1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,400
This episode is brought to you by Thorne, the industry leader in nutritional solutions.

2
00:00:04,720 --> 00:00:07,560
Now Thorne is actually trusted by eight U.S.

3
00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:12,440
national teams and championship teams in the NFL, NBA and Major League,

4
00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:17,920
as well as recently becoming the official sports performance nutrition partner of the UFC.

5
00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:20,960
So when it comes to supplements,

6
00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:25,320
the tactical athlete space and the athletic space need two things.

7
00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,760
We need efficacy, meaning the products do what they say they're going to do on the label

8
00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:32,600
and then we need to trust the fact that we are not going to fail

9
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:36,320
either athletic drug tests or work related drug tests.

10
00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:38,960
Now Thorne has actually been around since the 1980s

11
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:44,040
where they were used by physicians and hospitals for nutritional supplements for the patients.

12
00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,960
They were so successful that athletic teams and even special operations teams

13
00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:51,800
reached out to them and they started supplying them as well.

14
00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,720
Very recently, they actually opened their doors to the general public.

15
00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:59,040
Now, what sets Thorne apart is they manufacture their own products

16
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:03,200
in a state of the art NSF certified facility in South Carolina.

17
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,480
They use only the purest possible ingredients formulated with no stearates

18
00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,400
or arbitrary fillers in the cleanest manufacturing process.

19
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,000
Most of you listening come from a profession where it can take its toll physically and mentally,

20
00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:21,120
and many of us are not able to bolster our nutrition purely with the food that we eat.

21
00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:24,080
And that's where supplementation comes in.

22
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:26,600
So if you're ready to maximize your health and performance,

23
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:30,440
visit Thorne.com, T-H-O-R-N-E.com.

24
00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:35,160
Take a short product quiz to be paired up with the perfect health and fitness supplements.

25
00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,160
And for you, the audience, if you use the code

26
00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:45,400
BTS10, Behind the Shield 10, BTS10, you will get 10% off your first order.

27
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,120
And if you want to learn even more about Thorne, go to episode

28
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:53,000
323 of Behind the Shield podcast and you will hear my interview

29
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,520
with Wes Barnett and Joel Totoro from Thorne.

30
00:01:57,520 --> 00:02:00,960
This episode is brought to you by 511 Tactical, a company that I've used

31
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:04,640
for over a decade since they supplied the uniforms for Anaheim Fire

32
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:06,440
when I worked out in California.

33
00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,840
And they have partnered with the Behind the Shield podcast to offer you,

34
00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:13,320
the listener, 15% off, not just a single purchase,

35
00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:17,600
but an ongoing discount every time you shop at 511tactical.com.

36
00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:19,720
And I will give you the discount code in a moment.

37
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:23,360
I just want to go on a kind of product focus for a second.

38
00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,760
In episode 125 of Behind the Shield podcast, I spoke to podiatrist Dr.

39
00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:31,480
Mike Donato and we discussed a concern that I've had,

40
00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,360
which is the footwear for first responders.

41
00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:36,920
If you're a firefighter, obviously, if we're doing an extrication,

42
00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:40,360
if we're fighting fire, our bunker boots are definitely the best things.

43
00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:42,160
They offer a high level of protection.

44
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:46,200
But the day to day calls, the EMS calls, all those kind of areas,

45
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:49,600
they are absolutely overkill some of the boots that we are being given.

46
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,440
And I wanted to find a kind of happy medium between protection and comfort,

47
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:57,960
as a lot of these heavy, heavy boots are causing overuse injuries,

48
00:02:57,960 --> 00:02:59,720
knee pain, ankle pain, back pain.

49
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,880
And 511tactical has come up with a shoe called the Norris Sneaker.

50
00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,120
Now, this has the feel literally of a skate shoe.

51
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:08,520
It's incredibly comfortable.

52
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:10,400
It has puncture protection on the bottom.

53
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,880
It has the toe protection on the front,

54
00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,320
but they've taken a lot of the weight away and made it far more comfortable.

55
00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,600
I think many of us will admit that as an alternative to duty boots,

56
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,320
we turn to sneakers, which are also very comfortable,

57
00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:24,720
really don't offer any protection.

58
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:27,600
So this is a great happy medium between the two.

59
00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:30,200
If you want to see this, as I said, it's called the Norris,

60
00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,960
N-O-R-R-I-S, sneaker, go to 511tactical.

61
00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:37,560
And that discount code that I was talking about is SHIELD15,

62
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:40,320
S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5.

63
00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:42,720
That will be applicable for all of your purchases.

64
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,440
The only time that's not going to work is when they have an additional sale

65
00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:48,120
that's actually going to be higher.

66
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:50,760
So if they're offering a 20% or 25% off,

67
00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:54,000
obviously that 15 is going to be invalid because you're going to get even more off.

68
00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:57,920
So for the Norris sneaker and all the other things that I'm going to showcase

69
00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:01,320
that I personally use, I'm not going to start talking about things that I don't use,

70
00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:03,440
but the products of theirs that I think they're amazing,

71
00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:07,520
go to 511tactical, put in SHIELD15

72
00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,520
and save 15% every single time.

73
00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:14,720
Welcome to episode 334 of Behind the Shield podcast.

74
00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:16,120
As always, my name is James Gearing,

75
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:20,280
and this week I'm extremely excited to welcome on the show Ricky Nuttall.

76
00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:22,920
Now, Ricky is a member of London Fire Brigade.

77
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:25,400
He has an incredibly powerful story.

78
00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:27,640
His journey into the fire service,

79
00:04:27,640 --> 00:04:31,720
the mental and physical preparation required to be a great firefighter.

80
00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:35,880
The calls that he's seen, including one of the most powerful

81
00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:39,840
and heartbreaking ones, which was the Grenfell Tower fire

82
00:04:39,840 --> 00:04:42,600
that claimed 72 lives in the city of London.

83
00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:46,000
So we talk about factors like budget cuts

84
00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,960
and how that has a ripple effect in our ability to save.

85
00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:51,960
We talk about building construction, which obviously was a huge factor

86
00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:56,400
in so many fatalities in that fire and in many, many other elements.

87
00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:59,040
And then we also talk about the physical and emotional toll

88
00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:02,400
of serving in a first responder profession and the after effects

89
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,160
specifically for Ricky of that particular fire.

90
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:06,960
So we're going to talk about addiction.

91
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:08,200
We're going to talk about alcoholism.

92
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:11,240
We're going to talk about post-traumatic growth and so many other areas.

93
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,680
I urge you to listen to this entire conversation.

94
00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:17,400
Before we get to that interview, as I always say, please just take a moment.

95
00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,760
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,

96
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:22,600
leave feedback and leave a rating.

97
00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:25,160
The five star ratings truly do make us more visible

98
00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:27,240
for people looking for a podcast like this.

99
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,480
And as I say, this is a free library for you, the audience,

100
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:33,000
whether it's individually, whether it's an entire department,

101
00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:34,400
this is yours to use.

102
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,960
So all I ask in return is that you share these incredibly powerful stories

103
00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:40,560
from these men and women that have come on and donated their time

104
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:44,680
to reach out to you, the audience, so we can get them to every single person

105
00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:46,240
on planet Earth that needs to hear it.

106
00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:50,640
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Ricky Nuttall.

107
00:05:50,640 --> 00:06:08,640
Enjoy.

108
00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:14,040
So, Ricky, I want to start by saying thank you so much for initially answering

109
00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:17,760
my random Instagram message, but then for taking the time

110
00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:20,760
to come on the podcast today.

111
00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:21,880
Yeah, you're welcome.

112
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:24,240
It's going to be a good thing to be involved in, I think.

113
00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:24,640
Yeah.

114
00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:27,160
It's an important subject and yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

115
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,080
Absolutely. I mean, your whole career is what I want to talk about,

116
00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:36,320
but obviously, Grenfell is one area that I think just needs more exposure

117
00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:39,120
from the human level as opposed to the political level.

118
00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:41,760
So I'm looking forward to kind of hearing your perspective

119
00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:45,040
of being one of the heroic rescuers in that.

120
00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:48,160
So where are we finding you on planet Earth today?

121
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,000
I am in London in sunny Croydon.

122
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,840
And if anyone over in the States knows Croydon, they'll know that it's

123
00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:55,920
neither sunny nor nice.

124
00:06:58,000 --> 00:06:58,400
All right.

125
00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:01,480
Well, I won't show you the weather outside my window right now

126
00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:02,920
because it'd probably make you a little bit jealous.

127
00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:07,560
So we'll start at the very beginning things.

128
00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:10,760
I like to lead people all the way through the chronological journey.

129
00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:11,840
So where were you born?

130
00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:14,240
And then tell me about your family dynamic, what your parents did

131
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:15,240
and how many siblings.

132
00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:20,720
So I was born in Northern Ireland in Balamina.

133
00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:22,200
My dad was in the army.

134
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:25,280
He was in the RIEMI, Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers.

135
00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,080
So my older brother Jamie was born in West Germany.

136
00:07:28,080 --> 00:07:30,080
I was born in Northern Ireland.

137
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:34,800
We didn't stay in any place, any great length of time, a year here, a year there.

138
00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:39,720
Then we moved to Cyprus for a couple of years where my younger brother was made

139
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:45,200
and then imported into the UK and was born over here.

140
00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:48,760
And from that time on, we lived, we stayed over here.

141
00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,320
My parents got divorced when I was about three.

142
00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:54,480
Well, they separated when I was about three.

143
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:58,480
They were sort of on and off for about a year and then both met new partners.

144
00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:06,440
And then, yeah, so we lived with my mum and my, who became my stepdad.

145
00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:11,720
They had two children together and my dad and his new partner, who also got married,

146
00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:13,000
had a child together.

147
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:17,720
So it's a complicated family dynamic, but basically there's Jamie, me and Daniel,

148
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:19,000
same mum and same dad.

149
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:21,960
Then there's David and Jason, mum and stepdad.

150
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:24,520
And then there's Billy, dad and step mum.

151
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:29,640
However, both my dad and my mum, since divorced those partners as well,

152
00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:35,080
my dad is now on his third wife, no more children, and my mum is single for any

153
00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:36,600
guys out there.

154
00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,400
This is the eHarmony podcast.

155
00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:45,240
All right, well, going back to that just for a second, talking about trauma,

156
00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:50,280
did your dad ever talk about what it was like being a soldier in Northern Ireland?

157
00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:52,680
Because I know the 70s and 80s were pretty turbulent back then.

158
00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:54,600
They were, yeah.

159
00:08:54,600 --> 00:09:01,880
So he was there from 80 to, from 1980 until 1982, I think, give or take.

160
00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:06,920
So it wasn't there for a huge amount of time, but yeah, it was very, it was, it was

161
00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:09,160
red alert constantly over there at the time.

162
00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:10,680
It was still very volatile.

163
00:09:10,680 --> 00:09:16,840
He had to be very careful, obviously, being British military in quite a rough part of

164
00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:18,040
Northern Ireland.

165
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:25,240
So, you know, he spoke to us a bit because I suppose because of our age, our ages, when

166
00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:31,320
we would discuss that sort of stuff, we were a bit too young for anything to, to be

167
00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:32,600
too harrowing.

168
00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:35,480
But he described several things.

169
00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:40,440
I remember one story he told us, he had to go out to fix a jeep, an armored jeep that

170
00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:42,040
had broken down by an estate.

171
00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:49,000
And so they've had to go get out of their armored vehicle and go sort of under

172
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:55,240
protection to the jeep and then lay under the jeep whilst receiving intel that, you

173
00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:59,000
know, there were militants in the area that were, that were aware they were there and

174
00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:03,480
they managed to sort of just about get the jeep fixed in time and be reversing out of

175
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:09,560
out of the, or away from this estate as a whole horde of armed people sort of descended

176
00:10:09,560 --> 00:10:09,800
on them.

177
00:10:09,800 --> 00:10:17,560
And, you know, that story really stuck with me as a child because it made me realize as

178
00:10:17,560 --> 00:10:21,880
a kid, you know, you always want to do, or not always, but you, you quite often look

179
00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,600
to jobs like being in the army is a cool job or being a, you know, playing army games

180
00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:27,240
and shooting.

181
00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:31,240
And, and it's only when someone tells you a story like that, and my dad's a very good

182
00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:37,880
storyteller and he, I could feel the, the emotion.

183
00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:41,800
I could feel the fear when he was retelling the story, you know, you could still see it

184
00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:42,280
was there.

185
00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:48,360
And it's the first time I realized that, you know, being in the army isn't this sort of

186
00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:54,120
cool, fun travel the world, you know, gain new skills as the adverts lead you to believe.

187
00:10:54,120 --> 00:10:57,320
Sometimes it is also, you might get shot for 12 grand.

188
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:02,840
So yeah, I remember my dad telling me a few stories as a kid.

189
00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:09,640
And yeah, that was, as I said, that was the first time really that I appreciated the

190
00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:14,600
danger and, and potential trauma in any, any kind of job where you're putting yourself

191
00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:15,640
on the, on the front line.

192
00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:16,360
Yeah.

193
00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:20,680
Well, I mean, I, I'm 46 now, so I grew up with the Falklands war when I was a young

194
00:11:20,680 --> 00:11:24,760
boy, you know, and, and then I lived next to an M.O.D. base.

195
00:11:24,760 --> 00:11:28,840
So we would sweep the cars looking for bombs before we went to school, you know?

196
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:34,680
So even though I wasn't any way, shape or form near the, you know, the very dangerous

197
00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:39,320
parts of, especially Northern Ireland, that, you know, when we, when we were growing up,

198
00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:43,240
that radiated all the way out to the mainland, you know, there were Manchester bombings

199
00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:46,760
and London bombings and all these things where women and children were, were killed.

200
00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:52,680
So, you know, and it's so sad when you look at it, that all that violence comes from,

201
00:11:52,680 --> 00:11:57,080
you know, either a, you know, a fight for independence for Ireland, which there's,

202
00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:00,200
you know, completely sensible arguments for that.

203
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:07,400
And then also two seemingly almost identical religions murdering each other over the minutia

204
00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:08,600
of, of their beliefs.

205
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:13,160
And, and then for that poor country to live, you know, decades and decades and decades

206
00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:16,840
under terrorism and, and war and murder is just heartbreaking.

207
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:18,600
It is.

208
00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:18,840
Yeah.

209
00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:23,640
And this is why I have, I have an issue with religion.

210
00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:29,320
I don't have an issue with other people following religion or believing in things.

211
00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:33,240
I have an issue myself with religion because I was brought up Church of England.

212
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:39,560
And it was only, no one explains to you when you were a kid what Church of England means.

213
00:12:39,560 --> 00:12:41,560
They just say, oh, you're Christian, you're Church of England.

214
00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:45,640
And you go, okay, and you wear your Church of England primary school jumper and off you go

215
00:12:45,640 --> 00:12:48,600
and you go to, you know, church on a Sunday.

216
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:52,600
And it's only when you actually look into history that basically Church of England came about

217
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:58,360
because Henry VIII wanted to continuously murder his wives and the Pope had had enough of it

218
00:12:58,360 --> 00:12:59,560
and said, you can't do that anymore.

219
00:12:59,560 --> 00:13:03,720
So he said, well, I'll start my own religion, you know, in a sort of, you know, I know I

220
00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:07,480
appreciate that as a very simplified view of it, but that's ultimately what, what we're

221
00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:08,120
talking about.

222
00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:14,200
And then when you consider that Church of England becomes this huge institution that's,

223
00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,200
you know, it's supposed to stand for all of these good things and you think, well, it's,

224
00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:20,360
it's spawned from something horrendous.

225
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:28,840
And quite often I find religion has been used as a vehicle for destructiveness and control

226
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:38,200
rather than what it should be for altruistic involvement in society.

227
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:42,520
It's supposed to bring societies together and bring people together.

228
00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:46,920
And instead it's often used as a tool to create division, which is sad.

229
00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:48,120
Yeah, very.

230
00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:53,240
And then you have both extremes in every single religion, you know, and just to pick on

231
00:13:53,240 --> 00:13:58,760
Christianity, for example, you know, you have so many churches and there's examples of these

232
00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:04,120
churches opening their doors at Grenfell itself, you know, of all different, you know, religious

233
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:10,040
backgrounds, but then you have, you know, the covering up of child molestation and,

234
00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:13,560
and like you said, murder and all these other things that have happened in these churches

235
00:14:13,560 --> 00:14:14,520
history too.

236
00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:20,120
So I think the core philosophies of each of these religions are important, you know, to

237
00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:25,720
love, to be kind, to be, to be grateful, to love thy neighbor, you know, to go out and

238
00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:32,520
do good in the world, but that can very easily be refocused to fit your own story, your own

239
00:14:32,520 --> 00:14:36,280
narrative that's going to get you, you know, money and power, which I think is where we've

240
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,040
seen a lot of abuse, whether it's in religion or business or any other element.

241
00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:43,320
Yeah, I agree completely.

242
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:45,800
I actually had a conversation with a really random one.

243
00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:46,760
He was a reverend.

244
00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:54,840
I was doing like a group trip to climb up to Everest base camp in Nepal.

245
00:14:54,840 --> 00:15:00,440
And one of the people on my excursion happened to be a reverend or a vicar, which, which he

246
00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,760
was, but we were chatting away and the conversation inevitably came around to religion and you

247
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:08,200
know, that old saying, you know, never discuss politics or religion.

248
00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:16,120
And I just saw, well, I've got a captive audience, you know, the guy, you know, let's

249
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:17,080
have the conversation.

250
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:23,240
And I said to him, I didn't like religion because it has been the cause of pretty much

251
00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:26,520
every war since the dawn of time.

252
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:32,200
And he said, without even batting an eye at it, he said, so you think religion has failed

253
00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:32,680
humanity?

254
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:33,640
And I said, yeah, exactly.

255
00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:34,760
That's a good way of putting it.

256
00:15:34,760 --> 00:15:39,960
And he said, which is ironic because in actual fact, humanity has failed religion every

257
00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:41,240
single step of the way.

258
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:43,560
He said, religion is a vehicle.

259
00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:48,840
It's something that you have to buy into and believe in.

260
00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:56,840
And so if you use that to, for any kind of gain to the detriment of others, so then you're

261
00:15:56,840 --> 00:15:59,640
failing that religion, you're failing a set of ideals.

262
00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:02,200
You're not, it's not those ideals that have failed you.

263
00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:05,480
You haven't followed those ideals to the letter and ended up in a bad place.

264
00:16:05,800 --> 00:16:13,000
You have bent and changed the meanings to fit your narrative so that you can get away

265
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,080
with or justify what you're doing.

266
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:17,640
And he said, and that ultimately is the problem.

267
00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:21,080
It's humanity failing religion, irrespective of the religion.

268
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,240
And it gave me a completely new perspective on it.

269
00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:23,800
Yeah.

270
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:24,840
And I agree completely.

271
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:30,840
And I just posted this morning, one of my favorite memes and it says, don't be a dick.

272
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:35,880
And then it's quotes, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, mother, just all these names.

273
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:36,520
It's true.

274
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:37,960
Like that's ultimately it.

275
00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:39,880
Be nice to each other.

276
00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:40,520
That's it.

277
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:45,000
But if you have this thing like, oh, I think God is good and we're going to do good in

278
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:46,440
the world, accept the gaze.

279
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:49,720
Or accept the blacks or accept this or accept, then that's not good.

280
00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:51,240
That's not love thy neighbor.

281
00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:52,680
I'm sorry, but I disagree.

282
00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:57,400
If you have this exclusionary thing where only these people that fit this mold are going

283
00:16:57,400 --> 00:16:58,680
to go to heaven, for example.

284
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:00,040
That's it.

285
00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:00,360
Yeah.

286
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:05,080
And sadly that again, it's the problem with humanity because it is literally that simple.

287
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:05,560
Isn't it?

288
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:08,040
Don't be a dick or just be nice.

289
00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:13,160
If everyone woke up tomorrow and was just nice, everything would stop.

290
00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:14,360
Like there would be no famine.

291
00:17:14,360 --> 00:17:16,680
There would be no murder.

292
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:20,680
What an amazing utopic world we would live in.

293
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:24,040
But sadly, there is so much hypocrisy in the world.

294
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:25,640
A classic example of this.

295
00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:27,960
I've got a lot of black friends.

296
00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:36,120
My city London is a hugely, as you know, hugely multicultural setting to grow up in and to

297
00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:36,760
live in.

298
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:44,440
Color has never really been something that has been at the forefront of my mind.

299
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:49,400
It's just what I've always known, the different colors and religions and different churches

300
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:50,680
and mosques and synagogues.

301
00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:52,760
And it's always, always, always been there.

302
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:59,000
So I have lots of conversations about racial inequality that exists and the systemic sort

303
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:05,400
of racism that still exists in society on every level that goes back hundreds of years.

304
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:10,440
And what's always struck me is I can always have a really good conversation with, for

305
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:17,320
example, one of my friends who is British born Caribbean descent, Jamaican descent.

306
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,360
And we mean him can see I to on absolutely everything.

307
00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:22,520
And he's all for equality.

308
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:25,240
And this should be this way and that should be that way.

309
00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:29,320
And we agree on absolutely everything until you bring up homosexuality.

310
00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:32,920
And then suddenly, it's bundled with fire.

311
00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:40,520
You know, and you're like, how you can't you can't say that you need racial equality and

312
00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:42,280
that equality is important.

313
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:47,320
And then at the same time, so the gay people don't deserve any of that equality.

314
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:50,600
Like it's got to be either equality is right or equality isn't right.

315
00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:55,560
And you've got you can't pick which parts of equality you want to have in society.

316
00:18:55,560 --> 00:19:02,360
And sadly, that's that's a huge issue in in society these days.

317
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:03,160
Yeah, yeah.

318
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:04,600
And it's going to be very illustrated.

319
00:19:04,600 --> 00:19:09,800
The London that you love in when we get to Grenfell, because I mean, the residents themselves,

320
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,720
the way the community banded together, I think is is part of the story that people need to

321
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:18,680
hear and just how diverse that city is and how they came together as brothers and sisters.

322
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:24,120
But getting back to your kind of lifeline for a moment, what about athleticism?

323
00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:26,680
You know, you still take care of yourself even now.

324
00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:28,680
Were you a sportsman when you were young?

325
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:30,680
I'm still a sportsman now.

326
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:31,720
Thank you very much.

327
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:36,440
I was back at my second preseason football training session yesterday.

328
00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:42,040
They I won't lie, they are harder and they take longer to recover from, but they are

329
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:43,240
happening nonetheless.

330
00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:46,040
But yeah, I've always been into sport.

331
00:19:46,040 --> 00:19:52,680
I've played lacrosse for my school team, which weirdly wasn't my posh grammar school.

332
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:54,280
In Kent, they didn't have a lacrosse team.

333
00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:59,880
It was my inner London secondary school that randomly had a lacrosse team, which I thought

334
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:00,440
was brilliant.

335
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:02,280
I think it's because it's quite a violent game.

336
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:04,840
So it went down well with a lot of students.

