Jack Wolf

You will be brothers, you will see death and destruction, you will be expected to run into fire when every other living thing runs away, you will work long shifts, days, nights, Saturdays, Sundays, high days and holidays, Christmas days and your birthdays. You will be injured and burned, and don’t kid yourself it won’t happen to you, it will. And consider this: On average two firemen are killed each year in service. You are expected to do this job for thirty years. Nobody wants to pay you decent wages, they will tell you that you sit around all day, play snooker and squirt water for a living. You will be like Cinderella… you will live, eat and sleep behind the red engine house doors and when called to serve, when the fire bell rings you will answer their call, their fear and their alarm. You will risk your life for a stranger, someone you never knew or will ever know and when the alarm has passed, when you are exhausted and done, you will return to the fire station, close those red engine house doors behind you and lick your wounds.

We are their insurance; they never want us, until they want us, then briefly, briefly, we are heroes.

George Farenden followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the fire brigade in Birmingham at the age of twenty, rising to the rank of station officer at Birmingham’s Central Fire Station. After serving his thirty years, he retired but was never far from fire brigades, or firefighting, as his life took another path. He started a new career working for DuPont de Nemours, Inc. as an emergency response consultant. After fourteen years with DuPont he finally retired to Somerset, where he now lives with his wife, Jane, and their dog, Coco.