Customer Reviews

47 reviews

• Dean Van-Stratten

  A walk though history and magic on a plate, a book that will be read for a few hundred years and used as an historical reference beyond that. Like all books we need to understand what draws people to read it, yes it's quite focused on the London Fire Brigade, yes it's about a personal experience, and yes it covers many years of dedication. But it is more than that, it looks at the life and the death of people in service, it looks at the humour in what can sometimes be a very dark corner for some, it explores the comradeship of a service that sometimes can be ultimate and it does it without favour....just truth.....I know cos I been there with them.
  This is not a book to be read just by fire fighters, or just anyone serving in an occupation that is highly hazardous or life threatening, it is a journey of extraordinary personal experience with a quantum of learning, then experience, then finally teaching those that followed, how to survive together. A life's worth of knowledge and friendship that all people gather and give throughout their lives and gives the author a truly humanitarian and admirable quality. Read it if you dare, live the same principles if you can, relax in the satisfaction of a career well served. Well done David Pike...great memory never knew you had it in you...many heroes in it ......you too are one!
  

• Paul Jones

  I can't compete with the other reviews. I just thought this book an excellent read that I enjoyed from the very beginning to the end. I even like all the appendices, especially the Roll of Honour, which was very moving. Buy this book, its worth the money.
  

• Curtis Taylor

  I enjoy fire brigade stories and I place this book alongside Ray Chilton's 'Underfire' and Gordon Honeycomb's 'Red Watch'. There are no sides to the author's honest account of his varied operational career in the London Fire Brigade.He has skillfully written about what he saw and what he experienced in a way that makes you feel you are there with the firemen. He brings to life the experience of fighting fires or dealing with the other dire emergencies but without exploiting the distress of those in peril or in fear of their lives.
  A strong point of this particular book is the way the descriptive and compelling narrative brings to life every aspect of the fireman's lot.The ordinary and the extraordinary is written with an energy and a clear passion for his 'job'. As the author's career develops so does our understanding of a side of the London Fire Brigade that is not normally in the public's gaze. He provides an insightful and absorbing peek behind the scenes and of its people. A strongly recommended read.
  

• Robin Griffiths

  A welcome read from this genre of work. It is a fireman's story but so much more than just fires and other emergencies that the author attended in a long, and distinguished, career. If your expecting an 'all action hero' account this read is probably not for you. If however, you want a captivating true life recollection of the last forty years of the twentieth century in the London Fire Brigade, with its action and high drama certainly, but also the sad events and humour that carries you through the highs and lows of London's true emergency service, this is the book for you.
  It is all too easy to forget the culture of the non-PC and pre-Equal Opportunities regime of the 1960s and 1970s, but the author skillfully reminds us of those times with the humour that appears to be a prerequisite for becoming a fireman. Other reviewers have paid credit to the author, David Pike, for his honest, amusing and insightful recollections. I can only endorse those views and comments. This is a delightful book, with a wonderful mix and eye-witness accounts and anecdotes from a incredible cast of characters, real heroes who are just doing the job they are paid to do, being London Firemen. A well written book in most pleasing style that draws the non-fire brigade aficionados right in. Well done, cracking read.
  

• Lauren Angel

  A book I really got into from page one and it grew and grew. It was difficult to put down especially as one minute you could be chuckling away to yourself and the next sitting on the edge of your seat with anticipation. Then there were the deaths of the many firemen, people we all too often took for granted. I know I did but after reading this book I will look upon them with a new found respect and admiration. A very good read, that pulls no punches. The pictures added names to some of the faces and was most welcome. Overall excellent.
  

• Terry Challinor

  Simply a most enjoyable read. I have nothing to do with the fire brigade but I like biographies and saw this advertised on your site. However, I purchased it via Waterstones (as I didn't have to pay the postage). A first class piece of story telling about the authors varied and interesting time in the London Fire Brigade,between 20 and 50 years ago, and full credit to him for he wrote for the ordinary person in the street. Well done him. Loved it.
  

• Roz Turner

  A worthy contender for the shortlist of the People's Book prize. A thoroughly enjoyable and engaging read. In parts gripping, in parts sad and throughout a remarkable insight into an era of the London Fire Brigade now consigned to the history books, but which the author guides you through with humour and candor. Buy it and see for yourself.
  

• Stephen Endle

  A story of the authors career in the London Fire Brigade, which you feel he is telling you over a quiet drink rather than you reading it from the page of his book. His easy conversational style brings to life the people and the events which built into such and interesting, fascinating and at times sad 30 years of serving London's public. He intersperses the action on the front line with glimpses at other side of fire brigade life, raising money for charity, the brigade's history and significant milestones in the London Fire Brigade's development. This is no technical manual of fire brigade working, but rather a wonderful, personal account taking you from the 1960s to the late 1990s in a changing emergency service in the UK's capital city. Strongly recommended..
  

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