337
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:11,880
I played that I've I played a bit of rugby, but mostly I've played football.

338
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:13,880
I've played football my whole life.

339
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:15,080
I absolutely love it.

340
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:19,880
And I'm dreading the day that my knees can no longer carry my aging body across the field.

341
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:23,480
It's an interesting perspective, though, because I've talked about this a lot.

342
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:29,080
Like back home in England, you tend to see you play football at school.

343
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:32,040
Maybe you went to college and you play football or some other sport there.

344
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:33,640
But it seems to carry on.

345
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:39,560
The pickup games, the just kicking around the park, playing the local leagues.

346
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:47,160
Men and women seem to carry on playing sports, whereas in America, we have a much more intense

347
00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:50,040
level of training at high school and college.

348
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:53,480
There's a lot of money in high school, you know, football, for example, baseball.

349
00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:57,560
But then when they're done, it's like from 100 to zero.

350
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,880
And you don't see a lot of that carryover, which is why we get a lot of these what were

351
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:05,480
great athletes now, you know, very, very deconditioned.

352
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:10,760
So I'm always intrigued at what the difference is, because, you know, I think that's what's

353
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:11,000
healthy.

354
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:14,680
You shouldn't stop playing sport just because you graduated from school.

355
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:19,080
Yeah, maybe it's because of the intensity, though, because like you said, playing football

356
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:22,920
for my school team was a very straightforward thing.

357
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:29,960
We didn't used to train other than for P.E. and we would we would literally, you know,

358
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,760
go and play an hour of football in a field.

359
00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:37,160
And then on a Thursday evening or whatever, we'd have a match against another school.

360
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:37,960
And that was it.

361
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:43,240
But it isn't taking sport over here is not taking anywhere near as serious a match as

362
00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:48,120
it is not taking anywhere near as seriously, particularly at high school and college level

363
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:49,080
as it is out there.

364
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:54,440
So it wouldn't surprise me if because of the level of training and stuff, it becomes, you

365
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:56,040
know, it becomes your whole life, doesn't it?

366
00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:59,640
People need good grades so that they can play football over there.

367
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:03,640
Whereas here you're only playing football if you're getting good grades.

368
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:09,320
And it's not the sporting thing just isn't as big here.

369
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:11,720
So I think we have a much lower level of training.

370
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:17,320
We probably tax our bodies a lot less so that we can continue playing for longer.

371
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:23,080
Whereas out there, I guess, if you're being smashed for 20 years or 10 years or whatever,

372
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,920
but a very high level, by the time you get an opportunity to stop, you're probably quite

373
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:27,720
thankful for it.

374
00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:29,640
That's a very interesting perspective.

375
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:31,240
I've never thought of it that way, but it's very true.

376
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:38,120
Like the number of people I know that in their late teens already had ACL repairs, shoulder

377
00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:39,320
tears, all these things.

378
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:45,240
Whereas I think football, soccer, is more gentle.

379
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,520
Yeah, you can get your knees and your ankles smashed up a little bit from tackles, but

380
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:51,320
overall, you know, it's not that same load.

381
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:56,840
And you take something like baseball where you're just pitching over and over and over

382
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,920
and over again with that one arm, you know, these repetitive injuries they get, there's

383
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:04,760
a lot more diversity to the human movement, I think, in a game of football.

384
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,120
So overall as a sport, I think it's more forgiving on the body too.

385
00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:10,040
Yeah, I would agree with that completely.

386
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:17,240
And anything where you're repeating the same isolated movement time and time and time again

387
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,920
is going to wear out that body part, I guess.

388
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:26,280
But then saying that, I guess with rugby over here, which is the nearest equivalent

389
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:33,480
to football over there for you guys, those guys don't wear any pants or helmets or anything

390
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:34,840
compared to the NFL.

391
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:39,880
And they are smashing each other and we have Sunday League, Saturday League rugby teams

392
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:41,640
for men in their 50s.

393
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:46,280
And, you know, they're still going at it, albeit a lot slower, but they're still going

394
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:47,960
at it from a physical perspective.

395
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:55,720
But again, they don't have the same intensity of training whilst they're at university

396
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:56,760
or whatever, you know?

397
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:57,320
Yeah.

398
00:23:57,320 --> 00:23:59,560
Well, I think another thing is they're on the pitch the whole time.

399
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,320
And what's the kind of illusion for us British looking at this?

400
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,760
The illusion for us British looking at the American sports, like ice hockey is a perfect

401
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:07,560
example.

402
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:12,520
And that, wow, these guys are playing for 20 minutes at a time, but they're not.

403
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:17,400
They're literally rotating these guys through from the bench consistently.

404
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,800
So they're only on the ice for basically seconds, you know, and then they come off again.

405
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:23,880
So it's sprint after sprint and the same with the football.

406
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,560
You've got the offense, you've got the defense, you've got the kicker, you've got this specialist

407
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:28,120
team.

408
00:24:28,120 --> 00:24:34,680
Whereas in rugby, you're playing the whole time, so you're not going from full rest 100

409
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:35,480
miles an hour.

410
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,400
You still got that fatigue element too.

411
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:43,480
So I think, and you know, with rugby, you're kind of, you know, you're not able to like

412
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,000
spear, for example, head to head because you both be unconscious.

413
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,800
So I think you even have to tackle a little bit more intelligently.

414
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:51,640
Yeah, yeah.

415
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:58,600
There are some subtle rules with rugby that probably get missed by people who don't know

416
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,520
the sport particularly well.

417
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,160
But there are some subtle things that you are and aren't allowed to do.

418
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:07,480
And those rules have changed with time, as with most sports, as health and safety becomes

419
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:08,120
more involved.

420
00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:12,920
And they realize that actually, you know, pile driving someone's head into the ground

421
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,040
with zero protection probably isn't the way forwards for sport.

422
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:21,480
So, you know, rules get implemented and tackling techniques change so that you can do it for

423
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:24,360
longer without injuring yourself.

424
00:25:24,360 --> 00:25:25,160
So, yeah.

425
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:25,880
Keep your teeth.

426
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:27,480
That's it.

427
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:27,960
Yeah, exactly.

428
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:29,640
All right.

429
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,400
Well, then transitioning to your career, had you already always dreamed of being a fireman?

430
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:40,280
Do you know what is I hate answering this question because the answer is yes.

431
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:41,720
And it sounds really geeky.

432
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:49,640
But when I was a kid, much like lots of children, I had a fascination with fire engines and

433
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:50,360
fire brigade.

434
00:25:50,360 --> 00:25:52,280
And I used to love Lego as a kid.

435
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,680
And everything I'd get Lego were even knights on horseback with castles because I loved

436
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:57,800
all the medieval stuff.

437
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,280
Or it was fire stations and fire engines and fire helicopters.

438
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:12,280
And I just loved the idea of the adrenaline and the heroism of running into a burning

439
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:13,720
building to save somebody.

440
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:20,200
It's always, always appealed to me to be that, to be the person who gets to turn up and make

441
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,000
somebody's worst day of their life a bit better.

442
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,480
I believe it's a real gift to be in a position to be able to do that.

443
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:35,800
And it's even more lucky that I've managed to have a career goal, have a job that I've

444
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,960
wanted to do since I was, well, for as far back as I can remember, and then actually

445
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:40,760
end up doing it.

446
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:41,400
It's amazing.

447
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,720
So, well, how old were you when you went in?

448
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,840
The reason I've got started for a second, I wanted to be a fireman too.

449
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:49,640
I was exactly the same.

450
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,840
I had the Lego figures and everything.

451
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:58,200
However, I was told at whatever age it was now, probably 11, 12, whenever they start

452
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:03,080
doing the physicals at school, oh, sorry, you're colorblind.

453
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:07,720
So, you can't be a fireman, you can't be a pilot, anything fun you can't do.

454
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:13,160
Just so you probably work in a pizza factory or maybe pick up shit in a zoo or something.

455
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:14,760
But that was pretty much it.

456
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:19,400
And then it took me to move to America to have, because I'm not the sharpest tool in

457
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,280
the box, to realize, wait a second, I can see color.

458
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:23,880
Therefore, maybe I'm not colorblind.

459
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:26,920
I'm a real freaking genius.

460
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,800
And then when I challenged it, yes, the books, I still can't see some of the numbers,

461
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:36,600
but you asked me to name anything in the doctor's office, what color it is, I can do it.

462
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,200
So, that was it.

463
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:40,920
But they dissuaded me from an entire profession.

464
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:45,000
Now, I think my journey was supposed to be the way that it happened coming over here.

465
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,520
So, what age did you actually enter the profession?

466
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:54,120
So, I joined at 24 in 2005.

467
00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:56,760
I was on the January intake in 2005.

468
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:04,200
I started training in the start of February 2005 and arrived at my first station in June

469
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:04,920
of the same year.

470
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,480
So, up until then, I mean, it was a long process for me to get in because

471
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:16,120
the application stage over here at the time was random selection.

472
00:28:16,120 --> 00:28:20,520
So, you'd have to look in all the local papers for when they were going to start recruiting.

473
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,440
And then you'd have to phone a number and you'd leave your name and your address and

474
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:25,640
some personal details.

475
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:31,320
And then a computer would randomly select because that would get like, see, it was something insane,

476
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:37,400
like 5,000 applicants for every one available job or 10,000 applicants for every one available

477
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,720
job in the fire brigade at the time I was trying to apply.

478
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,760
It was an absolutely insane odds.

479
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,800
And so, for four years, for three years, I didn't get an application form.

480
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:54,040
And then on the fourth attempt, so at the end of the fourth year, I finally received an application form.

481
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:59,240
And then that was again back in the paper application form days.

482
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,760
So, you'd have to fill out your application form and post it off and wait for more instructions

483
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:03,240
and all of that.

484
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,640
So, it's a really long winded sort of laborious process.

485
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:12,760
But it was then a further two years from when I filled out my application form to when I actually

486
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:13,800
started training.

487
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:18,840
So, all told, it was a six year process from when I said, right now, I'm actually going to start

488
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:20,440
trying to get into the fire brigade.

489
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,280
It was a six year process before I actually started training.

490
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,560
So, you know, I had to really win it or I would have given up.

491
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:34,520
Now, for people from the States and other countries where they do have fire academy,

492
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,960
because that's what I did, I became a fireman first and then I found a job.

493
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:39,560
That's pretty much how we do it here.

494
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:45,480
So, from the British perspective, you basically are civilian.

495
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:50,520
You don't have any qualifications and you are at the mercy of basically a lottery to get chosen

496
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,560
to then be trained as a firefighter to join the fire brigade.

497
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:55,800
Yeah, exactly that.

498
00:29:55,800 --> 00:30:01,480
When you go through the application process, you are giving answers that you hope are the right

499
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:06,600
answers because you want the job, right?

500
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:12,200
So, any interview situation or any application process, you're going to try and sell yourself.

501
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:16,440
The problem is you're doing it absolutely blind, which means you can't really blag it,

502
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,960
which is actually a really good process for recruiting the right people because you can't

503
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,360
con your way into the fire brigade over here.

504
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,720
You either are the right person for the job or you're not.

505
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:33,960
And their application process will weed out the ones that are trying to give the right answers

506
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,440
because ultimately they'll be the wrong answers.

507
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,000
Now, what about the physical test?

508
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,960
What does that look like to get hired?

509
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:42,920
What do you have to go through?

510
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:53,320
So, when I went through in 05, on the initial application process, there you have to go to

511
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,400
Southwark, which was the old training center.

512
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:56,920
It's gone now, cutbacks.

513
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:58,040
We'll get onto that.

514
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:04,520
So, that was the sort of central training venue for every firefighter in London would

515
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,360
go through this one training center.

516
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:07,560
It was a brilliant place.

517
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,880
And during the application stage, you would have to go there and do things like they'd

518
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:17,560
have a 50 kilo weight attached to a rope on a pulley and you'd have to raise it up to

519
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:23,640
ceiling height inside like 20 seconds or whatever it was because that simulates the weight of

520
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:28,760
extending a 13 and a half meter ladder if you're doing a props to face drill so that

521
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,920
you're the only person on the rope to extend it.

522
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,560
They need to know you're strong enough to do that by yourself because normally it would

523
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,840
be a two-man pull, two-person pull, I apologize.

524
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:40,040
So, they'd do things like that.

525
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:41,400
You'd have a bleep test.

526
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:47,480
You'd have to meet the minimum standards for that, which I think was 8.5 on the bleep test.

527
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,240
I don't know if you guys have that over there.

528
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,560
Yeah, we did end school back home where it's basically a shuttle run, but each time the

529
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,600
beeps get a little bit faster, so you have to keep moving and at a certain point you

530
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:58,360
hit the ceiling where that will be your score.

531
00:31:59,480 --> 00:31:59,960
That's right.

532
00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:05,160
Yeah, 20 meters long and you have to touch the wall at the same time the bleep goes off.

533
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,640
So, you can't get ahead, you can't fall behind.

534
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:12,920
And exactly as you said, it'll go up level by level and the time between each shuttle

535
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:14,920
run becomes smaller, shorter.

536
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,120
So, you have to run faster.

537
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:18,520
So, the more tired you get, the harder you're working.

538
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:19,960
You get to your VO2 max.

539
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,640
So, yeah, so you'll set those minimum requirements, which you have to meet.

540
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:29,560
Some dead lifting, some bench pressing, all quite straightforward stuff, pull-ups.

541
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,880
But if you don't meet those standards during the application process, you would then either

542
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:42,600
have your application terminated or you would be given like a training thing and they'd

543
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,400
say, right, well, go away, try again next year.

544
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,120
Now you know these standards, what you need to meet.

545
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,520
So, try and come back next year and have a go again.

546
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:57,160
And again, because of the process that it used to be, lots of those people would then

547
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:02,520
just never come back because if you imagine you've waited four years to get a form, you

548
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,600
finally get through and then you fall at the first hurdle, I think that's enough for most

549
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:08,760
people to go, do you know what, maybe this isn't for me.

550
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,360
I'll try something else.

551
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:11,960
I'm lucky.

552
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,920
I've always been into health and fitness and I always have.

553
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,720
I went to quite a rough school, so from the age of about 14, I decided it was time to

554
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:28,040
beef myself up because I needed to look like I could handle myself so that I wouldn't have

555
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:28,280
to.

556
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:35,480
And so, yeah, I was physically in quite decent shape throughout the application process

557
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:35,880
anyway.

558
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,560
I'm sorry, I was going to say you hit on a very good point as well and I think this is

559
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:47,240
where some people fall short whether they're trying to get a job in the UK or the US is

560
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:51,560
if you know what these tests are going to be and you've waited four years to finally get

561
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,680
your chance and you weren't prepared, that's completely on you as well.

562
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:59,400
You should educate yourself on what you need so that when that letter comes through the

563
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,320
mail, you have done all the preparation for the academic test and all the preparation

564
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,040
for the physical test because you can control both those elements.

565
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:07,800
Yeah, exactly.

566
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:10,600
And to be honest with you, there are no excuses.

567
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:14,040
Even if you don't know what the requirements are, be the best you can be.

568
00:34:15,240 --> 00:34:19,800
If you're the best you can be and that's not good enough, then you're not going to suffer

569
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:20,520
any hardship from that.

570
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:24,440
You're going to say fair enough, I'm not good enough for this job and that's fair enough.

571
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:29,320
We can't always, I'm not good enough to be a professional football player.

572
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:33,480
I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but if I went for trials for an NFL team,

573
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:38,200
I'd make damn sure I was the best player I could be when I go for that trial.

574
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:42,040
And if that means I'm still not good enough, then I'm never going to be and that's fine.

575
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,640
But if I turn up and go, oh, I could have done that if I'd have trained.

576
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,080
Well, then you're not the right person for that team, you know?

577
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:50,520
And it's the same with the fire brigade.

578
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,320
I don't train to pass something.

579
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,080
I train to be the best I can be and hope that that's enough to pass.

580
00:34:57,640 --> 00:34:58,120
Right.

581
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,680
Now, walk me through your training.

582
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:04,440
So you passed the physical test, you finally got the job.

583
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:09,720
What did the probation or the orientation look like as far as going from civilian to

584
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,280
a bona fide London firefighter?

585
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:20,520
There's quite, I would describe it as quite an intense four month training

586
00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:23,160
sort of system that they put into place.

587
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:29,800
You're basically at Southwark Training Centre for four months, Monday to Friday, office hours.

588
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,240
I think it's like eight o'clock is roll call, that parade.

589
00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:37,960
And you finish at five or half five and then you'd have studying to do in the evening

590
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,360
because obviously you're being absolutely bombarded with information because you've got.

591
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:46,600
I mean, when I say we turn up with no idea, there are a few people that have done

592
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:56,520
volunteer or part time retained, we call it over here, firefighters from the suburbs outside of major cities.

593
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:03,000
So they would have gained more experience and they'd have some sort of understanding

594
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:04,040
knowledge already.

595
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:10,920
But for someone like me, I'd come from an office environment and you're standing there

596
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,880
and someone's saying like, this is a branch, this is a hose, this is how a hose is rolled up.

597
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:20,040
This is how you bowl out a hose and you're practicing bowling out a hose, which is.

598
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,160
You know, your bread and butter most natural sort of thing for me to do now.

599
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:29,400
But at the time, I remember so many of us, we all stood in a line and we've got this hose rolled up

600
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:35,000
under our arms and then we roll it out like a bowling ball over here.

601
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:38,680
I know lots of brigades roll it up on the female coupling and then run along with it.

602
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,840
London and one of the few that that will do it this way.

603
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:49,000
But so you bowl the hose out and it's in it's folded in half before it's rolled up.

604
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:50,680
So then you've got both ends in your hand.

605
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:55,720
Then you run the end you need to the hydrant or to the branch, whatever you run that out afterwards.

606
00:36:55,720 --> 00:36:56,360
Right.

607
00:36:56,360 --> 00:37:04,040
And we're all standing in a line and the instructor, they said, right, course 2304 on my mark,

608
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:05,480
bowl out your hose.

609
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:07,160
So we're all standing there.

610
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,120
Three, two, one, bowl your hose.

611
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:14,680
And honestly, it was just like slaps of bundles of hose hit the floor and went about two foot

612
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:15,320
in front of us.

613
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:18,520
We all fall about laughing.

614
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:19,640
Oh, that was pathetic.

615
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,200
And the only person that wasn't laughing was the instructor who was absolutely furious.

616
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:28,360
And that was the overriding theme throughout training school.

617
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,600
His attitude is that's not funny.

618
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:32,840
I don't care if I've not shown you how to do it.

619
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,760
I don't care if you've never done it before.

620
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:39,400
If you are no good at it, you best get better quickly because there is no time for laughing

621
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:40,200
and joking.

622
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:41,320
This is training.

623
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:42,360
You are here to learn.

624
00:37:43,240 --> 00:37:47,560
And it was a real sort of shock to the system because our trainers had that attitude of

625
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:48,920
absolutely everything.

626
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:53,640
If you fail, there was no humor to be had in failing because this is a life-changing

627
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:54,280
job.

628
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,280
This is a life or death job.

629
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,520
So you need to get it in your head straight away from the outset.

630
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,040
If you cannot do something, the next time you try, you best be able to do it.

631
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:08,280
Or you certainly best have shown some improvement because otherwise, this is not the job for

632
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:08,840
you.

633
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:14,280
And the second time we all bowled the hose out was a very, very different sort of feeling.

634
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,120
We were all nervous then because we're like, God, I hope I do it better than I did last

635
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:18,760
time.

636
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,280
And you're all trying to bowl it out.

637
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:24,440
And it was good because I remember being scared pretty much for four months.

638
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:31,400
And as a 25-year-old man at this point, I wasn't a kid straight from college or whatever.

639
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:38,600
And yet I was, when these instructors shouted at you, as we used to say on our course, once

640
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:40,360
they shout at you, you stay shouted at.

641
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:48,280
Some of the guys on the course, Blessam, were a bit like, I'd describe them as Yorkshire

642
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,280
Terriers on fireworks night.

643
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,920
Fourth of July celebrations, that little bit of shaking in the corner because of all the

644
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:55,720
bangs.

645
00:38:55,720 --> 00:39:00,040
Some of us were literally like that on the course day to day because we knew it was only a

646
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:04,280
matter of time before one of us fucked something up again and the instructors would bellow us.

647
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:05,720
And they were harsh.

648
00:39:05,720 --> 00:39:09,400
They'd be like, you lot are a sad excuse for firefighters.

649
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:11,320
I can't send you out into the world like this.

650
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,080
You're an embarrassment to this brigade.

651
00:39:13,720 --> 00:39:15,400
They really tear strips off you.

652
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,320
And I'm like, this is day four, mate.

653
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:20,520
Give us a chance.

654
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:25,000
But it was done that way for a reason because it instilled pride.

655
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:34,760
I'm so proud of my job and so proud to serve London and to take on the trauma that I take

656
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:36,680
on so that others don't have to take it on.

657
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,800
And I see it as a bit of a sacrificial job.

658
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:43,720
And I don't mean to sound like a martyr or I don't want to be, I'm not asking to be labeled

659
00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:45,160
a hero or any of that nonsense.

660
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,880
It's just, it's how I see it.

661
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:53,080
I'm happy to take on this trauma and take on this role so that other people don't have

662
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,000
to do that because I'm good at doing this.

663
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:56,040
Yeah.

664
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:57,480
And it is very important.

665
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,960
I think that's what's sad is when you see amongst some departments or some firefighters

666
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:07,480
where they lose reality, lives really do depend on you.

667
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:11,720
And so if you start being complacent, you start being lazy, you start cutting corners,

668
00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:18,760
as we're going to talk about in Grimfeld just from reconstruction point of view, people

669
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:19,320
can die.

670
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:24,440
So if you're a medic and you're not on top of your protocols, your medications, your

671
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,760
side effects, all these things, people can die.

672
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:32,760
If you're a firefighter and you start losing your physical condition, people can die.

673
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:37,080
You forget how to tie the life-saving knots you need, people can die.

674
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:43,320
So I think that element in the academy is extremely important and it needs to be, you

675
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,160
need to keep that a little bit apart.

676
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:49,560
Even if you're 20 years on, you got to remember that because the moment you forget how important

677
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,800
your job actually is, is the day you really need to retire if you don't take it seriously

678
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:54,200
anymore.

679
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:57,560
Yeah, I absolutely agree.

680
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:05,000
I think that it's all too easy in a job where you do have some stand down time to get complacent

681
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,400
and let complacency set in.

682
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:13,000
For me, it's kind of back to the training thing, the sports thing.

683
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,920
For me, I want whatever I'm going to do in my life, I need to do it to the best of my

684
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:17,320
ability.

685
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,120
And that's something that was instilled in me by my granddad.

686
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:25,960
He said, it doesn't matter what you do in life, Rick, but do it the best you can.

687
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,680
He said, imagine your job is cleaning toilets.

688
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:32,040
Maybe not the life you want.

689
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:33,480
Maybe that's not where you want to be in life.

690
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:34,520
Maybe you're hoping for more.

691
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,080
Maybe you had big dreams and it's all gone wrong.

692
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:37,880
Who knows?

693
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,720
But at the very least, be good at cleaning those toilets because how crap would it be

694
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:43,480
to be shit at cleaning a toilet?

695
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:45,000
Absolutely.

696
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,480
And the first person has told me that exact analogy too, be the best toilet cleaner you

697
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:49,800
can be.

698
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:57,240
Yeah, because from that come opportunities and it says a lot about you.

699
00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:03,880
And for me, with work, it is a case of, I have a risk.

700
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,720
Not only do I want to be the best I can be, but I have an inherent responsibility because

701
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,560
people that don't do my job need me to be good at my job.

702
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:17,080
And over here, we have council tax, which is the money you pay to the government for

703
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:19,800
the privilege of living in one of their rundown boroughs.

704
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:26,600
And part of that money is to cover your emergency services.

705
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:33,000
So you pay, effectively you're paying money towards the council for them to provide you

706
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:34,360
with a fire and rescue service.

707
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:41,240
So if I'm paying council tax and I get an overweight, under trained, lazy firefighter

708
00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:45,320
turn up that doesn't do a particularly good job and my house burns down, or God forbid

709
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,440
someone I love dies, I'm pretty pissed off at that.

710
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:54,760
We have a responsibility contractually, if nothing else, to be good at our jobs.

711
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,480
And if we're not, things can go wrong.

712
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:03,640
And those things, when all is said and done at the sharp end of it, those things could

713
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:04,760
cost lives.

714
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,440
So it's really important for me.

715
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:11,800
And I would say for most firefighters in London, I would say that they thankfully share the

716
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:12,360
same view.

717
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:13,480
Absolutely.

718
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:18,280
Well, I want to get onto the other side of that equation as well in a minute, but keeping

719
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:23,880
on the ownership for a second, what did your training look like through your career with

720
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,880
London Fire Brigade, the physical training and just the skills training in general?

721
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,520
So I'm at a technical rescue center in London.

722
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:37,000
There was a change up in the way the stations were set out.

723
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:40,680
So along with closures and stuff, they did a little rejig.

724
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:45,400
And what they decided was to make five stations just strategically placed around London.

725
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,120
There would be technical rescue centers.

726
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:50,840
My station is one of them.

727
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:55,240
So it means at my station, we do all your regular firefighting.

728
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,600
But we also have the specialist rescue truck.

729
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,840
I'm not sure what you call them over in the States, but here they're called FRU, Fire

730
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:03,480
Rescue Unit.

731
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:09,080
And on there, we'll have specialist cutting gear for RTCs.

732
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:13,160
We have a boat and an engine so that we can go on open water or the Thames.

733
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,360
We have loads of rope climbing gear so that we can do rope rescue.

734
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,080
And we have USAR, which is Urban Search and Rescue.

735
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:29,000
So that's sort of major disasters, major incidents, could be terrorism, where there could be

736
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,680
significant building collapses.

737
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:36,760
An example of a recent one was a big crane collapsed over in East London in a boat and

738
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:41,320
fell through the roof of a house, sadly killing one lady who was then trapped.

739
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:44,760
And our job as USAR was body recovery.

740
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:49,880
But it's going shore the house up with wood shores and metal shores so that we can make

741
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:58,040
safe access to the lady that sadly had been killed so that we could get her out safely

742
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,000
and recover her body.

743
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:02,680
And that's a USAR job.

744
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,400
And we're one of five stations in London that does that.

745
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:09,320
So for us, our training is continuous and it's a lot.

746
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:10,760
We do a lot of training.

747
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,160
There isn't really much downtime at station anymore.

748
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:19,880
I know in films and stuff, I think people's perceptions of a fire station is we sit about

749
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:25,400
eating, playing darts, snooker, having a bit of a laugh, and then the bells go down every

750
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:27,400
15 minutes and off we go.

751
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:32,200
It's certainly not like that in London, certainly not a rescue station.

752
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:33,480
We are not sitting about.

753
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:40,040
We are out in the yard cutting up cars, hanging off ropes, pitching ladders, going through

754
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:40,840
lectures.

755
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:46,760
We have online training systems now where it will set out our entire year's worth of

756
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:47,400
training.

757
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:51,080
And every shift we go in, we will have some online training to do.

758
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,240
And it does get a bit boring because sometimes you're going over stuff and you're like, I

759
00:45:55,240 --> 00:45:56,040
know this.

760
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,920
But that's good because the only reason we know it is because we do it so regularly.

761
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:05,960
Rather than, you know, my attitude is if I'm training and I'm learning something, we probably

762
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:07,720
should have done that more recently.

763
00:46:07,720 --> 00:46:08,520
Yeah.

764
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,080
No, I think that's brilliant.

765
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,760
I mean, it's definitely, especially on 24 hour shifts that we have here, you've got

766
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:16,920
to have that rest and recovery element built in.

767
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:19,400
But, you know, I've always said the same thing.

768
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:24,840
When you pick your gear back off the rig, you sure as shit better be a better fireman

769
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,000
than when you first put it on that morning or that evening.

770
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:28,680
100%.

771
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:29,640
Yeah, 100%.

772
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:30,680
Brilliant.

773
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,120
Well, you mentioned closures.

774
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:33,720
So I want to talk about the other side.

775
00:46:33,720 --> 00:46:39,080
The whole purpose of this podcast is to show the two parallel lines, the individual ownership,

776
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:44,360
whether it's fitness, you know, training, mental health, physical health, but then also

777
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:45,240
the environment.

778
00:46:45,240 --> 00:46:47,400
You know, we can, there's always a blame.

779
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:49,320
Oh, this person should stop eating.

780
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:50,280
They won't be so fat.

781
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,480
Well, yeah, but you've also raised them in a family that ate McDonald's every day.

782
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:55,800
That's an environment that causes them to fail as well.

783
00:46:56,360 --> 00:47:00,920
And I think that that's another thing that's not talked about in the fire service in

784
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,760
general, especially in the British fire service, because I remember growing up and seeing

785
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:09,320
strikes like my whole childhood, you know, the fire service on strikes because they were

786
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,080
running on bare bones then.

787
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:17,240
And I know leading up to the Grenfell disaster, Boris Johnson was your mayor then.

788
00:47:17,240 --> 00:47:20,520
And there were more of the 10 million pound cuts, I think it was.

789
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:26,440
So as a fireman now, having worked as a fireman for 14 years and seen multiple departments,

790
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:31,160
I worked the East Coast and the West Coast and seen how a well-funded, well-supported

791
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:37,320
fire department can be fucking amazing and really perform when the shit hits the fan

792
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:42,440
and have the resources close enough to those events to be there when they need to be there

793
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:43,640
to save lives.

794
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:49,640
And then conversely, also work for departments that are woefully understaffed, underfunded,

795
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,680
seeing stations browned out and then the knock on the fact that now a rig has to come from

796
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,960
two districts away or two first-dues away.

797
00:47:57,960 --> 00:47:59,480
And it's the reverse, people die.

798
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:07,400
So tell me about the kind of political struggles that you guys have had to endure and, you

799
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:12,040
know, some of the closures that the probably the citizens of London don't realize for the

800
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:18,280
same council tax that their level of service has dropped significantly without them even

801
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:18,840
realizing.

802
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:23,880
Yeah, I mean, the first point there is it's not for the same council tax, it's for more.

803
00:48:25,240 --> 00:48:27,160
We're literally paying more to get less.

804
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:33,400
Well, to answer this question, first of all, it's important that people realize that

805
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:39,160
the way I think over here anyway, you need to view the fire and rescue services are we

806
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:41,960
are an insurance policy and that's all we are.

807
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:51,080
We are sitting at stations, albeit training and stuff, but we are not permanently engaged

808
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:58,120
in firefighting or rescue incidents like the ambulance service we have here or the police

809
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:03,080
are constantly out and about, you know, doing their thing.

810
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:09,880
We fires are less and less because of all of the community involvement that we've had,

811
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:10,760
which is a good thing.

812
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,400
We go around and we fit smoke alarms in people's houses.

813
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:19,400
We have targets each month to fit free smoke alarms in people's houses so that if they

814
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,680
do have a fire, they at the very least won't die.

815
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:26,360
They'll get an early audible warning that there is a fire, which means we'll get there

816
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,040
nice and quick, put the fire out, minimal damage, minimal losses.

817
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,840
But because of all of the fire safety stuff and the health and safety stuff, particularly

818
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:44,520
in a business arena, people can't afford to have fires because people get sued, you know,

819
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:45,720
people lose contracts.

820
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,440
It's, you know, it sounds like an obvious thing to say, but people literally can't afford

821
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:51,560
to have fires.

822
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:53,480
So fires are a lot less now.

823
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,480
So all the while we were in and out of the doors regularly attending fires, I think the

824
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,280
government could cope with that.

825
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,960
But now we're an insurance policy more than anything when it comes to fires.

826
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,800
I think fires at the moment in London account for about five percent of our total work.

827
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:13,560
So it's a really small percentage in terms of actual firefights.

828
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:16,280
And yes, our scope is massive and we do lots of other stuff.

829
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:20,760
But I think the government will look at us and go, right, well, you're an insurance policy.

830
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:23,960
Now, one thing I know about insurance, no one wants to pay for insurance.

831
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:26,440
No one likes paying for insurance.

832
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,240
I'm going to pay all this money every month in case you have a crash.

833
00:50:29,240 --> 00:50:32,440
I'd rather just give you one month's money when you've had a crash.

834
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:33,880
When you've had a crash.

835
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:40,040
And that's the example of how I believe the government see us over here now.

836
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:45,720
They don't want to be paying loads of money for a service to be there in case the shit

837
00:50:45,720 --> 00:50:46,360
hits the fan.

838
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,680
So a way of getting around that is to strip services back.

839
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:57,880
And I believe there is a very, very simple case with politicians of it's an accounting

840
00:50:57,880 --> 00:50:58,600
problem.

841
00:50:58,600 --> 00:50:59,880
And that's all it is.

842
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,520
How much do we save by shutting these fire stations?

843
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:03,880
X amounts of millions.

844
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:09,000
How many more fire deaths or road traffic collision deaths will there be per year

845
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,160
estimated because of these closures?

846
00:51:11,720 --> 00:51:13,160
One, two, cool.

847
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,240
So we're saving 12 million pounds.

848
00:51:15,240 --> 00:51:16,760
It's going to cost us two humans.

849
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:17,480
We can live with that.

850
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,600
And that's how I believe they view things.

851
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:21,640
Very, very simply.

852
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,960
Not from a humanitarian perspective like we do.

853
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:32,120
Not from a case of that they may only be two people in terms of numbers to the government.

854
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:37,960
But to me, they are two human lives that have families that won't see children again or

855
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:40,840
have lost a wife or whatever it is that's going on.

856
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:47,880
And when you see that trauma firsthand time and time and time again, there is no monetary

857
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:50,200
value that you can place on that person surviving.

858
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:53,480
Spend 50 million if it's going to save those two lives as far as I'm concerned.

859
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,680
But I'm in a very fortunate position where the budgets aren't down to me.

860
00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:02,680
I'm not under any pressure from my peers that are going to turn on me and oust me from government

861
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:04,920
as soon as look at me if I don't get things right.

862
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:12,360
So, you know, it's a real it's a real difficult one in terms of cuts and stuff like that,

863
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:20,040
because it is both a monetary problem as well as a human problem.

864
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:20,680
Yeah.

865
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:22,280
Well, we have an interesting thing here.

866
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,360
Where we do the fire and the EMS.

867
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:26,360
So I'm a firefighter and a paramedic.

868
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:31,400
So most of the departments I've worked for, we're running, you know, 15 plus calls a shift

869
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:35,880
in 24 hours and still getting the exact same description that you're getting.

870
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:37,880
Oh, well, you know, you guys are expensive.

871
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:44,840
And my thing is this, you know, you don't question the security guard in the block of flats or,

872
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:50,440
you know, at the hotel that he's not running around like a blue ass fly all over the place.

873
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:54,840
You don't question the Secret Service protecting the president or the prime minister.

874
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:57,240
Like, well, why aren't you having shootouts the whole time?

875
00:52:57,240 --> 00:53:00,040
No, you're you're you're a fucking insurance policy.

876
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:04,440
So if you want to cut it, then just give the president or the prime minister a gun and be like,

877
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:06,040
all right, I'm saving some money.

878
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:06,680
Good luck.

879
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:13,480
You know, that's not how it works, because when we have, you know, a frickin 9-11,

880
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:17,720
you know, the the London terror attacks, Grenfell, you know, whatever it is, the Vegas shooting,

881
00:53:17,720 --> 00:53:20,040
that's when you need all the people.

882
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:27,160
And that's when that small amount that you supposedly saved, you lose so much more in the long run,

883
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:29,640
because it's a complete false economy as well.

884
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:31,960
So I I call bullshit on that.

885
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:37,400
If our if our economies are expanding, our populations are expanding, the value of business

886
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:43,480
in our cities is is increasing, then you have to invest in, you know, the essential,

887
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:48,120
the essential, the true essential services, like, you know, the hospitals and the police

888
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,280
and fire and dispatchers and all these people that create that infrastructure.

889
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,000
And you start shredding it away.

890
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,280
Eventually, it's going to be a catastrophic failure.

891
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,920
And then just like we saw at Grenfell, all the people responsible scurry away like like

892
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:04,280
insects into the shadows.

893
00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:09,640
Yeah, but the government and I'm assuming it will be the same over there as well.

894
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:15,000
The governments rely on one very, very simple thing, and that's our ability to paper over

895
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,240
the cracks because we care about what we do.

896
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:18,920
Excuse me.

897
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:26,920
For instance, if we're on strike, we have a recall clause in our strike policies that says

898
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:32,280
if a major event takes place whilst we're on strike, we will without question return

899
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:36,200
to our stations, put on our fire gear and go out and deal with that incident.

900
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,360
We wouldn't even be getting paid at that point.

901
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:40,760
But they know we'll do it because they know we care.

902
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:46,520
And as soppy as that might sound, that's the facts of it.

903
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:47,240
I care.

904
00:54:47,240 --> 00:54:48,840
I care about the people of London.

905
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:52,840
I care about the people, whether they're strangers or not, that I go out to try and help.

906
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:57,000
And that's what part of what makes me good at my job because I care.

907
00:54:57,000 --> 00:55:04,600
And the governments can afford to make these cutbacks, undersource fire and rescue services

908
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:07,080
across the country because they know what I'm doing.

909
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:11,000
I don't know what I'm doing in the country because they know bottom line is if we have

910
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:17,800
to ride with old equipment or we have to go without a bit of training or if we have to

911
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:21,400
lose a fire station, which means we're now covering a bigger ground, all it means is

912
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:25,960
we will work harder and we'll try hard and we'll train harder.

913
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:33,800
And they will get the same level of service for the they'll get more work from us for

914
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:37,000
a drop in the level of quality of service that they're receiving.

915
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:41,720
So we are our own worst enemies, but for all of the right reasons.

916
00:55:41,720 --> 00:55:41,960
Yeah.

917
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:43,080
And I couldn't agree more.

918
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:47,480
I mean, the UK and the US is full of people that do this for free.

919
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,800
They shouldn't though, because every city in town, in my opinion,

920
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:56,600
unless you're out in the middle of nowhere, should work out their budget to where they

921
00:55:56,600 --> 00:56:00,760
can fund a full time police fire and EMS system personally.

922
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:02,840
I mean, that's the fundamental thing is human life.

923
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:08,840
But yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more that that is used as a political crowbar.

924
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:11,960
And, you know, we're not going to leave people hanging.

925
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:19,480
But if people don't understand that, you know, the thinner our resources become,

926
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:24,840
the harder it is now for us to respond, then they're going to allow these seemingly

927
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:26,520
great budget cuts to keep happening.

928
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:29,560
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

929
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:30,360
Exactly.

930
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:34,520
Exactly. And I don't see that it's going to change much either.

931
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:35,800
Yeah. Well, I saw.

932
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,200
So I can't remember who it was now, but someone made a great observation.

933
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:43,640
I did a whole bunch of interviews around this COVID thing to try and put good information out

934
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:46,600
around all the bullshit that I was seeing on the television.

935
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,840
And one of the things they made a great point, they were like,

936
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:56,360
when we create this essential work of heroism that I was seeing,

937
00:56:56,360 --> 00:56:58,520
and it was the police and the fire and the hospitals,

938
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:00,440
the doctors and nurses and all this stuff.

939
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:03,960
And there were the ones like London, New York, Wuhan,

940
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:06,840
that were truly, truly getting their asses handed to them.

941
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,400
And then there was the other 95% of the world that was like,

942
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,640
well, we're not actually seeing much, but thanks for calling me a hero.

943
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,320
But they were shirking the blame.

944
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:19,240
Like you said, we haven't supported these people in any way, shape or form.

945
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,200
But let's call them heroes so that way we can put it all on them.

946
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:27,720
Because every time the shit hits the fan, it falls squarely on our shoulders.

947
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:29,880
Like you said, if the preparation and everything hasn't been done,

948
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:32,920
if the budgeting hasn't been done, if stations are closed,

949
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,440
we are still the ones showing up to mitigate this disaster.

950
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:40,040
And they applaud us and they call us heroes instead of saying,

951
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:43,720
we need to start supporting these people better, paying these people better,

952
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:48,440
creating larger staffing so that we're able to mitigate next time.

953
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:52,520
But if you just call us a hero, you basically brush off all responsibility too.

954
00:57:52,520 --> 00:58:00,760
Yeah, absolutely. I think they're pacifying us, is what they're doing.

955
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:03,320
They're going more, if we all like over here, I don't know if you know,

956
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:07,960
during the COVID thing for the NHS, there was a, every Thursday evening at 8pm,

957
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:10,200
there'd be a clap, like a round of applause.

958
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:13,960
So people would come out of their houses and they would stand on their doorsteps

959
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:18,120
and they'd applaud. And the first week this happened, it was actually really moving.

960
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:21,320
People would be in tower blocks. We'd hear clapping from all around.

961
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,400
We'd parade out the front with a fire engines and a blue lights going in our fire gear.

962
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:28,520
And we'd clap for the NHS, National Health Service as well.

963
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:32,040
And it was brilliant. And then the next week it would happen.

964
00:58:32,040 --> 00:58:34,520
And the next week it would happen. And we're looking and we're going,

965
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:35,880
nothing's actually changing though.

966
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:39,160
It's like push-ups for suicide.

967
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:46,280
Yeah. And I just thought, all this is is appeasement.

968
00:58:46,280 --> 00:58:48,040
That's all it is, it's appeasement.

969
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:55,640
You're convincing a nation that the hospital staff and the care workers

970
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:58,920
whose lives are being lost and who are dealing with all of this trauma day in,

971
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:04,920
day out on a huge mass pandemic scale, you're convincing everybody that by giving them

972
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,920
a little clap that they're appreciated. And these doctors and nurses and again,

973
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:12,360
healthcare workers are going home feeling good about themselves because,

974
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:16,200
oh yeah, it was a lovely clap. You can't say absolutely nothing.

975
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:19,560
Give them PPE, give them masks so that they're not dying.

976
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:27,960
It's mind blowing to think that that's as simple as a ploy as it needs to be

977
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:30,440
to convince people that everything's okay.

978
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:32,040
Yeah, exactly.

979
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:35,400
All right. Well, I want to transition to your career.

980
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,640
I want to get to Grenfell, but prior to that, because I think one of the issues

981
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:43,400
we've seen in our profession specifically with mental health is,

982
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:47,320
oh, well, Ricky was at Grenfell, so therefore he has PTSD.

983
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:53,160
Well, the reality is most of us that do any of these associated professions for

984
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:57,320
any amount of time really are also going to have the cumulative effect.

985
00:59:57,320 --> 01:00:01,320
I was never at any of the giant disasters that made the news.

986
01:00:01,320 --> 01:00:06,440
My station prior to where I last worked was right next to Pulse.

987
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:10,040
That would have been the second company in, but I'd already left that department.

988
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:12,040
I was actually in Portugal when that happened.

989
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:17,960
So I never was there, but I had 14 years of working some really shitty areas

990
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:22,280
and then some busy areas towards the end, but saw a huge amount.

991
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:27,400
So that cumulative element, I think, is often overlooked.

992
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:32,440
So prior to Grenfell, were there any other incidents that when you look back, go,

993
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:38,280
okay, that definitely contributed to the ultimate straw that broke the camel's back?

994
01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:40,040
Yeah, there definitely were.

995
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,320
I think it's important as well to realize what trauma is,

996
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:47,160
because a lot of people, I think, misunderstand what trauma is.

997
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:53,160
Trauma isn't seeing someone's head split in half under a train because they've committed suicide.

998
01:00:53,160 --> 01:01:00,280
The trauma in that situation is dealing with the distraught partner that was with them

999
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:02,600
moments before they got hit by that train.

1000
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:03,880
That's where the trauma is.

1001
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:09,720
Seeing grief and absorbing all of that pain and heartache,

1002
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:15,160
and seeing someone just physically break down because they've lost someone that they love and care about.

1003
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:17,640
That's the stuff that crushes you.

1004
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:21,240
Seeing blood and gore is just blood and gore.

1005
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:28,520
It's the story behind the blood and gore, the story, the events leading up to these situations that affects you.

1006
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:32,680
And when you realize that, you realize just how big the scar on your body is.

1007
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:38,040
Just how big the scope for absorbing trauma actually is in one of these types of jobs.

1008
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:43,000
Because very rarely do you turn up to a sterile situation with no backstory.

1009
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:49,240
Even if you take an RTC, for example, you'll turn up and you can see the mechanism of the crash.

1010
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:52,920
You can see what's happening here, what's happened there, where the skid's gone,

1011
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:54,680
how the car's hit that car and gone over here.

1012
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:58,920
And then you start to build up a picture of what happened.

1013
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:01,320
And then you'll get some more information on the driver was drunk.

1014
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:02,280
Why is the driver drunk?

1015
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:03,640
Because he heard a row of his girlfriend.

1016
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:04,680
Where's the girlfriend?

1017
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:06,360
She's in that car and she's dead.

1018
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:08,040
And you're like, holy shit.

1019
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:10,680
That's the trauma.

1020
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:15,320
When you realize the link, the sadness of the situation,

1021
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,680
as opposed to the actual mechanics of the situation.

1022
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:26,040
And that means that your scope for trauma, for absorbing trauma is absolutely huge.

1023
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:28,280
It's massive.

1024
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:33,320
Because it could be an almost non-event and almost nothing story.

1025
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:37,800
Sorry, an almost nothing event until you get the story.

1026
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:41,560
And then suddenly the importance of that event will hit you like a train.

1027
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:47,160
So me personally, I'm a very, to my detriment in this kind of job,

1028
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:49,000
I'm a very emotional person anyway.

1029
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:52,520
And I'm an empath.

1030
01:02:52,520 --> 01:03:00,600
And I absorb probably way too much of the, what's the word I'm looking for?

1031
01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:05,800
Way too much of the feelings and stuff that you're going to get one of these incidents.

