Call the Fire Brigade!

Fighting London's Fires in the '70s

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Technology, Fire Science, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Call the Fire Brigade! by Allan Grice, Mainstream Publishing
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Allan Grice ISBN: 9781780574332
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing Publication: August 30, 2012
Imprint: Mainstream Digital Language: English
Author: Allan Grice
ISBN: 9781780574332
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Publication: August 30, 2012
Imprint: Mainstream Digital
Language: English

Working as a fireman in London’s East End during the early 1970s was no easy ride. In the years before workplace health-and-safety legislation had started to exert its grip, Allan Grice had to cut his fire-and-rescue teeth without the advantages of a breathing apparatus for each member of his crew. Back then, the time-tested strategy was to ‘get in’ – to crawl below the intense heat and ‘eat’ the thick smoke – in order to locate a missing child or to halt a rapidly spreading inferno.

In Call the Fire Brigade!, Grice recounts his most memorable experiences as a front-line member of the London Fire Brigade working the city’s East End, with its myriad commercial premises, brooding Thames-side warehouses, seedy tenements and colourful cosmopolitan community, ranging from prosperous manufacturers to down-and-out winos with their body-warming bonfires in derelict houses.

Fires in factories, tenements and warehouses, and non-fire emergencies such as the Moorgate Tube disaster of 1975, are graphically described, while the elation of rescue, the sadness of being too late to save lives and the warm camaraderie of fire crews during some of the capital’s busiest peacetime years are vividly depicted.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Working as a fireman in London’s East End during the early 1970s was no easy ride. In the years before workplace health-and-safety legislation had started to exert its grip, Allan Grice had to cut his fire-and-rescue teeth without the advantages of a breathing apparatus for each member of his crew. Back then, the time-tested strategy was to ‘get in’ – to crawl below the intense heat and ‘eat’ the thick smoke – in order to locate a missing child or to halt a rapidly spreading inferno.

In Call the Fire Brigade!, Grice recounts his most memorable experiences as a front-line member of the London Fire Brigade working the city’s East End, with its myriad commercial premises, brooding Thames-side warehouses, seedy tenements and colourful cosmopolitan community, ranging from prosperous manufacturers to down-and-out winos with their body-warming bonfires in derelict houses.

Fires in factories, tenements and warehouses, and non-fire emergencies such as the Moorgate Tube disaster of 1975, are graphically described, while the elation of rescue, the sadness of being too late to save lives and the warm camaraderie of fire crews during some of the capital’s busiest peacetime years are vividly depicted.

More books from Mainstream Publishing

Cover of the book Home From War by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Nature's Gift of Food by Allan Grice
Cover of the book The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Allan Grice
Cover of the book The Happy Dust Gang by Allan Grice
Cover of the book The Miracle of Life by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Tommy Doc by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Leeds United by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Seventy-One Guns by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Sugar Daddy Diaries by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Devil Incarnate by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Silence Of The Heart by Allan Grice
Cover of the book A Load of Balls by Allan Grice
Cover of the book The Sack Race by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Amongst the Marines by Allan Grice
Cover of the book Great Glasgow Stories by Allan Grice
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy