Meeting Report 16th October 2024 – Paul Young -Reflections on a Fire Service Career

Tony Taft, our Reviewer and Photographer writes
Today we had an attendance of 19 with 3 apologies, we had no new members or guests. 

Our speaker today was Paul Young who is a very valued member of our club, the title of Paul’s presentation was “ Reflections on a fire service career. 

Paul started young as a firefighter and over the years he worked his way up through the ranks and achieved the rank of Chief fire officer, Paul listed the various fire stations that he has been associated with and was the Chief in Paignton fire station. 

We were treated to an excellent visual presentation, some photos especially one of Paul as a young man posing with his mates, Paul commented that fire fighters love to pose for photos. 

Paul has a great sense of humour and this became apparent when in among his slides a comic picture would come on the screen of a husband and wife with captions of them talking to each other, and they were hilarious. 

Paul started his talk by showing us an old map of London, I think he said it was the east end, he lived not far from the River Thames in a block of houses that later were regarded as slums and had to be demolished only to be replaced by a block of high rise flats, Paul made the comparison of going from horizontal slums to vertical slums. 

Paul informed us that the first municipal fire brigade was in Edinburgh Scotland and that prior to WW2 there were one thousand three hundred fire brigades in the country. 

We were shown a piece of equipment called a fifty foot ladder ( see photo ) and this piece of equipment was used up until quite recent times, but it’s demise was the large wheels that needed occasional maintenance. Because there was a shortage of skilled wheelwrights to do this essential work the fifty foot ladder was retired from service. 

Fire fighters would have to be able to carry a person down this ladder in a rescue situation ( see photo ) and one time Paul was to be the casualty, he was attached by a rope that would break his fall should he fall off, and fall off he did, the rope broke his fall it gave him quite a scare but he landed on his feet.

Thinking that the officer in charge would say “well done lad” he was greeted by, “stop fxxxing about and get up there and do it again.” 

We were shown photos of the old type of breathing equipment …………………..

……………… and the new equipment they use now.
In the new equipment the tanks do not contain oxygen they contain compressed air instead. 

We all thank Paul for his service, and found his talk fascinating to listen to, and considering he put the presentation together in only a few days he did a brilliant job. 

At the end of Paul’s talk there were the usual questions which always gives an idea of just how well received the presentation was with the members, and I can say we all enjoyed his talk about his life as a firefighter.