1032
01:03:07,160 --> 01:03:09,800
And it makes it makes a job really hard sometimes.

1033
01:03:09,800 --> 01:03:17,880
So the analogy I've always used is if you imagine holding a jug under a tap and filling it with water

1034
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:20,840
and you turn the water on, not so it's pouring out really fast,

1035
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:23,960
but just so it's running out at a nice speed.

1036
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:29,240
If you tilt that jug, before that jug fills up, some of that water will start spilling out.

1037
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:31,640
That to me is trauma.

1038
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:37,320
You need to have your jug on a tilt for some of that trauma to escape before it overflows.

1039
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:43,000
And sometimes that's your general run of the mill, day in, day out of the job.

1040
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,800
And then every now and then a big event will happen

1041
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:51,160
or something more severe that will stick your jug up the right way.

1042
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:56,200
So it can no longer pour any of the other stuff out and then it just fills up and overflows.

1043
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:58,680
And that's when you have problems.

1044
01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:00,680
That's when you then start to really suffer.

1045
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:06,120
And it's important to recognize those signs so that you can retilt your jug.

1046
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:08,040
Yeah, I agree completely.

1047
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:11,720
And actually there's a, I just finished writing a book and there's a chapter that talks about that.

1048
01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:14,440
And a different analogy because it also factors in addiction,

1049
01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:16,760
you know, compensating for some of that.

1050
01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:21,800
But another area that I really only discovered doing this podcast

1051
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:27,800
and listening to people's backstories is the trauma that people brought into the profession.

1052
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:31,800
A lot of us are drawn to police, fire, EMS, the military,

1053
01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:36,440
because we were hurt when we were younger in some way.

1054
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:40,760
And so the number of people I had on the show that were sexually abused,

1055
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:45,640
that grew up in a drug house, around alcoholism, around physical abuse.

1056
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:49,000
So we have to factor that in as well.

1057
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:52,280
I think it's very important that we evolve to a point

1058
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:57,000
where we're even able to let people offload that trauma at the front door.

1059
01:04:57,000 --> 01:05:02,440
Maybe bring counseling sessions in as part of that new hire process.

1060
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:03,160
Yeah.

1061
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:04,280
Yeah, I agree.

1062
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:05,720
And it's funny you should mention that because

1063
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:08,360
I've never made a link between the two before,

1064
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:13,960
but my stepdad was physically abusive towards me, my brother, my older brother and me.

1065
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:19,160
So, you know, he would beat us up and kick us upstairs.

1066
01:05:19,160 --> 01:05:24,360
And, you know, it wasn't at the worst end of it all, but it was we lived in fear.

1067
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:25,400
Every day we were scared.

1068
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:29,480
We were scared when he came home from work until we went to bed.

1069
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:34,280
And we were never really sure what insignificant thing we'd have to do

1070
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:39,320
for him to beat us with slippers or wooden spoons or force us to eat

1071
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:42,360
tablespoons of English mustard until our faces were burning

1072
01:05:42,360 --> 01:05:43,880
and snot was pouring out of our noses.

1073
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:49,880
It was just it was cruel, nonsense stuff that was just completely unnecessary.

1074
01:05:50,840 --> 01:05:57,400
And I've never ever made a link between that and then my need to help other people

1075
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:00,520
and help them when they're going through bad times.

1076
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:05,560
Yeah, it's crazy as a guy I had on who was one of the armed response officers in London

1077
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:10,680
for the police side, Eddie Cohen, who's a high level jujitsu black belt too.

1078
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:12,760
And he had a very similar story to you.

1079
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:16,680
It was it was I can't remember if it was his boyfriend or stepdad, but the same thing.

1080
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:20,920
They just he'd come home and just just beat the kids and it was horrendous.

1081
01:06:20,920 --> 01:06:23,560
And I personally, it's very different.

1082
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:25,240
I had a very idyllic upbringing.

1083
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:27,880
My parents ended up getting divorced, but honestly, it really wasn't that bad.

1084
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:31,560
But what I did do was when I was four, I almost died in a house fire.

1085
01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:35,160
And I'd totally forgotten about that my whole career had been locked away.

1086
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:39,960
So, yeah, that probably has something to do with ultimately becoming a fireman.

1087
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:42,920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1088
01:06:42,920 --> 01:06:50,120
My way of dealing with things is always as a kid has always been poetry and I'd write poems.

1089
01:06:50,120 --> 01:06:52,520
And I actually wrote one.

1090
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:56,280
It was only a few years ago about my relationship with my stepdad.

1091
01:06:56,280 --> 01:07:02,600
And the NSPCC, which is a charity over here for children, for the protection of

1092
01:07:02,600 --> 01:07:08,360
the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Charity set up to

1093
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:13,800
rehome and protect children that are living in abusive environments.

1094
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:23,400
And they actually published the poem in some of their literature literature to to send out to everyone just as a

1095
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:30,760
an explanatory sort of piece, I guess, you know, this is how it feels for a child to be in a traumatic situation.

1096
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:36,200
This is how the child thinks, because I wrote it as I remembered feeling at the time.

1097
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:39,400
So it's a very juvenile sort of perspective.

1098
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:49,000
But equally, I think it's very moving because it's just really raw and honest and sort of innocent.

1099
01:07:49,000 --> 01:07:53,560
And that it carries quite a sort of a big punch, you know?

1100
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:56,360
Yeah. Well, and the same as the poem you wrote about Grenfell.

1101
01:07:56,360 --> 01:07:59,720
And I want to get to that, you know, when we when we chronologically reach it.

1102
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:03,000
But I think that's it. Poetry can be very powerful.

1103
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:10,920
Actually, I've got an online friend, you'd say, who's a veteran of the British military.

1104
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:12,360
And poetry is his outlet.

1105
01:08:12,360 --> 01:08:17,000
And he's written some amazing poems on on PTSD from a soldier's perspective.

1106
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:24,120
Yeah, yeah. And I don't think there's anything more powerful than if you if you are able to.

1107
01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:31,880
And I know it's not everyone's thing, but there is a real beauty in in trauma, which I know sounds like a bit of a fucked up thing to say.

1108
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:43,800
But I really do see a real beauty in trauma if you can express it, because it can be so rewarding to get it out there and and to see it help other people.

1109
01:08:43,800 --> 01:08:55,960
And it's it's amazing how much your experiences can help other people, even if it doesn't change their their life in any way.

1110
01:08:55,960 --> 01:08:59,240
It it at the very least lets them know they're not on their own.

1111
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:03,960
And quite often with PTSD, depression, you feel very alone, I find.

1112
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:09,320
And if you can feel like you're not going through on your own, you can draw strength from that.

1113
01:09:09,320 --> 01:09:17,960
Absolutely. Some of the most downloaded episodes of this podcast aren't some of the Hollywood actors I've had on, which were amazing episodes, beautiful episodes.

1114
01:09:17,960 --> 01:09:22,960
But it was the firefighters and some of the other people that have been on that told their story.

1115
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:24,760
Like this was when I had the gun in my mouth.

1116
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:28,120
This is when I was about to get in the boat to go drown myself, whatever it was.

1117
01:09:28,120 --> 01:09:33,160
Those are the ones that get listened to the most, because I think people realize I'm not alone.

1118
01:09:33,160 --> 01:09:36,480
I'm not a pussy. You know, I should be feeling this way.

1119
01:09:36,480 --> 01:09:38,000
There is ways out of it as well.

1120
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:43,800
I'm not doomed. But this this this is this is the cost of doing what we do.

1121
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:45,520
And I agree 100 percent with you.

1122
01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:51,440
Seeing the trauma, we see the emotional damage of the deaths and destruction that we see.

1123
01:09:51,440 --> 01:09:58,840
And then the sleep deprivation, another element that people don't understand is how much that breaks down the human body, including the mind.

1124
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:03,840
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The sleep thing is something that's, again, so often overlooked.

1125
01:10:03,840 --> 01:10:07,800
I, for example, I can't sleep during the day, which.

1126
01:10:07,800 --> 01:10:13,840
And in London Fire Brigade, we get downtime, stand downtime from midnight until six forty in the morning.

1127
01:10:13,840 --> 01:10:17,320
So potentially six hours and 40 minutes of sleep.

1128
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:22,280
But realistically, you won't go to your bed until probably two a.m.

1129
01:10:22,280 --> 01:10:28,440
Or I certainly don't. And if you get one or two shouts during the night,

1130
01:10:28,440 --> 01:10:35,640
you've you've you've probably had like 45 minutes broken sleep, but I then can't sleep during the day.

1131
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:37,400
So I'll go back in for my second night shift.

1132
01:10:37,400 --> 01:10:43,520
So here we do two days as in half nine in the morning until eight p.m.

1133
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:49,160
So two shifts like that. And then the next two shifts on night shifts from eight p.m. to half nine in the morning.

1134
01:10:49,160 --> 01:10:55,360
So after my first night shift, if I've not got much sleep, I will still be awake all of that next day.

1135
01:10:55,360 --> 01:11:02,480
And then I'll go in for my next night shift. And if again, it's a busy night, I'll be awake all of the next day until I go to bed that night.

1136
01:11:02,480 --> 01:11:11,680
So at times I could have had a few hours sleep in like a I don't know what, 56 hour period.

1137
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:16,240
Yeah, exactly. And that's terrible for you long term, you know, long term health effects.

1138
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:19,240
And it's terrible for you cognitively short term.

1139
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:24,920
So, you know, you're driving the engine through the streets of London, which are not known for their width, you know,

1140
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:32,280
and try not to kill someone and then, you know, God forbid, you are hanging off a rope or whatever and you forget to clip in your belay line or whatever it is.

1141
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:38,640
I mean, one little moment can can literally cause our deaths falling off an aerial or whatever it is.

1142
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:48,600
Yeah, I think it's lucky that there is just well, certainly again for me, there is just enough adrenaline in each of those situations to keep your mind sharp so far.

1143
01:11:48,600 --> 01:11:52,240
Crossed fingers touching wood, but that remains to be the case.

1144
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:57,280
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, then let's get to June 14th then.

1145
01:11:57,280 --> 01:12:04,560
So tell me kind of, you know, your lead up to that shift and then how that unfolded for you personally.

1146
01:12:04,560 --> 01:12:11,400
So June 14th was our first night shift of our bank of two days and two nights.

1147
01:12:11,400 --> 01:12:16,400
The day itself had been just a regular day, as quite often is the case.

1148
01:12:16,400 --> 01:12:24,720
We went on duty at 8 p.m. It was, yeah, we did all our normal stuff and usual equipment checks.

1149
01:12:24,720 --> 01:12:29,800
Everything was absolutely normal and the same until we got the shout.

1150
01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:36,560
And I think I seem to remember getting the shout was just before midnight, I think for us or just after.

1151
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:41,160
No, it's just after midnight for us. It was about quarter to one or something.

1152
01:12:41,160 --> 01:12:44,360
We got the shout and I remember going down to the watch room.

1153
01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:54,680
We've got these sort of really old fashioned dot matrix printers where the bells will go down and then the call sheet will print out a sort of real 1980s office

1154
01:12:54,680 --> 01:13:05,120
style and then you'll tear it off. And I remember looking at the call sheet and just having a moment where I was thinking, I can't make sense of this.

1155
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:10,160
Hang on. Let's read this again. It's way, it's way off our ground.

1156
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:15,800
It's make pumps 20. As far as our guidance calls, I just can't be right.

1157
01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:20,280
So a couple of other people came into the watch room and I saw we've got high rise fire.

1158
01:13:20,280 --> 01:13:23,600
Where is it? Labbroke Grove. Yeah, what we going over there for?

1159
01:13:23,600 --> 01:13:31,360
We're going on make pumps 20. Now, what that means is that for your listeners, there are already however many fire engines in attendance.

1160
01:13:31,360 --> 01:13:34,240
It could be four, it could be eight, it could be whatever.

1161
01:13:34,240 --> 01:13:42,840
But what they've said is it's now make pumps 20, which means we now need 20 machines in total at this incident, not 20 additional, 20 in total.

1162
01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:47,920
So if there's 12 there, they're basically requesting a further eight trucks. Right.

1163
01:13:47,920 --> 01:13:58,560
So by the time we pulled out of the station, turned right onto the main road, a call came through again from control saying this is now a make pumps 40 incident.

1164
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:06,680
So before we've even got out of sight of our station, they've requested an additional 20 fire engines.

1165
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:15,840
And then control came over saying there are now something like 147 fire survival guidance calls in progress.

1166
01:14:15,840 --> 01:14:26,000
And so again, for the listeners, a fire survival guidance call is a system set up by our control where if you phone in a fire,

1167
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:31,080
they will say, are you affected by the fire in your in your flat where you are?

1168
01:14:31,080 --> 01:14:40,520
And if the answer is no, you'll be given, as I'm sure will come up later, the advice, stay put, which means you're not in any imminent danger.

1169
01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:47,080
You're not your area isn't involved in the fire. You are safer staying where you are than trying to make your way out without knowing.

1170
01:14:47,080 --> 01:14:50,640
Obviously, this is a telephonist on the phone at control.

1171
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:56,240
They don't know what the conditions inside the building are like other than what this person is telling them.

1172
01:14:56,240 --> 01:15:04,880
So you can't just say, oh, well, try and rescue yourself if you can, because you could be sending that person down two floors into an inferno.

1173
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:11,880
So the if you're not involved in this fire, if you're safe, your flat isn't filling up with smoke.

1174
01:15:11,880 --> 01:15:21,680
Just stay put. If, however, you know, it's so say you're on the ground floor or whatever and you're like, no, the fires on the 15th floor and it's safe for you to get out.

1175
01:15:21,680 --> 01:15:24,400
Then you can choose to leave if you want.

1176
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:32,080
If, however, you phone up and say my flat is affected by the fire, I am unable to get out because of the conditions, i.e.

1177
01:15:32,080 --> 01:15:42,160
I open the door and smoke pours in or whatever, then a member of control will stay on the phone with you until you are either rescued or dead.

1178
01:15:42,160 --> 01:16:00,160
That's a fire survival guidance call. That person will give you guidance to survive that fire, you know, putting the sheets across the bottom of the door, open a window, go, you know, move into a room furthest away from the fire, whatever it is, a room where you're more easily going to be rescued and then wait for the fire brigade to turn up.

1179
01:16:00,160 --> 01:16:11,840
So by the time we've got to the end of our road, we now know that we are one of 28 fire engines now tearing our way towards this tower block when they were already like around eight or whatever in attendance.

1180
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:22,000
And we know that 147, not people, flats are involved in fire of people saying they cannot get themselves out.

1181
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:24,120
Crazy, crazy.

1182
01:16:24,120 --> 01:16:35,000
Yeah, it is the enormity of what we were going to just hit us like a ton of bricks. We were like, holy shit, this this is insane. This is massive. This is unbelievable.

1183
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:50,640
And I don't think we really did believe it until we sort of arrived near the tower and we could see the flames from the fourth floor to the 24th floor and then up to the roof and then burnt back down the outside of the building again at a funky angle.

1184
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:57,720
It almost looked like a heartbeat on an ECG machine.

1185
01:16:57,720 --> 01:17:03,040
And we're like, that's not right. That's not a burn pattern for a fire.

1186
01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:08,520
You know, you expect to see a couple of windows with flames in them with a fire inside.

1187
01:17:08,520 --> 01:17:14,400
This was a fire on the outside of a tower block and it was spreading rapidly.

1188
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:29,120
Now, up to that point, just interject for a second, because I know for me, if I was in a very large building and actually there was one 28 story hotel right next to my last fire station, you know, concrete construction, you assume it has all the fire precautions.

1189
01:17:29,120 --> 01:17:36,160
As you said, we would normally go, maybe there'll be fire blowing out of one if it wasn't just, you know, the contents and hadn't even breached the window.

1190
01:17:36,160 --> 01:17:42,720
But at worst, probably two, like it blew out the windows of the first one, lapped up to the second one, and that's about it.

1191
01:17:42,720 --> 01:17:58,320
So at that kind of facility where there's thousands of people in this building, shelter in place would have been a sensible suggestion, whilst the crews could access those particular areas, extinguish the fire and make it safe for the whole building.

1192
01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:03,960
So from your perspective prior to that, you know, had you had any high rise fires?

1193
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:10,800
And if so, what would you have seen on a normal high rise fire up to that point?

1194
01:18:10,800 --> 01:18:16,480
We have an entire policy based around high rise fires, which we train on regularly.

1195
01:18:16,480 --> 01:18:22,800
We have high rise kit bags specifically designed for implementation at a high rise fire.

1196
01:18:22,800 --> 01:18:30,560
So there is a list of equipment you take, which is a standard list of equipment, which gives you everything you need to make your initial attack to the fire.

1197
01:18:30,560 --> 01:18:50,040
You have a set of specific non-negotiable procedures which you adhere to, like setting up entry control, a floor below the two floors below the fire, moving up one floor below the fire floor, plugging in, checking your branch, making sure you got water, then going up to the fire floor through the protected stairwell and dealing with fire.

1198
01:18:50,040 --> 01:18:57,760
So very, very straightforward, safe system of work.

1199
01:18:57,760 --> 01:18:59,360
It's a brilliant framework.

1200
01:18:59,360 --> 01:19:02,320
It's exactly the same thing that we do.

1201
01:19:02,320 --> 01:19:03,280
Yeah, right.

1202
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:07,840
So any high rise fires I've ever been to before, it's clockwork.

1203
01:19:07,840 --> 01:19:09,640
That happens, that happens, that happens.

1204
01:19:09,640 --> 01:19:12,960
We go in, find the fire, put the fire out.

1205
01:19:12,960 --> 01:19:16,680
Everybody else, flat either side of the flat that's affected, safe.

1206
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:17,760
Everyone on that floor is safe.

1207
01:19:17,760 --> 01:19:20,320
Everyone on the floors above and below, safe.

1208
01:19:20,320 --> 01:19:22,680
There are no issues.

1209
01:19:22,680 --> 01:19:31,120
So as we said a minute ago, you're expecting to see some flames, obviously, as a high rise fire. We know it's going to be a bad one because the amount of trucks on the way.

1210
01:19:31,120 --> 01:19:36,280
But you don't really know what to expect until you actually arrive at the scene.

1211
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:42,880
Information you get, whether it's from control or members of the public, often isn't what you're actually confronted with when you turn up.

1212
01:19:42,880 --> 01:19:48,640
Sometimes because circumstances have changed, a fire has progressed or diminished or whatever.

1213
01:19:48,640 --> 01:19:53,320
But you never really know what you're going to get until you turn up and you have eyes on it yourself.

1214
01:19:53,320 --> 01:20:08,160
So when we turned up and we saw this 24 story tower block with a lick of flames up to the roof and halfway back down again and moving across the building laterally as well as vertically.

1215
01:20:08,160 --> 01:20:11,640
We're thinking, well, we couldn't, we, I don't know what we were thinking.

1216
01:20:11,640 --> 01:20:15,040
We couldn't work it out. We'd never seen it before.

1217
01:20:15,040 --> 01:20:20,680
And I know there are lots of critics out there that would say, well, it's a fire brigade's job to know about this.

1218
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:22,840
It's a fire brigade's job to know what this is.

1219
01:20:22,840 --> 01:20:25,080
OK, well, who else's job is it?

1220
01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:28,200
Maybe the people that maybe the people that built the building.

1221
01:20:28,200 --> 01:20:31,040
Maybe it's their job to know what they've put on it.

1222
01:20:31,040 --> 01:20:35,640
Maybe it's their job to know how it's going to react in a fire situation.

1223
01:20:35,640 --> 01:20:41,160
We are reactive. We are a reactive last chance saloon job.

1224
01:20:41,160 --> 01:20:44,400
We go there if everything else has gone wrong.

1225
01:20:44,400 --> 01:20:47,240
That's when we turn up.

1226
01:20:47,240 --> 01:20:52,000
We're not there at the start of that process, nor should we be.

1227
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:56,720
There are jobs, specific jobs out there for reasons, and people have their roles.

1228
01:20:56,720 --> 01:21:03,800
And they're there, in my opinion, have been and as the inquiry has actually already shown,

1229
01:21:03,800 --> 01:21:15,440
multiple failings across various different agencies and government networks that resulted in a loss of life at Granville.

1230
01:21:15,440 --> 01:21:22,760
Yeah, so just just to preface it, because I want to I watched the documentary that the BBC did, and it was an amazing documentary.

1231
01:21:22,760 --> 01:21:30,200
Anyone listening, if you want to learn about this tragedy and also want to see the incredible community

1232
01:21:30,200 --> 01:21:38,040
when a city comes together and how ridiculous some of the political stuff we're seeing in America at the moment is, you need to watch this documentary.

1233
01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:45,800
But several of the residents were talking about when they refurbished this building that was built in 74,

1234
01:21:45,800 --> 01:21:48,640
that there were like gaps in the cladding.

1235
01:21:48,640 --> 01:21:50,600
So they were literally getting drafts through their window.

1236
01:21:50,600 --> 01:21:56,680
They said they constantly would get electric faults where like lamps would blow and things like that.

1237
01:21:56,680 --> 01:22:02,080
So they were the residents were having multiple issues prior to this where they had warned,

1238
01:22:02,080 --> 01:22:09,440
I guess, that even written about putting the school in next to the building, saying that would prevent access for the fire department.

1239
01:22:09,440 --> 01:22:12,280
So it wasn't like out of nowhere, this just happened.

1240
01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:19,400
If you know what all of these testimonies from all of these these residents is to be believed, I don't see why not.

1241
01:22:19,400 --> 01:22:27,640
There were many warning signs from the construction and building management element that were precursors to this disaster.

1242
01:22:27,640 --> 01:22:36,000
Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, my understanding, obviously, I'm not privy to the details and ins and outs of the the inquiry,

1243
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:38,720
certainly for the parts that haven't happened yet.

1244
01:22:38,720 --> 01:22:49,360
My understanding is that there were countless communications from residents of Grenfell Tower with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

1245
01:22:49,360 --> 01:22:56,280
And TMO, the the housing authority or the contractors for them.

1246
01:22:56,280 --> 01:23:00,720
Complaints about the standards inside the building, complaints about not having fire doors,

1247
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:04,800
complaints about electrics and all sorts of different stuff.

1248
01:23:04,800 --> 01:23:14,920
And my understanding, so I've been told, is that most of those complaints were never got round to or were not deemed important or I don't know what it was, but they weren't dealt with.

1249
01:23:14,920 --> 01:23:20,040
And again, you know, it's not a political opinion, it's just a statement of fact.

1250
01:23:20,040 --> 01:23:28,480
If you have a building that has defects, that aren't rectified,

1251
01:23:28,480 --> 01:23:38,440
that building is not going to perform the way it should do in a fire situation, a flooding situation, a power outage, whatever it is, it's not going to perform properly if it's not built correctly.

1252
01:23:38,440 --> 01:23:47,080
Yeah, so from a pure fire load point of view, looking at it as a firefighter, obviously things that people have in the houses are definitely part of a fire load.

1253
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:53,800
But it seems like, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like in this particular incident, there was a fire on the fourth floor.

