say that the floor gave way and the two firefighters fell into the basement, where the fire is believed to have started. Ewan died of his injuries and his colleague was taken to hospital for treatment.
I am sure the thoughts and prayers of firefighters all over the UK and beyond are with the family and friends of Ewan and with his colleagues who will be feeling his loss so keenly.
And if there is anything positive to come out of this tragedy, it is that 20 people were rescued from the fire including a baby.
The chance to save life is what drives a firefighter to enter a burning building while others run away.
Ewan and the other firefighters did just that last night and 20 people owe their lives to that fact…
Take a look at some new pics I've added to www.alerter.co.uk.
They're in the Image Gallery and provide a brief 'behind the scenes' look inside Normanshurst Fire Stationin Lowestoft.
Coming soon… more pics, this time from up in the drill tower with 'stunning' views over the whole of Lowestoft.
It's now been a week since my last post and that's down to one simple reason… we haven't had any shouts.
This year we've been getting around 18 shouts a month except for June, flamin' June. We're literally half way through the month and we've had just two shouts!
Everything has just come to a resounding halt. This always makes it worse when your alerter does go off next. You start to forget that little appendage, clipped to your belt, and are lulled into a false sense of relaxation.
Of course, I'll talk it up now. Just as I nod off on the settee, all hell will break loose and I'll be careering around, Zombie-like, as I head for the exit…
Flamin' June, my arse…
If you're still here and still awake, head over to the new image gallery at Alerter.co.ukfor some pics of the pumps at Normanshurst.
Head over to www.alerter.co.ukand take a look at the new image gallery.
I've taken it upon myself to put together a photograhic record of Normanshurst as it is today – still going strong but with the end of its 35 year service in sight.
First up in the gallery is a set of images of all Normanshurst's appliances and Specials – most of them taken on a gloriously sunny day in May.
I'll start adding more images soon and will hopefully end up with a reasonably good look at Normanshurst – inside and out.
If anyone has got images of the station from when it was built, right up to date, I'd be grateful for a copy to add to the collection. If you can, send them by e-mail to ian [at] alerter [dot] co [dot] uk. All donations gratefully received!
Is it really three years since my last medical for the Fire Service?
Well, here it was again… I'd dried myself out, weaning myself off the daily diet of 10 pints of Guinness and two Babycham chasers. I'd even gone a couple of weeks without a Tesco's blow-out fried breakfast. I was determined to be at my peak for the medical!
Mel was ahead of me and was already making the ladies from Occupational Health wish they'd stayed in Ipswich. In fact the team had to confer over the strange sightings witnessed when peering into Mel's left ear. It seems that all they could see was a big red fire engine. Fire Service to the core is our Mel. Sad to say this isn't the case. They were actually looking straight through and out of his right ear and could see Ladder 1 in the drill yard beyond!
Being as blind as a bat I had to do the eye test with and without my specs. This was all taking a long time and the nurse was definitely getting confused. She couldn't work out how my eyesight was deteriorating right before her eyes. Luckily she realised that a bit of finger trouble on her part meant that I was viewing the slides out of sequence. Once that was sorted I was able to read the name of the makers on the bottom of the slide.
After a few big puffs into the Vitalograph blowing thing it was off to provide a urine sample. Thank God for that. I'd been hanging on to this bladder full for the last hour and was relieved to hear that I could get some relief… A tad concerning when the nurse came into the Officers toilet with me but by now I was ready to go. Seemed she wasn't planning on staying just pointing out the little cup that was standing on top of the toilet cistern.
"I'd like you to give me a sample of your urine in that small pot. When you've finished just leave it where it is". And with that she turned and left.
Bugger me, I thought. I know I'm desperate to go but there's no way I'm gonna be able to fill that pot from here.
Well, I tried my best. A quick apology to any Officers that may use that toilet in the next day or so. I'm sure the toilet seat, cistern, walls and floor will dry out soon…
So now my pee gets checked… Are they looking for traces of performance enhancing drugs (on my performance you'd have to look very hard) or are they checking to see if I'm pregnant? No, it seems that all they do is hold my sample up to a Dulux paint colour chart and note down the nearest colour. Mine matched most closely with Hint of Straw – would look nice in our hallway…
That's stage one complete. Now off to the Officers' Dorm for the auditory test and the step test.
I slip on the 70's style headphones and am given a button to press each time I hear a sound. Left ear first and all's going well until someone fires up Ladder 1 outside the window, in the drill yard. Now I've got a low rumble in my ears as I try to pick up sounds that only a pack of dogs could hope to ear. After what seemed an eternity the test was complete and a remark was added to the test form – 'Loud fire engine in drill yard!'
And now to the Grand Finale – the Chester Step Test. Step up, step down in time to the beeps on the tape. The speed of the beeps increases every two minutes and at the same time my heart rate is checked and I have to give an assessment of how diffcult I'm finding the task – Very, very easy to F**k me, I'm shagged out!
Time to stop and have a graph drawn of my efforts. Good and only one point from being Excellent. Not bad for a 40 something…
Seems only right and proper that I should celebrate tomorrow with a Tesco breakfast and a bag of five custard doughnuts!
Bugger all to do with firefighting this post but made everyone smile except me…
Left work at lunchtime to toodle off down to the opticians. No sooner had I hit the mean streets of Lowestoft and a seagull, with laser guided precison, crapped on me from a long, shallow dive.
One hit to the collar of my shirt, another on the shoulder, two hits to my left leg, a shoe and a nice little dollop on my mobile.
So straight back into the office to get cleaned up before having a close encounter with the comely optician. I don't expect the aroma of bird shit up her left nostril would have been too pleasant…
And so, with nice dark damp patches on the front of my trousers, I hurried off to the opticians.
Already the month of May is proving to be a hectic one for Suffolk's firefighters.
The unseasonably dry weather – we didn't even get April showers – has seen an unusually high number of grass / undergrowth fires in these last few days.
Over the weekend the Unimog from Lowestoft has been to two major grassland / heathland fires. The largest of the two was at Thorpeness Golf Club which escalated to Make Pumps 10 as the fire spread across approximately 100 acres of the golf course. The incident was eating up Suffolk's resources as crews were being relieved by pumps from all over the county.
The Unimog was used through at least three changes of crew which also meant that retained firefighters from Normanshurst were either standing by as a crew or making up numbers with the wholetime Watch.
In the last week we've had 10 shouts – almost unheard of these days. And the same can be said of other stations within Suffolk, some getting a month worth of shouts in just a few days.
And, with a fair few of these shouts coming in the middle of the night, most of us are hoping for a few quiet nights to catch up on our beauty sleep – and looking at our lot, they need quite a few quiet nights to catch up on their beauty sleep!