I have always treated the Public, those who paid my wages, with courtesy and dignity regardless of race, colour, or creed.
Indeed, I have always identified the person I have served as an honourable pensioner who has always paid their way and met their bills, including mine, by counting the pennies, taking the cheap cuts of meat, and generally living frugally because their natural decency has demanded it.
They also had the right and expectation that when an emergency arose in their lives that those whose wages they have ‘done without’ to pay would arrive speedily to their aid prepared to pay the ultimate price in rendering any succour they may require.
It is a reasonable expectation….
Because of the vocation which I chose, which is to serve others, regularly when the occasions demanded, I have treated all members of Public with sensitivity and compassion because of the circumstances, often beyond their control, which Fate has decreed will be their destiny.
I have never expected gratitude nor medals because this is the life I decided to dedicate myself to, with occasional good humour and mostly pragmatism.
Medals are divisive and it has been suggested, in typical Fire Service humour, are like haemorrhoids every so often every bum gets one…
When the time comes naturally to retire or through injury received in the service of others we all accepted our fate with a mixture of relief and sanguinity.
As the French might say… C’est la Vie; C’est la Amour; C’est la Mort…
By now we believed we had earned the special right to be treated with dignity, respect, and pastoral care, especially by those junior in service who are generationally destined to carry forward their Torch of Service to their Fellow Man.
It is a reasonable expectation and product of Duty and Self Discipline, but it seems in this present age, that all which we held dear is now to be trampled on and denigrated in the stampede of personal greed and ambition.
But this does not mean that individual self-respect has grown old or that it is acceptable for some Johnny-come-lately, who reeks of self-service with the perpetual whiff of corruption is allowed to trample on our collective dignity.
The steely will and courage of this glorious band of brothers and sisters, these Firefighters, who carried others to safety while all about them ran for their own lives, ensures that we will not allow these knaves to treat us so…
A Curriculum Vitae of the Working Life of a Firefighter
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For my Personal CV Read Here using the Flip Page Technology:
For my Fire Service Beginning (NIFA & Belfast Fire Brigade); the Middle; and the End; Read Here.
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