1254
01:23:53,800 --> 01:23:58,280
They said was from a fridge, which blows me away how you find the point of origin in that inferno.

1255
01:23:58,280 --> 01:24:06,480
But then it was the cladding itself that was the fire load that allowed it to run from the fourth to the 24th story.

1256
01:24:06,480 --> 01:24:11,800
And then, like you said, and then back down again, defying all kind of thermodynamics.

1257
01:24:11,800 --> 01:24:25,240
Yeah, so what basically was happening, my understanding is if you imagine you've got polystyrene squares of insulating material with this ACM metal sheet cladding sort of bonded on top,

1258
01:24:25,240 --> 01:24:30,360
but the polystyrene squares are smaller than the ACM cladding.

1259
01:24:30,360 --> 01:24:39,160
So you effectively have small chimneys where the cladding panels meet running up and down the building, top to bottom and sideways,

1260
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:50,640
which meant when the fire got to the outside of the building, some of this insulating material would obviously melt and would drop down and would set light to parts of the building below it,

1261
01:24:50,640 --> 01:24:53,600
which is how the fire managed to spread down as well, I believe.

1262
01:24:53,600 --> 01:25:00,520
And on top of that, you've got chimneys effectively where the panels meet running the full height of the building.

1263
01:25:00,520 --> 01:25:06,240
So all of these hot fire gases and hot embers are being just shoved up exactly like a chimney.

1264
01:25:06,240 --> 01:25:08,120
They're going straight up and coming out the top.

1265
01:25:08,120 --> 01:25:14,600
So just the fire spread in all directions because anywhere the hot gases can go, as you know, fire can spread.

1266
01:25:14,600 --> 01:25:23,560
Yeah. And if they were feeling drafts, that means that those hot gases are then going into each of the flats and igniting those and then creating that chain reaction all the way up the tower.

1267
01:25:23,560 --> 01:25:24,840
Yeah.

1268
01:25:24,840 --> 01:25:30,360
Horrendous. All right. So then back to your arrival, then tell me about the human element.

1269
01:25:30,360 --> 01:25:37,960
What were you seeing as far as people, you know, just like you said, the emotional toll on the ground level when you arrived?

1270
01:25:37,960 --> 01:25:50,360
When you turn up to an incident, particularly one of this magnitude, the professional side of you kicks into overdrive.

1271
01:25:50,360 --> 01:25:56,760
So, again, as you will relate to, I'm thinking, right, what do I need to do?

1272
01:25:56,760 --> 01:26:00,120
Where am I going to have to go? What equipment do I need?

1273
01:26:00,120 --> 01:26:11,720
Remember my training. Remember policies, procedures, all of the things that I need to do, because above and beyond anything else, today, I need to be good at my job.

1274
01:26:11,720 --> 01:26:16,760
Today, I need to have a good day at work, because if I don't, people will die.

1275
01:26:16,760 --> 01:26:26,520
So my mindset is immediately on making sure that I don't fuck up, because I need to make sure that I do the best job I can for those people.

1276
01:26:26,520 --> 01:26:32,760
In terms of the environment around me, it's what I would describe as organized chaos.

1277
01:26:32,760 --> 01:26:39,720
It was so busy. People everywhere. There were people coming out of the tower. There were people being carried.

1278
01:26:39,720 --> 01:26:44,760
There were people being given oxygen. There were people trying to take down information.

1279
01:26:44,760 --> 01:26:50,920
And as you can imagine, just the information exchange alone at an instant of this magnitude is insane.

1280
01:26:50,920 --> 01:26:56,200
And you can't comprehend how hard it is to collate that amount of data.

1281
01:26:56,200 --> 01:27:02,760
And it's not just from one control center, because although we're a small place in the UK comparatively to the states,

1282
01:27:02,760 --> 01:27:13,640
we've got a brigade control of one of the biggest fire brigades in the world in terms of its resources, in terms of the amount of trucks and stations we have.

1283
01:27:13,640 --> 01:27:19,880
And we have a control center, the very state of the art, very recent, very modern, built recently.

1284
01:27:19,880 --> 01:27:26,200
But there are like 11 or so, I think, or 12 members of control staff there.

1285
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:33,240
Now, if you remember early on, I said there was 147 or whatever fire survival guidance calls in progress.

1286
01:27:33,240 --> 01:27:41,400
That leaves us 135 or whatever fire survival guidance call operators short.

1287
01:27:41,400 --> 01:27:49,240
So our calls from our control were being farmed out to Manchester control, to West Middleton, to wherever.

1288
01:27:49,240 --> 01:27:54,440
So control centers, fire and rescue service control centers that aren't even affiliated with the London Fire Brigade,

1289
01:27:54,440 --> 01:28:01,000
and we're taking information and relaying it back to us so that we could cope with the amount of information.

1290
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:09,160
This all takes time and means that you're collating data not just from one central place, you're collating data from all over the place.

1291
01:28:09,160 --> 01:28:15,400
And when you've got that mixed with the responsibilities over the firefighters that are there,

1292
01:28:15,400 --> 01:28:20,520
you're trying to locate people, you're trying to send firefighters there, you're trying to monitor

1293
01:28:20,520 --> 01:28:27,960
which firefighters have been in already and which ones haven't because you want to have good crew rotation because of the intense conditions inside.

1294
01:28:27,960 --> 01:28:33,000
It was chaos, but organomist chaos. It was chaos with a purpose.

1295
01:28:33,000 --> 01:28:40,280
And you throw into that mix one very narrow staircase that's full of hoes, full of firefighters,

1296
01:28:40,280 --> 01:28:45,880
and full of people in need of rescue, being rescued or self-rescuing.

1297
01:28:45,880 --> 01:28:49,000
It was a busy old work site.

1298
01:28:49,000 --> 01:28:52,600
Now with the communication as well, because I want to get to the shelter in place in a second,

1299
01:28:52,600 --> 01:28:57,720
but another element that I heard another firefighter talking about, they were doing it anonymously,

1300
01:28:57,720 --> 01:29:01,800
it was on another interview, was the fact the radios didn't work.

1301
01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:08,200
And it's funny because in my career, we had the old, I can't remember the the hurts that they were,

1302
01:29:08,200 --> 01:29:11,240
the moment you get in some sort of building, just like you're describing, you lose it.

1303
01:29:11,240 --> 01:29:17,160
Even go to the grocery store, the supermarket, and one of you has to stand by the door to make sure that it's still working.

1304
01:29:17,160 --> 01:29:18,920
But then we got these new and improved ones.

1305
01:29:18,920 --> 01:29:26,200
And still you get in the lift, you get in many, many areas of these buildings and you lose radio communication.

1306
01:29:26,200 --> 01:29:34,120
So how did the, from the firefighter perspective, the rescuers in the building, how effective were your radios?

1307
01:29:34,120 --> 01:29:41,320
My radio, I was actually wearing the comset for the first time I went in with my colleague.

1308
01:29:41,320 --> 01:29:45,320
And I didn't have a problem with the communications equipment working.

1309
01:29:45,320 --> 01:29:50,120
What I had a problem with was deciphering any kind of useful information,

1310
01:29:50,120 --> 01:29:53,960
because there was so much radio traffic on that one channel.

1311
01:29:53,960 --> 01:29:57,160
You know, normally at an incident, you've got, I'll be on the radio,

1312
01:29:57,160 --> 01:30:01,400
there's someone outside doing the entry control board and I'm communicating with them.

1313
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:04,680
And there's, you know, they don't speak if I'm speaking, I don't speak if they're speaking.

1314
01:30:04,680 --> 01:30:06,280
It's very straightforward.

1315
01:30:06,280 --> 01:30:14,680
But in this instance, you've got multiple crews committed into a building that are all trying to radio their gauge readings,

1316
01:30:14,680 --> 01:30:19,160
whether they found casualties, you know, they're changing for conditions,

1317
01:30:19,160 --> 01:30:24,840
lots of risk critical information is trying to be passed forwards and backwards.

1318
01:30:24,840 --> 01:30:27,080
And the radio didn't stop.

1319
01:30:27,080 --> 01:30:34,360
It was hard finding a gap in the radio messages to actually send a message yourself.

1320
01:30:34,360 --> 01:30:38,680
Every time you try and start talking, someone else would have jumped in first.

1321
01:30:38,680 --> 01:30:40,840
And there was so much radio traffic going on.

1322
01:30:40,840 --> 01:30:46,840
If I'm to concentrate on what I'm doing, bear in mind, we're working in intense heat, zero visibility.

1323
01:30:46,840 --> 01:30:50,120
And we're counting flights of stairs to try and make sure we get to the correct floor

1324
01:30:50,120 --> 01:30:57,880
because all of the floor numbers are covered up by lighting that's been retrospectively fitted.

1325
01:30:57,880 --> 01:31:01,880
I haven't got, I don't have the mental capacity to deal with all of that.

1326
01:31:01,880 --> 01:31:05,000
Think about my policies, procedures, what we're going to do, looking after my colleagues,

1327
01:31:05,000 --> 01:31:13,320
looking after me, and then try and decipher the useful information out of the abundance of radio traffic that was taking place.

1328
01:31:13,320 --> 01:31:18,360
So I pretty much shut my ears off to my radio.

1329
01:31:18,360 --> 01:31:23,320
So in all honesty, I couldn't tell you whether it ever stopped working or I lost signal at any point

1330
01:31:23,320 --> 01:31:24,840
because I just stopped listening to it.

1331
01:31:24,840 --> 01:31:28,840
Gotcha. Yeah, that's another element that a lot of people don't think about.

1332
01:31:28,840 --> 01:31:34,360
Well, then with the shelter in place, a regular fire, like I said, it would be a very good tactic.

1333
01:31:34,360 --> 01:31:37,320
That was seemingly what was initially advised.

1334
01:31:37,320 --> 01:31:39,080
Obviously, there was a shift in tactics.

1335
01:31:39,080 --> 01:31:45,080
And when that was shifted, it was criticized by some governing bodies.

1336
01:31:45,080 --> 01:31:53,640
Your perspective, being there, boots on the floor, when were they told to shelter in place and when did that shift?

1337
01:31:53,640 --> 01:31:56,200
I'm not sure what time it actually changed.

1338
01:31:56,200 --> 01:32:00,920
I know that it did change at some point throughout the incident.

1339
01:32:00,920 --> 01:32:04,040
I can't remember if it was around half two or three or something like that.

1340
01:32:04,040 --> 01:32:07,400
I can't really remember.

1341
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:11,800
But to be honest with you, again, the state policy has been really harshly criticized.

1342
01:32:11,800 --> 01:32:20,360
I understand why the fire brigade will be criticized.

1343
01:32:20,360 --> 01:32:29,480
I understand why we will be, you know, why our procedures and our policies and what the actions on the night, why they're going to be looked into.

1344
01:32:29,480 --> 01:32:34,360
It's right that they should be because in any situation where there is a loss of life,

1345
01:32:34,360 --> 01:32:37,880
you have to look at if there is anything we could have done better.

1346
01:32:37,880 --> 01:32:39,720
That's how you improve as a service.

1347
01:32:39,720 --> 01:32:45,640
And again, it's a minimum requirement for a public that you serve for them to know that if things do go wrong,

1348
01:32:45,640 --> 01:32:54,600
we're willing to look at our procedures and we want to look at our procedures and and make changes if changes are needed.

1349
01:32:54,600 --> 01:33:02,920
But on that night, I defy anybody to have been able to make the inverted commas right decision.

1350
01:33:02,920 --> 01:33:05,240
Because people look at things really, really simplistically.

1351
01:33:05,240 --> 01:33:10,760
People look at things and go, OK, well, maybe you should have evacuated sooner and then less people would have died.

1352
01:33:10,760 --> 01:33:16,160
And you go, OK, so how do we evacuate a tower block of people?

1353
01:33:16,160 --> 01:33:21,680
How do you do that with the evacuating the evacuating button in the lobby area?

1354
01:33:21,680 --> 01:33:25,320
Because that's not there. So how do we evacuate all of those people?

1355
01:33:25,320 --> 01:33:36,960
Expect a person from control to tell someone we're not coming for you, so evacuate yourself and send that person out into a fiery.

1356
01:33:36,960 --> 01:33:40,520
Hell of a building, you can't do that.

1357
01:33:40,520 --> 01:33:48,520
So the only way we can actually get around to everyone and tell them we've decided now it's best if you get out is to get to your front door.

1358
01:33:48,520 --> 01:33:51,200
And if we can get to your front door, you won't need to get yourself out.

1359
01:33:51,200 --> 01:33:54,400
We'll just take you out. Yeah. So so that's back on you.

1360
01:33:54,400 --> 01:34:02,200
So you had your brothers and sisters repeatedly going into the building to not only try and lock the fire down,

1361
01:34:02,200 --> 01:34:08,040
but in that fricking towering inferno from the outside, trying to get to all these residents.

1362
01:34:08,040 --> 01:34:09,800
Now, this this thing had shifted.

1363
01:34:09,800 --> 01:34:17,560
Does it mean it just completely changed compared to any other high rise fire to physically lead them back out again?

1364
01:34:17,560 --> 01:34:19,640
Yeah, exactly that, exactly that.

1365
01:34:19,640 --> 01:34:25,120
And and as again, as you will know, and it may be difficult for members of the public to understand,

1366
01:34:25,120 --> 01:34:29,760
but our hierarchy of rescue doesn't start with the people that need to be rescued.

1367
01:34:29,760 --> 01:34:36,080
Our hierarchy of rescue in terms of the safety of an incident is I am the most important person at that fire.

1368
01:34:36,080 --> 01:34:39,520
My colleague is the second most important person at that fire.

1369
01:34:39,520 --> 01:34:43,680
My colleagues working around us are the third most important group of people.

1370
01:34:43,680 --> 01:34:49,480
The people that are outside the incident not involved yet are the fourth most important group of people because we don't want them to become

1371
01:34:49,480 --> 01:34:53,760
involved and then right at the end are the people that we're going to rescue.

1372
01:34:53,760 --> 01:34:57,880
That's not to say that those people aren't our priority in terms of rescue operations.

1373
01:34:57,880 --> 01:35:02,280
But if I get injured because I take unnecessary risks, those people don't get rescued.

1374
01:35:02,280 --> 01:35:07,640
If my colleague or colleagues working around us get injured or involved in a bad way,

1375
01:35:07,640 --> 01:35:10,760
those people don't get rescued because I have to go to my colleagues.

1376
01:35:10,760 --> 01:35:17,400
If people outside that aren't involved in the fire become involved because they're getting impatient or they're emotionally charged

1377
01:35:17,400 --> 01:35:21,240
and they want to get in there to try and get someone or whatever and they become involved,

1378
01:35:21,240 --> 01:35:24,200
now we've got more people to rescue.

1379
01:35:24,200 --> 01:35:33,960
So we have to negate all of the other risks before we even think about the person that's actually there that needs to be rescued.

1380
01:35:33,960 --> 01:35:45,480
So it's a real hard, it's a real bitter pill to swallow when you're being, as I feel, we were harshly criticised.

1381
01:35:45,480 --> 01:35:49,880
And it's important, I guess, as well to remember that firefighters weren't being criticised.

1382
01:35:49,880 --> 01:35:55,160
The actions of the individual firefighters on the night is not what's been criticised by anyone, to my knowledge.

1383
01:35:55,160 --> 01:36:04,360
What's been criticised is the command and control of the incident and the, as the media have called it,

1384
01:36:04,360 --> 01:36:09,960
failure to deviate from policy early enough in order to save life.

1385
01:36:09,960 --> 01:36:15,240
I don't know how someone who writes for the Times knows how many lives would have been saved by devising from the policy.

1386
01:36:15,240 --> 01:36:19,880
But they seem to know maybe we should invite them along to educate the fire brigade.

1387
01:36:19,880 --> 01:36:27,720
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Well, then from your perspective, I'm watching the video of probably when you were around by that point,

1388
01:36:27,720 --> 01:36:34,520
you've got fire from 4th to 24th, you've got cladding, raining down fire on everyone below.

1389
01:36:34,520 --> 01:36:41,640
It looks very reminiscent of the World Trade Centre. So as a firefighter, I'm sure collapse is probably in the back of your mind.

1390
01:36:41,640 --> 01:36:51,080
So tell me about your personal experience when you went in and what you did in those three repeated rescue attempts.

1391
01:36:51,080 --> 01:36:59,080
Well, I don't want to sort of over dramatise anything, but all I can do is give you an honest account of how it felt.

1392
01:36:59,080 --> 01:37:05,920
And whilst the scale of what was going on is very different to that of 9-11,

1393
01:37:05,920 --> 01:37:11,360
I'm not the only firefighter there that had a definite 9-11 feel about the incident.

1394
01:37:11,360 --> 01:37:17,720
I was when I was given my initial brief for my first where my first entry to the building,

1395
01:37:17,720 --> 01:37:26,520
I was basically told to go somewhere that without enough equipment to keep me safe, without enough air to get me there and back out.

1396
01:37:26,520 --> 01:37:33,000
Considering I was going to rescue somebody, I could get there and back just about without doing anything else.

1397
01:37:33,000 --> 01:37:39,440
But carrying all of this extra equipment in the conditions and the heat and the smoke and the need to rescue somebody

1398
01:37:39,440 --> 01:37:44,880
who's on the fire survival guidance call on one of the higher floors of the tower.

1399
01:37:44,880 --> 01:37:49,400
I was 100% sure when I went in that I was not going to come out.

1400
01:37:49,400 --> 01:37:55,880
And I don't say that lightly, I was 100% sure when I went in that I was not going to come out.

1401
01:37:55,880 --> 01:38:03,040
And all I thought was, if that is going to happen to me, if that's if that's today, that's what's happening now,

1402
01:38:03,040 --> 01:38:09,160
I'm going to make damn sure I put in a good account of myself in this fire because it's not going to be for nothing.

1403
01:38:09,160 --> 01:38:16,720
If this goes wrong for me and for my colleague, we need to make damn sure that somebody else lives.

1404
01:38:16,720 --> 01:38:19,400
And that was all that was in my mind.

1405
01:38:19,400 --> 01:38:28,200
And then as the as the incident played out, you know, we we well, I'll tell you about the journey up the tower,

1406
01:38:28,200 --> 01:38:34,760
as I said earlier, there was you had when I say zero visibility, you will understand what I mean for your listeners.

1407
01:38:34,760 --> 01:38:44,160
If you imagine standing in a sauna in ski wear, jogging up and down on the spot whilst trying to play a game of chess

1408
01:38:44,160 --> 01:38:50,360
and then turning all the lights off, that's when I say zero visibility and to try and put into perspective

1409
01:38:50,360 --> 01:38:55,600
the conditions that you're working in like that, but hotter.

1410
01:38:55,600 --> 01:39:01,640
And we're carrying a 20 kilo battery in the doors.

1411
01:39:01,640 --> 01:39:05,680
We're carrying a 20 kilo length of rolled hose.

1412
01:39:05,680 --> 01:39:12,760
We're carrying a branch of the nozzle for the hose and we're carrying all of our fire gear and our BASET,

1413
01:39:12,760 --> 01:39:15,960
which weighs around 45 kilos in itself.

1414
01:39:15,960 --> 01:39:24,000
And we're walking up flight after flight after flight after flight stairs in the aforementioned conditions is taxing.

1415
01:39:24,000 --> 01:39:30,560
And I was, as I said, I was 100 percent sure at the time that I wasn't going to be coming out.

1416
01:39:30,560 --> 01:39:38,880
We got onto the stairwells, the lights that had been retrospectively fitted in the hallways covered most of the numbers on the floors.

1417
01:39:38,880 --> 01:39:46,000
So if you lost count of what floor you were on, the only way you could find out what floor you were on is by coming off of the protected stairwell

1418
01:39:46,000 --> 01:39:53,680
with no firefighting media to go onto a landing engulfed in flames to fill with the back of your hand through thick leather gloves

1419
01:39:53,680 --> 01:40:01,200
for door numbers, braille fashion, to then try and work out what floor you're on according to what flat you can feel.

1420
01:40:01,200 --> 01:40:04,040
It was just insane.

1421
01:40:04,040 --> 01:40:06,440
And then you'd find your way back onto the corridor, right?

1422
01:40:06,440 --> 01:40:07,880
We think we're on the seventh floor.

1423
01:40:07,880 --> 01:40:09,480
Every two flights is another floor.

1424
01:40:09,480 --> 01:40:14,720
So try and keep count this time you go up and then, you know, your people are coming out past you.

1425
01:40:14,720 --> 01:40:17,280
Firefighters is busy.

1426
01:40:17,280 --> 01:40:18,520
Equipment gets knocked.

1427
01:40:18,520 --> 01:40:22,080
I think the middle of our hose at one point had sort of spilled out.

1428
01:40:22,080 --> 01:40:30,160
So we're now carrying a spiral of tangled hose sort of bundled up across my arms and my colleagues arms on the way up to the fire floor.

1429
01:40:30,160 --> 01:40:39,760
And all of this time, we're we're acutely aware of the fact that our procedures, as said earlier, are you go two floors below the fire floor,

1430
01:40:39,760 --> 01:40:44,520
you set your hose in one floor below the fire floor and then you.

1431
01:40:44,520 --> 01:40:49,720
Only enter the fire floor when you have water that is to protect yourself from the smoke,

1432
01:40:49,720 --> 01:40:54,120
which is effectively petrol, it's unburnt fuel.

1433
01:40:54,120 --> 01:40:56,760
So that smoke, those fire gases can catch fire.

1434
01:40:56,760 --> 01:41:08,720
They can explode if you're in a corridor full of that gas and a flame is introduced because a door fails from a compartment fire that's going on.

1435
01:41:08,720 --> 01:41:14,320
Those flames can spontaneously ignite and they can incinerate.

1436
01:41:14,320 --> 01:41:23,920
The only way you've got protecting yourself is to gas cool, which is with your hose and your charged hose with your water and you pulse the sealings and you cool all of those fire gases down.

1437
01:41:23,920 --> 01:41:26,480
So they're below their auto ignition temperature.

1438
01:41:26,480 --> 01:41:31,840
So that if a flame is introduced, those gases are too cool to catch fire.

1439
01:41:31,840 --> 01:41:38,240
We are going in and out of fire floors and in the middle of a building engulfed in flames with no protection whatsoever,

1440
01:41:38,240 --> 01:41:42,760
because we haven't got to a fire floor yet that we need to set in at.

1441
01:41:42,760 --> 01:41:49,160
And we don't even know if there's water available when we get there because of a dropping pressure could be a full T dry riser.

1442
01:41:49,160 --> 01:41:52,920
We just don't know. It's a game of chance.

1443
01:41:52,920 --> 01:41:59,400
And I was 100% convinced that I wouldn't be coming back out because of all of all of that combination of factors.

1444
01:41:59,400 --> 01:42:04,320
See, and what blows me away is this is illustrating the worst case scenario that I talk about.

1445
01:42:04,320 --> 01:42:08,960
You know, I've worked for departments where they've taken their training and physical fitness very seriously.

1446
01:42:08,960 --> 01:42:12,960
And I've worked for some where I know damn well you had a dumpster fire.

1447
01:42:12,960 --> 01:42:15,200
Some of them would shit themselves just trying to get their mask on.

1448
01:42:15,200 --> 01:42:18,000
And it's just me being blatantly honest.

1449
01:42:18,000 --> 01:42:26,120
And so when I would paint the picture of this 28 story building next to us that I would constantly do drills on myself and do a full high rise trip,

1450
01:42:26,120 --> 01:42:28,760
just like you said, about 100 pounds of gear hanging off your body.

1451
01:42:28,760 --> 01:42:31,040
And I'm not the biggest of men anyway.

1452
01:42:31,040 --> 01:42:32,600
People would be like, oh, that'll never happen.

1453
01:42:32,600 --> 01:42:38,400
We'll just take the elevator. And you're describing the worst case scenario.

1454
01:42:38,400 --> 01:42:42,400
And when they say there's people on the top floor, there were people on the top floor.

1455
01:42:42,400 --> 01:42:49,480
But I can absolutely envision the searing heat that is burning through not only from the outside in,

1456
01:42:49,480 --> 01:42:55,320
but from the inside out, the actual exertion of your human body.

1457
01:42:55,320 --> 01:42:59,240
But then trying to keep your breathing low enough so you don't spend that tank.

1458
01:42:59,240 --> 01:43:03,960
But 24 floors via the stairs.

1459
01:43:03,960 --> 01:43:10,920
Again, it's terrifying just wondering if you have enough air to get back down before you suck your mask to your face.

1460
01:43:10,920 --> 01:43:17,880
So I can see as a fellow firefighter exactly how fucking terrifying that must have been.

1461
01:43:17,880 --> 01:43:19,560
Yeah, and that's exactly it.

1462
01:43:19,560 --> 01:43:25,520
I think people say things like, oh, you're a hero or you're so brave or whatever.

1463
01:43:25,520 --> 01:43:30,960
And the reality is that I was shit in my pants.

1464
01:43:30,960 --> 01:43:36,000
You know, I was literally I was I was terrified that I wasn't going to make it out of the building.

1465
01:43:36,000 --> 01:43:43,160
And the only thing that prevents me from freezing at that moment is professionalism,

1466
01:43:43,160 --> 01:43:57,040
is training, is my desire to make sure that that I influence that that day in a positive way, in whatever way I can.

1467
01:43:57,040 --> 01:44:01,360
And that sounds really dramatic, and I hate saying it because it does sound really dramatic.

1468
01:44:01,360 --> 01:44:13,560
But I am one of many firefighters that genuinely is willing to give my life in a fire situation if it's going to save somebody else's.

1469
01:44:13,560 --> 01:44:16,560
Because that's that's the point of me doing what I do.

1470
01:44:16,560 --> 01:44:20,480
It's not me trying to be a hero or that's the point.

1471
01:44:20,480 --> 01:44:26,280
That's why I joined this job, because if someone has to die, I'd rather it be me than a complete stranger.

1472
01:44:26,280 --> 01:44:30,480
Because that person can't save themselves.

1473
01:44:30,480 --> 01:44:36,280
I have the skills, the equipment and the ability to save that person, preferably, obviously, both of us get in and get out.

1474
01:44:36,280 --> 01:44:43,400
And it's all great. But if it goes wrong, that's OK, as long as it's gone wrong for the right reasons, if that makes any sense.

1475
01:44:43,400 --> 01:44:45,400
Oh, it does completely. I mean, I totally know.

1476
01:44:45,400 --> 01:44:48,000
None of us wake up going, I think I'm going to die today.

1477
01:44:48,000 --> 01:44:50,520
But that's but that is always a possibility.

1478
01:44:50,520 --> 01:44:58,360
And that's why it's so mind blowing when some people don't understand the magnitude of our job and the importance of training, because you might.

1479
01:44:58,360 --> 01:45:02,040
But like you said earlier in the conversation, it's a phrase I use a lot.

1480
01:45:02,040 --> 01:45:05,800
How would you feel if your family died because a rescuer hadn't trained?

1481
01:45:05,800 --> 01:45:18,240
This job is not for anyone other than the most driven, passionate men and women, because when the shit hits the fan, you're going to crumble if you're not ready.

1482
01:45:18,240 --> 01:45:19,960
And you've had your whole career to prepare.

1483
01:45:19,960 --> 01:45:22,320
It might have been 25 years. It might have been two days.

1484
01:45:22,320 --> 01:45:23,920
You might be the rookie on the fire.

1485
01:45:23,920 --> 01:45:26,960
So to waste any of that time is lunacy.

1486
01:45:26,960 --> 01:45:39,840
And that's why when we see standards lowered and fitness tests lowered, all these things and then the budgetary cuts, like we said, the ripple effect is human beings die and then families lose their loved ones.

1487
01:45:39,840 --> 01:45:43,200
Lineages are completely snuffed out.

1488
01:45:43,200 --> 01:45:47,080
Yeah. And it's one of the most heartbreaking things about Grenfell.

1489
01:45:47,080 --> 01:45:57,240
When you look at the list of names of the victims of the people that died in that fire, it's an entire bloodline.

1490
01:45:57,240 --> 01:46:04,320
It's literally the same surname after the same surname after the same surname after the same surname after the same surname.

1491
01:46:04,320 --> 01:46:08,880
And it's heartbreaking when you realize that there were 18 children that died in that fire.

1492
01:46:08,880 --> 01:46:10,640
Some of those parents survived.

1493
01:46:10,640 --> 01:46:20,920
Can you imagine how that must fucking feel as a parent who have made it out that to have had both of your children die in that fire?

1494
01:46:20,920 --> 01:46:30,840
That's you can't you can't comprehend that you can't even begin to imagine how horrendous that must feel.

1495
01:46:30,840 --> 01:46:39,680
And it's one of the one of the main reasons I can completely understand the overwhelming sense of anger from the community,

1496
01:46:39,680 --> 01:46:44,480
because it's no secret that fire was avoidable.

1497
01:46:44,480 --> 01:46:54,640
If Cornersburg that fire was avoidable, all of those people, those 18 children, those 72 lives in total, 72 families immediately affected,

1498
01:46:54,640 --> 01:47:01,800
plus the ripple that comes out of shockwaves that come out from that afterwards.

1499
01:47:01,800 --> 01:47:14,600
Avoidable. Absolutely. Well, I want to get on to the community and that element in a second, but just to kind of tie up your experience with the three attempts.

1500
01:47:14,600 --> 01:47:18,560
Were you able to actually get to people? Were you able to get some people out?

1501
01:47:18,560 --> 01:47:21,320
So on the first attempt, it's really heartbreaking.

1502
01:47:21,320 --> 01:47:27,480
It's something I've wrestled with and has been the main sort of cause of my struggles with.

1503
01:47:27,480 --> 01:47:38,560
I knew you said OCD then. My struggles with PTSD and depression that I sort of have fought with since.

1504
01:47:38,560 --> 01:47:42,680
And it was about a decision that we had to make. And this wasn't a unique decision to me.

1505
01:47:42,680 --> 01:47:46,320
This was a decision that many firefighters had to make on the night.

1506
01:47:46,320 --> 01:47:56,440
And it was a sad, just a real heartbreaking situation where we're finally on our fire floor and we're outside the flat of the person that we're there to rescue.

1507
01:47:56,440 --> 01:48:01,640
And our emergency whistles are going off telling us that we should already be out of the building because we're low on air.

1508
01:48:01,640 --> 01:48:11,120
And we're up near the top of the building with a tangled length of hose, no water and seemingly no hope.

1509
01:48:11,120 --> 01:48:16,680
And we managed to get my colleague found the dry riser connected up.

1510
01:48:16,680 --> 01:48:24,640
I then had to blind, kneeling down in the corridor that was 550 degrees Celsius.

1511
01:48:24,640 --> 01:48:31,840
Had to find the end of the hose and then feed it back through itself to undo the two or three knots that were in the hose.

1512
01:48:31,840 --> 01:48:37,440
Because as you know, if you charge hose when it's tangled, you can't use it. It's unmanageable.

1513
01:48:37,440 --> 01:48:45,280
So I had to untangle the hose before we even knew if we were going to have any water, before we could even think about putting this door in and rescuing this guy.

1514
01:48:45,280 --> 01:48:53,920
And constantly in my ear is that high pitched whistle telling me that my time is running out.

1515
01:48:53,920 --> 01:48:59,880
Now that's some serious pressure. And I managed to get the hose untangled.

1516
01:48:59,880 --> 01:49:04,000
My colleague managed to get set into the dry riser. We got the branch connected.

1517
01:49:04,000 --> 01:49:06,920
We turned the water on. Holy shit, we've got water. I couldn't believe it.

1518
01:49:06,920 --> 01:49:09,960
I really didn't think we were going to have any. And we had some.

1519
01:49:09,960 --> 01:49:13,760
I did a quick temperature check with the pulse spray up to the ceiling.

1520
01:49:13,760 --> 01:49:18,320
Water came back down, which means that it's not actually that hot.

1521
01:49:18,320 --> 01:49:25,520
It's, don't get me wrong, 550 degrees is hot. But as you know, ceiling temperature at fire can be in excess of a thousand.

1522
01:49:25,520 --> 01:49:34,720
At Grenfell, I'm sure we'll be probably approaching 1500, 2000 degrees in places because of the radiated heat from all areas.

1523
01:49:34,720 --> 01:49:41,480
So I was then in a position where I was confident and comfortable with the fact that we've got protection

1524
01:49:41,480 --> 01:49:51,000
and the flammable gases in the corridor landing area that we were in weren't about to burst into flames.

1525
01:49:51,000 --> 01:49:57,240
So then we have a decision to make. We've probably not got enough air to get ourselves out.

1526
01:49:57,240 --> 01:50:04,600
We definitely haven't got enough air to put that door in, get that guy and get all three of us out.

1527
01:50:04,600 --> 01:50:17,560
So we had a decision to make, which is leave the guy or try and rescue him, possibly all die, try and rescue him.

1528
01:50:17,560 --> 01:50:25,960
Maybe he dies on the way out anyway, because let's face it, it's a lot of flaws of searing heat, toxic smoke and flames.

1529
01:50:25,960 --> 01:50:31,680
He has zero protection. We can't take our mask off and put it on him.

1530
01:50:31,680 --> 01:50:39,120
We haven't even got air for ourselves. So we had to make a decision that we were going to leave the guy.

1531
01:50:39,120 --> 01:50:49,040
And that's what we did. We literally sat outside the door of a man that needed to be saved and chose not to save him.

1532
01:50:49,040 --> 01:50:53,800
And we left.

1533
01:50:53,800 --> 01:51:06,360
And that's a decision that you have to wrestle with.

1534
01:51:06,360 --> 01:51:13,840
And it's hard, but it was the right decision for us because I have no doubts that.

1535
01:51:13,840 --> 01:51:22,560
Well, I found out afterwards, thanks to a handy local newspaper printing the story without any permission, that that guy did die.

1536
01:51:22,560 --> 01:51:30,000
I'd actively avoided finding out because I didn't want the guilt. I didn't want to know.

1537
01:51:30,000 --> 01:51:39,600
But I believe that if we had tried to rescue him, there's a good chance at that point that he was probably dead anyway, in that kind of heat.

1538
01:51:39,600 --> 01:51:47,040
But if he wasn't, I don't see any way that we could have got him out realistically alive.

1539
01:51:47,040 --> 01:51:54,480
And as I said, there was a real belief that if we'd have taken him, it would have cost us our lives.

1540
01:51:54,480 --> 01:52:03,320
And as proved to be the case, I was alive so I could go back in another two times and help rescue other people.

1541
01:52:03,320 --> 01:52:09,200
Whereas if I was involved in that firefight, I died, lost consciousness, whatever, not made it out.

1542
01:52:09,200 --> 01:52:15,160
Every firefighter in that building at that time, their next job is come and find me and my colleague and get us out.

1543
01:52:15,160 --> 01:52:20,280
Everyone else in that building that needs rescue and gets abandoned for us.

1544
01:52:20,280 --> 01:52:29,280
So it's a real fucked up situation, but you have to choose which life you're going to value more, which life you're going to protect, which life you're going to save.

1545
01:52:29,280 --> 01:52:38,200
It's playing God and it's not something any human should have to do.

1546
01:52:38,200 --> 01:52:48,400
I can see it now, say you did breach the door, say you had a little bit more air than you actually did and you managed to make it in.

1547
01:52:48,400 --> 01:52:56,800
With one of the highest floors being supercharged with superheated gases,

1548
01:52:56,800 --> 01:53:04,040
even if there'd been some sort of magical barrier where his flat door seemed to keep the heat out,

1549
01:53:04,040 --> 01:53:09,560
the moment you opened it up, especially if you took him into the hallway or the stairwell, which is basically another chimney,

1550
01:53:09,560 --> 01:53:13,440
it would be two breaths and his lungs would be done anyway.

1551
01:53:13,440 --> 01:53:17,320
You beat yourself up, but you're right.

1552
01:53:17,320 --> 01:53:23,080
We cannot bring an unprotected human being through a raging fire and out the other side.

1553
01:53:23,080 --> 01:53:32,760
The only way they can survive in that situation is if you guys were actually able to knock down the fire to make it tannable to then remove the patient.

1554
01:53:32,760 --> 01:53:38,360
Or some magical rope rescue from the outside had there not been an inferno.

1555
01:53:38,360 --> 01:53:44,360
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's a weird thing because I know that we made the right decision.

1556
01:53:44,360 --> 01:53:49,520
It's just really harsh that the right decision is so horrendous.

1557
01:53:49,520 --> 01:53:52,560
Yeah, I mean, and I think that's the thing is what I'm learning about now.

1558
01:53:52,560 --> 01:53:59,520
You've got PTSD, you've got the classic definition, classic symptoms, the flashbacks.

1559
01:53:59,520 --> 01:54:03,400
You know, they hear the loud noise and they're cowering under the table kind of thing.

1560
01:54:03,400 --> 01:54:09,480
But the moral injury, I think, is the other description of what we deal with.

1561
01:54:09,480 --> 01:54:18,560
And the huge, huge elements of those are guilt and oh, my God, that's the other one.

1562
01:54:18,560 --> 01:54:21,520
But anyway, so guilt is a huge one. It'll come to me in a second.

1563
01:54:21,520 --> 01:54:26,440
But the inability to save is what really plagues so many rescuers.

1564
01:54:26,440 --> 01:54:31,720
And I've been a paramedic or an EMT and a fireman for 14 years through my career.

1565
01:54:31,720 --> 01:54:36,040
I never saved a single cardiac arrest. I saved pre-codes.

1566
01:54:36,040 --> 01:54:40,920
But someone who went into arrest, I always had the person who had, you know,

1567
01:54:40,920 --> 01:54:45,520
emesis coming out, an unending flowing, you know, gastric contents.

1568
01:54:45,520 --> 01:54:51,400
Or I had the 28 year old with an aneurysm that dropped dead, you know, seemingly healthy.

1569
01:54:51,400 --> 01:54:56,000
Those are the ones I always had. So I can even though it wasn't in the same environment,

1570
01:54:56,000 --> 01:54:59,920
I had the pedestrians. I had the call after being nailed by a taxi on a road.

1571
01:54:59,920 --> 01:55:03,240
You know, that inability to save is just like you said,

1572
01:55:03,240 --> 01:55:07,480
you got the emotional element from seeing the loved ones having the heart broken in front of you.

1573
01:55:07,480 --> 01:55:09,880
And then you've got that. I did the training.

1574
01:55:09,880 --> 01:55:15,200
You said in the books that if I did this, this and this, I would save lives and I fucking didn't.

1575
01:55:15,200 --> 01:55:19,000
Yeah, exactly that. And an incident the size of Grenfell,

1576
01:55:19,000 --> 01:55:24,560
the thing I think I've struggled with the most is it isn't one life that we failed to save.

1577
01:55:24,560 --> 01:55:29,520
It's we failed 72 times. That's a shit ton of failure in one night.

1578
01:55:29,520 --> 01:55:35,440
And it's not to say that we're responsible for that or that it's our fault or that it's because of our lack of training or lack of effort or anything.

1579
01:55:35,440 --> 01:55:43,600
It's not. We know it's not. But nonetheless, we still failed 72 times in one night.

1580
01:55:43,600 --> 01:55:46,200
Yeah. Well, the other element I was talking about was shame. That was the thing.

1581
01:55:46,200 --> 01:55:50,280
So those guilt and shame, you know, they tie in together, you know, and we shouldn't be shamed,

1582
01:55:50,280 --> 01:55:55,360
but we feel it and it's a very toxic thing to have in the human body.

1583
01:55:55,360 --> 01:55:58,480
Yeah, it is. And I'll tell you what else it's effect.

1584
01:55:58,480 --> 01:56:01,840
It manifests itself in so many weird and wonderful ways.

1585
01:56:01,840 --> 01:56:08,960
And anytime I train now, like if I'm on a running machine or I'm out on the road doing a run and I want to stop running because my lungs hurt.

1586
01:56:08,960 --> 01:56:13,560
I think about that night and think.

1587
01:56:13,560 --> 01:56:18,960
If I had done more running before that night, if I had been fitter before that night,

1588
01:56:18,960 --> 01:56:25,560
not that I was unfit, but if I'd been fitter, been stronger, just been better, physically better,

1589
01:56:25,560 --> 01:56:31,120
could I have got that person out? Would I have had more air at the top of those stairs?

1590
01:56:31,120 --> 01:56:35,880
And that's where the guilt and the shame and stuff. And it's completely unwarranted.

1591
01:56:35,880 --> 01:56:39,520
Because, you know, if I was obese and never trained, fair enough.

1592
01:56:39,520 --> 01:56:47,320
But, you know, as we said earlier, I'm the best version of me and I strive to become better each day

1593
01:56:47,320 --> 01:56:52,800
from a physical perspective and from a mental health perspective now as well.

1594
01:56:52,800 --> 01:57:01,760
So everything I do now is in terms of training will revert back to moments like those,

1595
01:57:01,760 --> 01:57:08,240
not just Grenfell, but any other situation where I will question, did I do enough?

1596
01:57:08,240 --> 01:57:16,240
Could I have done more? And I think what makes if I am allowed to arrogantly say what makes me a good firefighter,

1597
01:57:16,240 --> 01:57:21,480
what makes me good at my job is because I will always question that. I will always question myself.

1598
01:57:21,480 --> 01:57:27,840
Enough is never enough. More is what's needed every single step of the way.

1599
01:57:27,840 --> 01:57:35,360
And that means that when you do face a perceived failure, as you said, it hurts so much more.

1600
01:57:35,360 --> 01:57:37,880
Yeah. And I think that's the other element.

1601
01:57:37,880 --> 01:57:45,520
You know, we train so hard because the good firefighters, good police officers can see I have to train hard because lives depend on me.

1602
01:57:45,520 --> 01:57:54,720
But I think the ones again that are faltering a little bit, find yourself in exactly the same position that you did.

1603
01:57:54,720 --> 01:58:01,560
But like you said, imagine you're the obese firefighter that only made up five floors and then just turn around and left again.

1604
01:58:01,560 --> 01:58:06,280
How would you feel? How would you be able to deal with the mental trauma knowing that those people died?

1605
01:58:06,280 --> 01:58:12,560
Where you didn't realize that when you got to the top floor, it was actually too hot anyway and the person wouldn't have made it.

1606
01:58:12,560 --> 01:58:16,040
But you didn't even have a chance to get up there because you didn't take your job seriously.

1607
01:58:16,040 --> 01:58:19,840
How is that going to haunt you? So that should be another motivating thing.

1608
01:58:19,840 --> 01:58:29,040
If you know you've done as much as you possibly can, then at least you can fall back and kind of refute some of that negative self-talk and say,

1609
01:58:29,040 --> 01:58:31,520
look, there is nothing more I could have done.

1610
01:58:31,520 --> 01:58:35,560
I did my best and it's awful, but I did my best.

1611
01:58:35,560 --> 01:58:42,480
But if you haven't got that as a buffer, then you're going to be even more emotionally torn.

1612
01:58:42,480 --> 01:58:54,080
Yeah. And I think that's been one of my saving graces really for me, knowing that I was the right person for the job.

1613
01:58:54,080 --> 01:59:00,880
And it was circumstances that meant I couldn't achieve my objective and save that person particularly.

1614
01:59:00,880 --> 01:59:06,280
It wasn't my...

1615
01:59:06,280 --> 01:59:10,920
What's the word? It wasn't my inadequacies. It wasn't my shortfalls, my shortcomings.

1616
01:59:10,920 --> 01:59:17,600
It wasn't anything about me. It was just a real, real shit situation.

1617
01:59:17,600 --> 01:59:23,240
Yeah, exactly. What I want to talk about is, because I'm sure this was simultaneous,

1618
01:59:23,240 --> 01:59:29,440
what I saw from the documentary was the incredible banding together of the community,

1619
01:59:29,440 --> 01:59:35,320
seemingly in support of you guys on the ground and also for each other.

1620
01:59:35,320 --> 01:59:42,880
So tell me about the diversity of men and women that lived in Grenfell and then what you saw as far as all those residents

1621
01:59:42,880 --> 01:59:47,960
and the neighbours banding together to help mitigate that situation.

1622
01:59:47,960 --> 02:00:00,160
Well, I'll tell you what I would urge your listeners to do is jump on YouTube and listen to Bridge Over Troubled Water for the Grenfell survivors.

1623
02:00:00,160 --> 02:00:05,640
It was a load of British artists, there might have been a few American singers in there as well.

1624
02:00:05,640 --> 02:00:10,040
And they basically re-recorded a version of a bridge over troubled water.

1625
02:00:10,040 --> 02:00:16,400
And it's an absolutely beautiful song. I mean, obviously, I'm a bit biased towards it because it's something that it's like,

1626
02:00:16,400 --> 02:00:24,680
as you will probably understand, one of my go-to miserable night songs when I want to wallow in self-pity a little bit when I'm struggling,

1627
02:00:24,680 --> 02:00:34,960
I would describe it as hauntingly beautiful. But what's really nice is halfway through the song, it sort of changes from melancholy to...

1628
02:00:34,960 --> 02:00:40,400
It shows real footage from the night of the firefighters and of the community.

1629
02:00:40,400 --> 02:00:50,720
And it highlights beautifully the diversity in Labbroke Grove and the way the community comes together.

1630
02:00:50,720 --> 02:00:56,480
You know, the streets were just... from as soon as the sun was up and people realized what was happening,

1631
02:00:56,480 --> 02:01:03,320
all of the side roads were chock-a-block with people that were bringing clothing down, that were bringing food down,

1632
02:01:03,320 --> 02:01:07,840
that were churches, mosques, synagogues, everything was opening up together, everyone is welcome.

1633
02:01:07,840 --> 02:01:18,600
There were no divisions through race or religion anymore. It was just a humanitarian rescue mission.

1634
02:01:18,600 --> 02:01:28,160
And it was absolutely stunning. It was emotional thinking about it. It was one of the most beautiful things to see.

1635
02:01:28,160 --> 02:01:42,040
When it's got this towering graveyard in the background still smoking and the community around it,

1636
02:01:42,040 --> 02:01:49,800
like... I don't know, I was going to say like worker ants, but it sounds really derogatory, but I don't mean it in that way.

1637
02:01:49,800 --> 02:01:57,480
I mean the way they work. Everyone swarmed together and everyone just did everything and anything they could.

1638
02:01:57,480 --> 02:02:03,560
You know, whether it's turn up with a Mars bar to give to someone or, you know, people were hugging each other in the streets,

1639
02:02:03,560 --> 02:02:07,640
strangers, and they were consoling each other and they were being there to support each other.

1640
02:02:07,640 --> 02:02:19,240
It's everything that you want from a community. And it's one of the biggest things I would say that is overlooked from the upper classes.

1641
02:02:19,240 --> 02:02:23,240
Upper classes, there seems to be this inherent belief of superiority.

1642
02:02:23,240 --> 02:02:28,960
There seems to be this inherent belief that they've got the system that works. It's bullshit.

1643
02:02:28,960 --> 02:02:35,320
You go to an estate in London and see the community there. When the chips are down,

1644
02:02:35,320 --> 02:02:41,560
a community like the one in Lagbrook Grove comes together like nothing you have ever seen before.

1645
02:02:41,560 --> 02:02:48,920
They are real people that have an ability to comfort each other in the most traumatic of situations.

1646
02:02:48,920 --> 02:02:55,720
And everything else goes out the window. As I said, the colour, the religion, you know, who lives where.

1647
02:02:55,720 --> 02:03:02,040
No one gives a shit. Everyone was there to support each other and help each other on their worst days of their lives.

1648
02:03:02,040 --> 02:03:07,880
Everybody that day was an emergency service worker. Everybody.

1649
02:03:07,880 --> 02:03:16,520
Yeah. And that's what I saw. And what's really sad is this was happening amidst an absence of leadership from the council itself.

1650
02:03:16,520 --> 02:03:23,480
So, yeah, the documentary kind of starts unraveling it. But at the moment, if the community hadn't banded together,

1651
02:03:23,480 --> 02:03:29,720
there basically would have been very few people there apart from the actual emergency responders that were trying to put the fire out.

1652
02:03:29,720 --> 02:03:38,360
So, the power, like you said, of the unity that I saw and the incredible pride I had in the British,

1653
02:03:38,360 --> 02:03:41,800
the same way as when you saw the London bombings. It's the same thing.

1654
02:03:41,800 --> 02:03:50,280
My England, my Britain, and I include Ireland in whatever label that we could call all four islands,

1655
02:03:50,280 --> 02:03:55,960
because let's face it, we're two rocks that live right next to each other. We all share all the same DNA.

1656
02:03:55,960 --> 02:04:05,240
But my home is diverse. Like I always tell people, look at the opening scene of Love Actually when they're in Heathrow Airport.

1657
02:04:05,240 --> 02:04:17,800
I remember sitting in Heathrow Airport going on holiday and being just enamored by all the different African dresses and the East Indian robes.

1658
02:04:17,800 --> 02:04:21,480
And that's my people. That's what England looks like.

1659
02:04:21,480 --> 02:04:28,280
And so to see, like you said, the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews and the Buddhists and the Hindus and everyone

1660
02:04:28,280 --> 02:04:34,120
that were just seeing each other as brothers and sisters and doing whatever they could, opening their doors

1661
02:04:34,120 --> 02:04:41,640
and mitigating the emotional turmoil these poor people were going through was so beautiful.

1662
02:04:41,640 --> 02:04:46,760
To see such beauty, like you said, in the shadows of such tragedy.

1663
02:04:46,760 --> 02:04:52,360
Yeah. And it's lovely that that has continued on as well. It wasn't just for that day or that week.

1664
02:04:52,360 --> 02:04:58,120
It's continued on. It is that community there now is a fiercely protective community.

1665
02:04:58,120 --> 02:05:04,600
If you go down to Labbert Grove Estates now with a camera and start filming anywhere around there,

1666
02:05:04,600 --> 02:05:09,240
you will be accosted by somebody and they will demand to know who you are, why you're there.

1667
02:05:09,240 --> 02:05:24,520
It's not a tourist destination. It is a symbol of a divisive and classist society.

1668
02:05:24,520 --> 02:05:35,000
And also subsequent to the fire, it's a symbol of hope and a demonstration of how people can come together

1669
02:05:35,000 --> 02:05:41,320
and do come together when they need to. Yeah. I mean, it was beautiful. Again, I urge people

1670
02:05:41,320 --> 02:05:46,600
to watch that documentary. It was such a human look at it. So just going to wrap it up, the

1671
02:05:47,640 --> 02:05:54,440
operational focus, I guess. How long did it take to finally put the fire out completely?

1672
02:05:54,440 --> 02:06:00,760
And then what tactics did you use? Or was it just basically protecting exposures and letting it burn itself out?

1673
02:06:00,760 --> 02:06:07,800
It was pretty much the latter, to be honest with you. Yeah. There was still fire in the building

1674
02:06:07,800 --> 02:06:13,000
when we finally left at midday of the following day. And we'd worked right through the night

1675
02:06:13,720 --> 02:06:22,120
and into the next shift. We eventually left. We went off duty about 4 p.m. that day. I don't

1676
02:06:22,120 --> 02:06:27,480
think the fire was out until the following afternoon. So it was like a good sort of 48

1677
02:06:27,480 --> 02:06:35,400
hours before it was finally declared all fire out. It was a weird one because we went off duty at 4 p.m.

1678
02:06:35,400 --> 02:06:43,160
and we were back on duty at 8 p.m. It's a really surreal sort of thing to do because, again,

1679
02:06:43,160 --> 02:06:47,560
people don't realize that. People think, oh, so what did you do after the fire? Like you went off

1680
02:06:47,560 --> 02:06:53,640
at 4 p.m. and you started at 8 p.m. the previous day. It's 20 hours of work straight through. Yeah,

1681
02:06:53,640 --> 02:06:58,920
yeah, yeah. What did you do then? I went back on duty four hours later. Could you not take the night

1682
02:06:58,920 --> 02:07:07,560
off? 200 firefighters cannot take the night off. It's a mad one. And the next night was just back

1683
02:07:07,560 --> 02:07:13,880
to a normal night at work. It's such a weird job, as you can attest to. It's such a strange job

1684
02:07:13,880 --> 02:07:18,040
when you've been to something as huge as that and then the next day is just a normal night. You might

1685
02:07:18,040 --> 02:07:24,280
have been a light or a kid with an arm stuck down the back of a radiator or something and you're

1686
02:07:24,280 --> 02:07:31,960
just sort of there still a bit dazed from the previous 20 hours of work thinking, the fuck's

1687
02:07:31,960 --> 02:07:38,200
going on? Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, you've got to process it. Just before we get to the kind of

1688
02:07:38,200 --> 02:07:43,320
the mental toll within your department, I just want to touch on one more thing with the community.

1689
02:07:43,320 --> 02:07:50,760
Obviously, the response was horrendous. They film. I mean, they show the lack of support from the

1690
02:07:50,760 --> 02:07:59,000
council, the complete exodus of the hierarchy and then naming new seemingly disjointed people to

1691
02:07:59,800 --> 02:08:04,760
step in their place. But one of the most beautiful things I saw, and I think they repeated it like

1692
02:08:04,760 --> 02:08:12,120
six months after, was what they call the silent walk. So in the face of all the horrendous

1693
02:08:12,120 --> 02:08:17,720
bullshit we're seeing here with the looting and the rioting, the men, women and children

1694
02:08:17,720 --> 02:08:24,280
in either from Grenfell or from the surrounding areas of people there in support, marched through

1695
02:08:25,160 --> 02:08:29,000
silently, didn't say a word. And I saw there was one thing where they were hugging the firefighters

1696
02:08:29,000 --> 02:08:35,160
and giving you guys love as they're walking by. But were you present? And if not, I'm sure you saw

1697
02:08:35,160 --> 02:08:42,920
on TV. How was that received in England? Because to me, in stark contrast to the mindless violence

1698
02:08:42,920 --> 02:08:49,160
we see with the protests here, that seemed like such a powerful statement of unity with the people

1699
02:08:49,160 --> 02:08:55,560
that were present. So the silent marches take place every month, the 14th of every month,

1700
02:08:55,560 --> 02:09:00,200
and have done every single month since the night of the fire. So they've been going on for three

1701
02:09:00,200 --> 02:09:07,320
years without fail. Obviously, during the COVID situation, over the last few months, they have

1702
02:09:07,320 --> 02:09:13,960
been remote now. So they'll do a memorial service on the 14th of each month that you can, that anyone

1703
02:09:13,960 --> 02:09:20,040
can sort of tune into on through Facebook or Zoom, it might be on Zoom as well, I'm not sure.

1704
02:09:21,160 --> 02:09:29,240
And you can listen in on the memorials. But I've been to not all of the silent marches,

1705
02:09:29,240 --> 02:09:41,960
but I've been to a hell of a lot of them. And they are jaw dropping, jaw dropping, jaw droppingly

1706
02:09:42,760 --> 02:09:49,080
emotional. They are, it's such a powerful thing. And it makes you realize when you're in a crowd

1707
02:09:49,080 --> 02:09:57,320
of about 1000, 2000 people, and you're doing like a two mile walk that takes an hour and a half in

1708
02:09:57,320 --> 02:10:04,920
utter silence. And you look around at all of the different faces from all the different walks of

1709
02:10:04,920 --> 02:10:11,960
life, again, different colors, religions, backgrounds, like everything. And you realize that

1710
02:10:11,960 --> 02:10:20,280
this isn't just about Grenfell, this is about an apathetic government sacrifice in humans that they

1711
02:10:20,280 --> 02:10:30,920
devalued a long time ago. And something like this, there is a huge amount of noise in silence,

1712
02:10:30,920 --> 02:10:37,160
when it is put together like that, a huge amount of noise in silence. And when you're them, just

1713
02:10:38,200 --> 02:10:45,000
slowly walking along, it gives you a real good opportunity to study people to look at their faces.

1714
02:10:45,000 --> 02:10:49,880
And you can see the pain in people's faces. And these aren't necessarily just people that have

1715
02:10:49,880 --> 02:10:54,040
lost people at Grenfell. These could be people, you know, people come to these marches from all

1716
02:10:54,040 --> 02:10:59,240
over the country, because they're there for their own reasons in support of a common cause, which is

1717
02:11:01,160 --> 02:11:10,520
we are not sacrificial lambs. We are not, we are not here to pay taxes, to be undervalued,

1718
02:11:10,520 --> 02:11:19,480
underrepresented, and just thrown to the wolves. And we aren't going to put up with it anymore.

1719
02:11:20,120 --> 02:11:27,000
And as a firefighter, to be able to go down there and to proudly wear my tunic, so everyone knows

1720
02:11:27,000 --> 02:11:35,960
that I'm a firefighter, because not because I want any sort of accolade or anything, you know,

1721
02:11:35,960 --> 02:11:42,120
you know, from the people that are down there. But because as firefighters, we want them to know that

1722
02:11:43,720 --> 02:11:51,160
we leave incidents, but incidents don't leave us. We do not pack up our shit at the end of a fire

1723
02:11:52,120 --> 02:11:58,920
and go home and never think about these people ever again. We're going back month after month

1724
02:11:58,920 --> 02:12:03,720
after month to demonstrate that we have not forgotten the people of Grenfell. We have not

1725
02:12:03,720 --> 02:12:09,160
forgotten the people of Ladbroke Grove. We have not forgotten the people full stop. We will be there

1726
02:12:09,160 --> 02:12:18,760
as firefighters in our own time to support a cause that everybody should be a part of.

1727
02:12:20,680 --> 02:12:25,560
Yeah, which goes back to what you said, that's why we do what we do, you know, and it's the value of

1728
02:12:25,560 --> 02:12:30,520
human life. And then I think you hit the nail on the head earlier too, something I talk about.

1729
02:12:30,520 --> 02:12:34,680
If a meteor hits planet Earth and people die, there's nothing we could have done about that.

1730
02:12:35,240 --> 02:12:41,400
But it's the preventable deaths that infuriate me, whether it's our own men and women dying from,

1731
02:12:41,400 --> 02:12:46,120
you know, causes of carcinogens from smoke or sleep deprivation or whatever it is,

1732
02:12:46,120 --> 02:12:50,920
or like you said, you know, whatever happened that allowed that crane to fall and kill that

1733
02:12:50,920 --> 02:12:55,640
poor lady, whatever happened to create an environment where Grenfell, you know,

1734
02:12:55,640 --> 02:13:01,240
turn into an inferno, whatever happened that allowed those terrorists to kill all the Londoners.

1735
02:13:01,240 --> 02:13:07,240
I mean, these are the things where you can put some things down to an accident, you know, a true,

1736
02:13:08,760 --> 02:13:13,960
you know, angry mother Earth kind of event, whether it's an earthquake or a hurricane or tornado,

1737
02:13:13,960 --> 02:13:18,760
or some of the storms that we see in the UK, there's some things that we can't prevent,

1738
02:13:18,760 --> 02:13:23,480
but there are so many that we can. And when people die in a preventable tragedy,

1739
02:13:23,480 --> 02:13:30,840
it is un fucking acceptable. Yeah, I agree. And to use your analogy, the,

1740
02:13:30,840 --> 02:13:36,040
you know, the meteor flying down towards Earth and it's going to kill millions of people,

1741
02:13:36,040 --> 02:13:41,000
there's nothing you can do about that. But if there are a load of people sitting in an office

1742
02:13:41,000 --> 02:13:44,760
going, Oh, look, that meteor is going to hit planet Earth. How much will it cost to blow it

1743
02:13:44,760 --> 02:13:52,520
up before it arrives? It's going to cost this much. Where's it going to land? We'll let that happen.

1744
02:13:52,520 --> 02:14:00,680
And that sadly is how I view the governments of the world. And that's what needs to change.

1745
02:14:01,720 --> 02:14:06,680
Yeah, I agree 100%. I think that if you look at, you know, racism and go back to slavery,

1746
02:14:06,680 --> 02:14:12,680
it's not about, you know, the skin color. It's about a few people made a shitload of money off

1747
02:14:12,680 --> 02:14:16,360
the backs of human beings. They could have been black, they could have been white, they could have

1748
02:14:16,360 --> 02:14:21,080
been, you know, whatever purple, but they didn't care about what color these people were. They care

1749
02:14:21,080 --> 02:14:26,360
that they would work their land for free, so they could reap the benefits. You know, like you said,

1750
02:14:26,360 --> 02:14:31,320
with the religion, the same thing, there are some people in the tops of some, you know, maybe

1751
02:14:31,320 --> 02:14:36,600
mid row, mid middle of the line religions, maybe fundamentalist extremist groups. It's not about

1752
02:14:36,600 --> 02:14:42,920
race. It's not about, you know, the doctrine of the holy book. Ultimately, it's that they get power

1753
02:14:42,920 --> 02:14:47,240
and they get money from their terror or whatever it is that, you know, they benefit from.

1754
02:14:47,240 --> 02:14:52,840
Yeah, I mean, I agree in part of what you're saying. I think that you're right in terms of

1755
02:14:52,840 --> 02:14:59,800
it's all about money and power and control. I think the way in which people are chosen to be

1756
02:14:59,800 --> 02:15:05,400
the vehicles for that is where the racism comes in. I think there was an inherent belief that is

1757
02:15:05,400 --> 02:15:09,720
systemic amongst white people. And for your listeners, I am white as I say this, just so

1758
02:15:09,720 --> 02:15:15,560
everyone knows. There is an inherent belief that, certainly historically, that white people are

1759
02:15:15,560 --> 02:15:23,080
better than black people, that Europeans were better than Africans by physicality, by cognitive

1760
02:15:23,080 --> 02:15:30,360
response in every sense of the word better. We believed they were beneath us. And so we saw them

1761
02:15:30,360 --> 02:15:36,280
as an easy body of people to control. We had weapons. They were more primitive with their

1762
02:15:36,280 --> 02:15:41,480
weapons. We could arrive with guns. They'd have bows and arrows for the American Indians to take

1763
02:15:41,480 --> 02:15:53,480
it to the state side. America wasn't discovered. It was already being lived in by millions of people.

1764
02:15:53,480 --> 02:16:01,240
And it's that attitude that causes the problems, I think. We shouldn't be talking about who

1765
02:16:01,240 --> 02:16:07,240
discovered America. No one discovered America. Yeah, who was the first white person to arrive

1766
02:16:07,240 --> 02:16:11,400
there? There's a valid question. But that person didn't discover a country that was already being

1767
02:16:11,400 --> 02:16:19,400
lived in any more than I'm not proud of the British Empire because the British Empire was born from

1768
02:16:19,400 --> 02:16:26,200
slavery, oppression, murder, pillage, rape, you know, all of the worst things that are out there.

1769
02:16:26,920 --> 02:16:33,800
So I'm proud to be me, but I'm not proud to be a part of an empire that is inherently oppressive.

1770
02:16:33,800 --> 02:16:40,040
So, but yeah, your point about the money and power and the reasons behind it are 100% correct.

1771
02:16:40,040 --> 02:16:45,080
Yeah, and just attack onto that. I agree. And then you go further back. Look at,

1772
02:16:45,080 --> 02:16:50,840
people refer to us as like, you know, the white race, Aryan, whatever. And they're like, well,

1773
02:16:50,840 --> 02:16:56,120
have you seen British history prior to when we were going around, you know, raping and murdering and

1774
02:16:56,120 --> 02:17:00,520
all the other things that we did to control two thirds of the world at one point? We were getting

1775
02:17:00,520 --> 02:17:07,720
raped and pillaged by the Romans, the Danes, the Vikings, the Gauls. So, you know, again,

1776
02:17:07,720 --> 02:17:13,320
it's still money empowered, still these people wanting to have all of the shit. I want to have

1777
02:17:13,320 --> 02:17:17,880
all of it. I want to farm for the entire country. I don't want small farmers to have their own

1778
02:17:17,880 --> 02:17:21,960
income. I want to make all the food for all the people so I can have all the money. You know,

1779
02:17:21,960 --> 02:17:25,400
I want to make all the drugs for all the sick people so I can have all the money. And that's it.

1780
02:17:25,400 --> 02:17:31,240
It's what we see over and over again. And what you and I do and so many people listening to the show

1781
02:17:31,240 --> 02:17:37,640
is the polar opposite. Ultimately, we all have our own little selfishness and personality defects.

1782
02:17:37,640 --> 02:17:43,240
But ultimately, we put other people's lives and happiness ahead of ours, not our families,

1783
02:17:43,240 --> 02:17:48,680
but ahead of ours. And that philosophy needs to be understood, I think, by a lot of other people.

1784
02:17:48,680 --> 02:17:55,480
And if we stand like the men and women and children of the Silent March and just unify and

1785
02:17:55,480 --> 02:18:00,200
tell these people, no, enough is enough. You're going to start putting, you know, the infrastructure

1786
02:18:00,200 --> 02:18:05,000
that we need to protect our communities in place. We will force change. But if we view

1787
02:18:05,000 --> 02:18:11,640
prime ministers, presidents, whatever, as the puppet masters of our country, we've got it

1788
02:18:11,640 --> 02:18:16,920
completely backwards. And I'm not some anti-figurehead, anti-government person,

1789
02:18:16,920 --> 02:18:24,360
but we have come to the point where they think we work for them. They are employees. If you pay tax,

1790
02:18:24,360 --> 02:18:29,720
that's your employee. So we need to kind of refocus that and realize that we are the nations of the

1791
02:18:29,720 --> 02:18:36,280
world and these people work for us. Yeah, indeed. And I think the Prime Minister of New Zealand,

1792
02:18:36,280 --> 02:18:42,520
I can't remember her name now, embarrassingly, but she is testament to everything you've just said.

1793
02:18:42,520 --> 02:18:47,480
She is an incredible figurehead. If anyone listening to the podcast doesn't know anything

1794
02:18:47,480 --> 02:18:54,200
about her, just jump on Google and have a look at how she has led New Zealand through this pandemic

1795
02:18:54,200 --> 02:19:02,440
and contrast that with President Trump or with Prime Minister Johnson over here.

1796
02:19:03,960 --> 02:19:09,080
And, you know, she's got, she's in her first time in charge, she's gone through a huge earthquake,

1797
02:19:09,080 --> 02:19:14,840
which killed loads of people, a terrorist attack at the mosque, which killed loads of people,

1798
02:19:14,840 --> 02:19:20,280
a pandemic. And I think New Zealand, and admittedly, you know, they are a big expancer

1799
02:19:20,280 --> 02:19:24,840
land and they've got a very small population, which I appreciate and understand does make it

1800
02:19:25,720 --> 02:19:30,840
easier to avoid the spread of a virus. But equally, I think they've had two deaths.

1801
02:19:32,520 --> 02:19:39,000
Now, if you just let that sink in two deaths, they shut the country down at the expense of the

1802
02:19:39,000 --> 02:19:46,440
economy to prevent loss of life. That is a leader. That is someone I want in charge of my country.

1803
02:19:46,440 --> 02:19:51,880
Someone who actually values human life. Because as soon as you put value, the correct value,

1804
02:19:52,120 --> 02:19:55,480
on human life, everything else sorts itself out.

1805
02:19:55,960 --> 02:20:01,160
Yeah. Well, the other thing as well is, I'm sure if you look at the health of a lot of New Zealanders,

1806
02:20:01,160 --> 02:20:06,360
I mean, I've been there, it's a beautiful place and they seem to value nutrition, you know,

1807
02:20:06,360 --> 02:20:11,400
farming practices, all those things. I'm sure it's a very resilient group of men and women as well,

1808
02:20:11,400 --> 02:20:15,080
you know, and that's the element of this COVID thing that people don't like to talk about.

1809
02:20:15,080 --> 02:20:21,160
If you have a sick nation, a malnourished, overfed nation that we have here in the US,

1810
02:20:21,160 --> 02:20:26,440
you are going to have a lot more deaths. So this COVID is also a reflection of how well you've

1811
02:20:26,440 --> 02:20:32,040
taken care of your people. Yeah, indeed. 100%. 100%.

1812
02:20:32,040 --> 02:20:39,000
Her name is Jacinda Ardern. I just Googled it. Yeah. Thank you. Brilliant. Yes. All right.

1813
02:20:39,000 --> 02:20:46,520
Any list? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Well then, so the fire is out. Obviously the community is reeling.

1814
02:20:46,520 --> 02:20:51,160
I know there's the awful tragedies where, you know, literally it's, as you said, a giant graveyard

1815
02:20:51,160 --> 02:20:56,920
now. They're having to sift through the debris to find, you know, body parts to identify. I know the

1816
02:20:58,600 --> 02:21:03,240
Islamic men and women in their faith, I think they, when someone passes, they bury them immediately.

1817
02:21:03,240 --> 02:21:07,880
So they're not able to do that. So there's all this turmoil there in the community, but within

1818
02:21:07,880 --> 02:21:12,760
the London Fire Brigade, all your men and women that were fighting, and then your own journey,

1819
02:21:12,760 --> 02:21:18,440
tell me about, you know, the ripple effect mentally of that event. And then not just that event,

1820
02:21:18,440 --> 02:21:22,680
of your career and leading up to that event from there onwards.

1821
02:21:24,920 --> 02:21:30,360
So to go back to the analogy I used earlier with the jug under the running tap,

1822
02:21:30,360 --> 02:21:37,960
Grenfell was the equivalent of that jug being chopped in half and the tap being turned on full.

1823
02:21:37,960 --> 02:21:48,680
I just, it just broke me, just absolutely broke me in half. And I didn't even realize it. The

1824
02:21:48,680 --> 02:21:52,600
scary thing looking back on it now, I get emotional thinking about it because

1825
02:21:52,600 --> 02:21:59,800
I have very vivid memories of how I felt at the time. Not so much memories of what was going on.

1826
02:21:59,800 --> 02:22:06,200
That's one thing, but when I remember what was going on, I revisit those actual feelings.

1827
02:22:06,920 --> 02:22:13,240
And because I'm in a much better place now, the fear that watches over me of ever feeling

1828
02:22:13,240 --> 02:22:19,080
how I did back then is horrendous. I'm petrified to ever ask myself,

1829
02:22:19,080 --> 02:22:25,640
how did I ever go back to that place? Because much like many people that have suffered with PTSD or

1830
02:22:25,640 --> 02:22:31,720
depression, or both as they quite often, I believe, go hand in hand, I became at one point,

1831
02:22:31,720 --> 02:22:41,960
I embarrassed to say I became suicidal. Thankfully I had enough support and enough love around me

1832
02:22:41,960 --> 02:22:47,240
that I never actually tried to commit suicide. But without one and the same reason,

1833
02:22:47,240 --> 02:22:55,480
I didn't want to try to commit suicide, but without wanting to sort of undermine my point too much.

1834
02:22:55,480 --> 02:22:59,480
That doesn't mean that it wasn't a real thought. It doesn't mean that it wasn't a genuine

1835
02:23:00,360 --> 02:23:09,160
moment where I was sitting on the floor in my front room. I was at home alone. It was the daytime.

1836
02:23:10,200 --> 02:23:15,800
I was drunk and I was sitting on the floor in my front room. I don't even, I can't even tell you

1837
02:23:15,800 --> 02:23:22,120
much. I think I must've got up to go and walk into the garden or to get a drink of water or whatever.

1838
02:23:23,240 --> 02:23:29,800
And I just stopped and I sat down on the floor and I burst into tears and I sat there and cried for

1839
02:23:29,800 --> 02:23:36,840
about four hours. I just couldn't stop. And that's the first time when I thought, if this is how the

1840
02:23:36,840 --> 02:23:45,960
rest of my life is going to feel, then I cannot live the rest of my life. I cannot feel this sad.

1841
02:23:45,960 --> 02:23:53,320
I was sad to my core. It's like my blood had been drained out and had been replaced with sadness.

1842
02:23:53,320 --> 02:24:01,800
And I know sad is quite a juvenile sort of word to use, but if anyone's ever, well, everyone's felt

1843
02:24:01,800 --> 02:24:08,200
sadness at times, I'm sure. And if you imagine that sadness isn't fleeting, that sadness is there

1844
02:24:08,200 --> 02:24:14,360
when you smile, when you speak to your three year old son, when you tell your girlfriend you love

1845
02:24:14,360 --> 02:24:21,000
her, when you go to the shops, when it's sunny outside, when it's raining outside, it doesn't

1846
02:24:21,000 --> 02:24:26,600
change. You go to sleep feeling sad. You wake up in a night feeling sad. Sometimes I wake up in a

1847
02:24:26,600 --> 02:24:32,840
night and I'd go for a wee and I would cry on my way to the toilet. It was fucking horrendous.

1848
02:24:34,040 --> 02:24:40,040
It was just horrendous. And in that moment on the floor, I just thought, do you know what?

1849
02:24:40,680 --> 02:24:48,440
I'm done. I can't live like this. I can't continue to feel this way. And then I thought

1850
02:24:48,440 --> 02:24:58,600
about killing myself. And immediately, and thank God, immediately this wash of what the fuck are

1851
02:24:58,600 --> 02:25:06,360
you doing, Rick? What are you even thinking about? This panic sort of dragged me immediately away

1852
02:25:06,360 --> 02:25:14,840
from that place. And that was the moment when I think my mind just went, no, this, you need help.

1853
02:25:14,840 --> 02:25:19,000
Something isn't right. You are broken and you need to be fixed. And the mind is no different to

1854
02:25:19,000 --> 02:25:24,120
anything else. It's no different. If you broke your leg, no one would say, walk it off, get yourself

1855
02:25:24,120 --> 02:25:29,000
down the gym. That'll make your leg feel better. It's exactly the same with your mind. If your mind

1856
02:25:29,000 --> 02:25:35,480
breaks, it needs to be fixed and it doesn't fix itself. It doesn't just repair after six weeks,

1857
02:25:35,480 --> 02:25:40,280
like a bone. You need to do the right things, take the right steps, make the right changes and

1858
02:25:40,280 --> 02:25:45,160
adjustments in your life. And you need to give yourself a bit of a fucking break. You need to

1859
02:25:45,160 --> 02:25:49,640
stop beating yourself up. The world is there to kick you down. You don't need to kick yourself

1860
02:25:49,640 --> 02:25:55,560
down as well. And as I said, I was very lucky to have people around me that I could phone up

1861
02:25:55,560 --> 02:26:04,600
and get support from. I mean, in the months after Grenfell, I, Nion became an alcoholic. I was using

1862
02:26:04,600 --> 02:26:11,800
drugs a lot, taking cocaine. At one point, things were bad enough that I would have an open can of

1863
02:26:11,800 --> 02:26:17,000
beer in my car on my way to a night shift. And I would turn up to work having drunk a can of beer

1864
02:26:17,000 --> 02:26:24,760
on the way there. And although those moments were fleeting, again, that's, they're moments when you

1865
02:26:24,760 --> 02:26:30,680
think everything that I've, I'm such a hypocrite, everything that I've said about being the best

1866
02:26:30,680 --> 02:26:36,840
version of me, about being ready for any eventuality, about owing it to Londoners to be good at my job,

1867
02:26:36,840 --> 02:26:43,240
because they pay me to be good at my fucking job. And I'm turning up to work, you know, with having

1868
02:26:43,240 --> 02:26:48,600
having neck to can of beer on the way in because I'm feeling a bit, you know, because I'm being

1869
02:26:48,600 --> 02:26:53,560
pathetic. I'm broken. And I'm being pathetic. And I need to have a fix myself or I need to take some

1870
02:26:53,560 --> 02:27:01,480
fucking time off so that I can fix myself. And thankfully for me, the fire brigade in London

1871
02:27:01,480 --> 02:27:09,560
have an incredible counseling and well-being service. And I had an, just an amazing lifesaver

1872
02:27:09,560 --> 02:27:16,280
of a counselor that I could go to sometimes during work hours, if that was the only time I could get

1873
02:27:16,280 --> 02:27:22,680
an appointment. And I'd go and I'd unload. And he helped give me a few minutes to go to the

1874
02:27:22,680 --> 02:27:33,240
doctor. He gave me a new perspective on things. He helped me make changes to my life. And also I went

1875
02:27:33,240 --> 02:27:37,960
to my GP and I did something I never thought I'd do and I didn't ever want to do. And that was take

1876
02:27:37,960 --> 02:27:45,080
a prescription for antidepressants. And I've always had, my mom suffered with depression a whole life

1877
02:27:45,080 --> 02:27:53,400
and I've had a really negative perspective of medicating depression, PTSD and things like that,

1878
02:27:53,400 --> 02:28:02,200
because I don't see it as a fix. I don't see it as a solution for the problem. I see it as a mask

1879
02:28:02,200 --> 02:28:07,000
and a cover for the problem. And as soon as you stop taking those tablets, all those problems,

1880
02:28:07,000 --> 02:28:12,680
that broken mind that was there before is still there now. But all you've done is numb the pain.

1881
02:28:12,680 --> 02:28:21,800
And you've dealt with it. But the analogy that I used and have used speaking to anyone since has

1882
02:28:21,800 --> 02:28:30,760
been that I felt like in my mindset, I felt like I was in a room with no doors and no windows.

1883
02:28:30,760 --> 02:28:36,840
And it was a dark room of miserable depression. And there was a skylight in the ceiling that was

1884
02:28:36,840 --> 02:28:42,600
open, but it was out of reach. No matter how high I jump and no matter how hard I push off the floor,

1885
02:28:42,600 --> 02:28:47,960
walls, whatever, it doesn't matter. I cannot reach that hatch to climb out of that room of depression.

1886
02:28:48,840 --> 02:28:55,880
And taking antidepressants was the equivalent of someone lowering a stool into that room for me.

1887
02:28:56,440 --> 02:29:00,920
So I could climb up onto that stool. And that was the extra height I needed for me to get my

1888
02:29:00,920 --> 02:29:05,880
fingertips on the sill of that skylight. And although I knew it was still going to be fucking

1889
02:29:05,880 --> 02:29:11,160
hard work to pull myself up out of that room, at least I could see the light and at least I had my

1890
02:29:11,160 --> 02:29:17,720
hands on that sill. At least I knew there was a way I could get out of that room. And thankfully,

1891
02:29:17,720 --> 02:29:24,600
the combination of counselling, antidepressants, which I took for about, I think I came off them

1892
02:29:24,600 --> 02:29:33,960
myself after about three months. And the support of friends, family members, girlfriend,

1893
02:29:33,960 --> 02:29:43,400
and all of those things meant that I'm still recovering now. I think I will always be recovering

1894
02:29:43,400 --> 02:29:50,840
to a point without wanting to sound defeatist, but I am able now to have these conversations without

1895
02:29:50,840 --> 02:29:55,480
bawling my eyes out. I will be able to have this conversation with you today without immediately

1896
02:29:55,480 --> 02:30:00,520
needing to go to the fridge and drink six cans of beer and drown my sorrows. And that's progress.

1897
02:30:00,520 --> 02:30:07,800
And that's all you can expect, progress. I'm able to go to work without being drunk. I'm able to

1898
02:30:07,800 --> 02:30:16,040
not take cocaine to enjoy myself or to release myself from a depressive state. I'm able to enjoy

1899
02:30:16,040 --> 02:30:24,920
my life, enjoy the company of my son without anything else going on. And I'm able to,

1900
02:30:24,920 --> 02:30:31,080
that jug under that tap is fixed again. And I've got it on a nice tilt and I'm able to cope with

1901
02:30:31,080 --> 02:30:35,240
that. And I'm able to stem the flow of the water from the tap. And I'm able to tilt my jug a bit

1902
02:30:35,240 --> 02:30:41,160
more every now and then if I need to. I'm in control and the healing process will be long,

1903
02:30:41,160 --> 02:30:50,440
but the healing process is happening. Well, I mean, firstly, that's such a courageous,

1904
02:30:50,440 --> 02:30:54,440
lead through what you went through. And you started with, I'm embarrassed to say, the suicide.

1905
02:30:55,160 --> 02:31:01,000
I heard this over and over again. I mean, there's no better way of describing it. The brain is broken

1906
02:31:01,000 --> 02:31:05,160
at that point. And I've had people that literally have had the gun in their mouth. One of them,

1907
02:31:05,160 --> 02:31:10,280
it didn't go off for whatever miraculous reason. Other ones, people stopped him right before they

1908
02:31:10,280 --> 02:31:16,680
were about to get in a boat and go drown themselves. But it was the consistent thing over and over and

1909
02:31:16,680 --> 02:31:23,240
over again. People are like, oh, it's the cowardly way out. No, in that moment in time, these people

1910
02:31:23,240 --> 02:31:27,960
believe that they were a burden to their family because they were always sad. Because whatever

1911
02:31:27,960 --> 02:31:32,280
it was that the family would be better off without them. And the reality is obviously the polar

1912
02:31:32,280 --> 02:31:38,440
opposite. You leave the trauma with the family, you amplify it. But that's how skewed the mind is at

1913
02:31:38,440 --> 02:31:44,040
that point. And the analogy I use with that is when we stand on a tall building and we get near the

1914
02:31:44,040 --> 02:31:49,640
edge, there's that invisible hand pushing you back going, oh, easy, easy. But when you get to that

1915
02:31:49,640 --> 02:31:55,960
point where your brain is broken, that hand is almost behind you now pushing you the opposite way.

1916
02:31:56,680 --> 02:32:03,000
So, I'm so glad that you had that realization within your brain. Your brain's

1917
02:32:03,000 --> 02:32:08,520
survival mechanism did kick in. And then it's great to hear that you use medication as

1918
02:32:08,520 --> 02:32:14,680
a stepping stool into then getting counseling. Because earlier we talked about demonizing some

1919
02:32:14,680 --> 02:32:20,680
drugs. I believe that completely. I think that psychiatric meds are completely over prescribed,

1920
02:32:20,680 --> 02:32:27,320
but they do have value in some circumstances. And if it gives you the ability to get down some of

1921
02:32:27,320 --> 02:32:31,960
those walls so you can then really be honest in your counseling, then they're a great tool as long

1922
02:32:31,960 --> 02:32:35,640
as you can come off them. Yeah, exactly.

1923
02:32:35,640 --> 02:32:41,400
And that's the thing I didn't understand. And funnily enough to my counselor, the first

1924
02:32:41,400 --> 02:32:49,240
session I had back with my counselor after I'd started taking the antidepressants, I was really

1925
02:32:49,240 --> 02:32:56,600
sheepish about telling him because he's a counselor, not a doctor. And I assumed he would be very

1926
02:32:56,600 --> 02:33:02,680
anti meds. But I was quite surprised. He smiled and he said, good. He said, I'm glad you're

1927
02:33:02,680 --> 02:33:08,680
doing it. He said, there is a lot to be said about a combination of treatments when your mind is

1928
02:33:08,680 --> 02:33:15,800
broken. And he said, obviously, I couldn't in his position, he wasn't able to tell me speak to your

1929
02:33:15,800 --> 02:33:20,200
GP, go and get some tablets, because he's not a doctor. And that's out of his remit. You know,

1930
02:33:20,200 --> 02:33:24,920
he's not allowed to sit there and say that. But I could see that he was pleased and I would say

1931
02:33:24,920 --> 02:33:31,320
relieved that I'd arrived at that decision myself. And he was very, very happy about it.

1932
02:33:31,320 --> 02:33:37,080
And he was even happier to hear my analogy about the step stool and stuff. And he said, yeah,

1933
02:33:37,960 --> 02:33:42,360
he said, that's exactly what it should be. It shouldn't be a solution to the problem. It should

1934
02:33:42,360 --> 02:33:46,760
be a way of finding the solution. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing with the addiction,

1935
02:33:46,760 --> 02:33:52,760
like I said, I had an analogy for that. My very short story, very long story short, the analogy

1936
02:33:52,760 --> 02:33:58,920
is say you have a bucket and you need it full to feel well. So, you know, your three year old son

1937
02:33:58,920 --> 02:34:04,200
finds joy in playing and, you know, sleeps well, his bucket is full. Well, you take childhood

1938
02:34:04,200 --> 02:34:08,600
trauma and you start plugging holes into the bucket. Then you have Grenfell, you stick a giant

1939
02:34:08,600 --> 02:34:13,880
hole in the bucket. So now that feeling of loss in the bucket, you start throwing whatever can be

1940
02:34:13,880 --> 02:34:19,960
in. So it could be cocaine or opiates or alcohol or gambling or infidelity, you know. So it's the

1941
02:34:19,960 --> 02:34:25,720
same kind of thing, but in reverse with addiction. And I think that us leaning on substances,

1942
02:34:25,720 --> 02:34:31,080
especially alcohol in the first responder community is one of the elephants in the room.

1943
02:34:31,080 --> 02:34:36,680
And I think it's important to hear people like you be so blatantly and courageously honest about

1944
02:34:36,680 --> 02:34:42,440
that because there will be so many people listening going, I see that in myself. I do come home and

1945
02:34:42,440 --> 02:34:48,040
then crack open, you know, a bunch of beers or, you know, take my pain meds more often than I'm

1946
02:34:48,040 --> 02:34:54,920
supposed to, whatever it is. And that should be a giant red flag for any of us to say, I need to

1947
02:34:54,920 --> 02:34:59,160
find positive coping mechanisms. I need to talk to people. I need to get outside. I need to spend

1948
02:34:59,160 --> 02:35:03,720
time with my family. All these things that I learned from other people are the right way of

1949
02:35:03,720 --> 02:35:09,160
dealing with it because the more I bury it down, the more it's going to grow into a catastrophe.

1950
02:35:09,160 --> 02:35:15,080
It's going to explode at some point. Yeah, definitely. And on the alcohol front as well,

1951
02:35:15,080 --> 02:35:23,160
I think it's because it is a prevalent problem. Alcohol abuse is prevalent in the emergency

1952
02:35:23,160 --> 02:35:29,960
responders arena 100%. And I think part of it, and I know I've certainly been guilty of this,

1953
02:35:29,960 --> 02:35:36,120
so it's worth bringing up because we work shifts. We don't really have, you know, when you're at

1954
02:35:36,120 --> 02:35:41,480
school, if you remember back, like you had that buzz on a Friday afternoon because it's the weekend

1955
02:35:41,480 --> 02:35:45,320
and then on Sunday afternoon, you'd have that slight sort of depression would creep in because,

1956
02:35:45,320 --> 02:35:50,200
you know, you're going back to school on Monday and you had these definitive sort of set

1957
02:35:50,200 --> 02:35:56,200
timeframes that would sort of like govern your emotions a little bit. But when you become a

1958
02:35:56,200 --> 02:36:01,160
shift worker, that goes. I don't have a Friday night anymore. I don't have a Monday morning.

1959
02:36:01,160 --> 02:36:07,560
I don't have a Sunday afternoon. I just have a work day or not a work day. And what that means

1960
02:36:07,560 --> 02:36:14,920
is it makes it really easy for me to come off a night shift on a Wednesday, go home, be in by 10

1961
02:36:14,920 --> 02:36:20,280
a.m. and decide I'm going to crack open a bottle of vodka and get drunk. Because it's my Friday

1962
02:36:20,280 --> 02:36:25,640
night. Technically, I'm off shift. I finished for four days. So it doesn't matter. This is my Friday

1963
02:36:25,640 --> 02:36:33,160
night and you can justify it to yourself. But the reality is, if you leave work and have an inherent

1964
02:36:33,160 --> 02:36:38,520
need to go home and drink alcohol, I'm not saying that you can't enjoy alcohol, but if you have an

1965
02:36:38,520 --> 02:36:45,720
inherent need to do that, that, as you said, that is a red flag. That is a problem that you need to

1966
02:36:45,720 --> 02:36:49,800
work out. You need to at the very least, you need to understand it. So you're making that decision

1967
02:36:49,800 --> 02:36:54,840
for the right reasons and not lying to yourself about the reasons you're doing it. Friday nights

1968
02:36:54,840 --> 02:37:02,040
aren't there because that's our time for getting drunk. That's just what we have become accustomed

1969
02:37:02,040 --> 02:37:09,640
to over years of working Monday to Friday, nine to five jobs. So when that changes,

1970
02:37:10,520 --> 02:37:16,760
you know, if you were at work at 4 p.m. and going, I just can't wait to get home and open a bottle of

1971
02:37:16,760 --> 02:37:22,680
vodka, someone would probably say, really? Like, fair enough, have a cup of drinks in the evening

1972
02:37:22,680 --> 02:37:26,920
or whatever. But are you at work and you're like, you're desperate to get home to open a bottle of

1973
02:37:26,920 --> 02:37:33,640
vodka? That's probably a problem. It shouldn't be any different for us. Just Wednesday mornings

1974
02:37:33,640 --> 02:37:41,320
are not the ones for vodka. No, no. And I had a less extreme experience, but what I did when I was

1975
02:37:41,320 --> 02:37:46,760
on shift, I was on shift. I'd never got to the point where I felt like I needed a drink during

1976
02:37:46,760 --> 02:37:52,360
the daytime and definitely not before a shift. However, when I came off that next day, especially

1977
02:37:52,360 --> 02:37:56,920
by the evening time, well, I need to unwind. It's an easy unwind. I need to sleep tonight.

1978
02:37:56,920 --> 02:38:00,920
So you drink. Now, actually, that destroys your sleep. It's a polar opposite. You know,

1979
02:38:00,920 --> 02:38:06,600
then I retired a couple of years ago. Now, every day is a day off. I mean, it's not. I'm doing this

1980
02:38:06,600 --> 02:38:10,200
and there's always other things. But from the fire service, I'm not putting the uniform on. I'm not

1981
02:38:10,200 --> 02:38:15,400
having to go to a station and live there for 24 hours. So I found myself drinking every day. And

1982
02:38:15,400 --> 02:38:20,520
again, it wasn't ever to get drunk. It wasn't. But it was the frequency. So that's another thing

1983
02:38:20,520 --> 02:38:25,160
that I had to really look in the mirror myself. It's like when I add up these two or three every

1984
02:38:25,160 --> 02:38:30,120
night over a week, that's a shitload of alcohol. And that's night after night after night of not

1985
02:38:30,120 --> 02:38:36,280
sleeping. So it can be in many different forms. We have to identify, you know, if we're a binge

1986
02:38:36,280 --> 02:38:43,320
drinker, if we're, like I said, a frequent drinker, like I was, I'll say was because I've managed to

1987
02:38:43,320 --> 02:38:49,000
taper it back a lot now. Or like you said, near crisis when you're actually drinking on the way

1988
02:38:49,000 --> 02:38:55,000
to work, that's when you need to reach out and not have that guilt and shame. Understand there are

1989
02:38:55,000 --> 02:39:02,920
underlying reasons that this job sets us up for failure in some areas. So, and also know that

1990
02:39:02,920 --> 02:39:06,680
you're not alone. All those people you look around in the station that you think they're all doing

1991
02:39:06,680 --> 02:39:13,640
fine. I promise you they're not. So reach out for help. Yeah. And in that respect, again, I'm very,

1992
02:39:13,640 --> 02:39:22,040
very lucky because I'm quite an open person. My sort of tagline when I explain to people is that

1993
02:39:22,600 --> 02:39:28,920
there is strength in vulnerability as far as I'm concerned. So I'm going to open myself up and I'm

1994
02:39:28,920 --> 02:39:34,200
going to spill my heart out. And in the right time, I'm not going to do it during movie night

1995
02:39:34,200 --> 02:39:39,000
or anything, but at the right times when the conversations are there, I'm not going to keep

1996
02:39:39,000 --> 02:39:44,680
all of my shit locked away and put walls up and stuff. I'm going to give you everything that you

1997
02:39:44,680 --> 02:39:51,320
need to shoot me down if that's what you want to do. And what that actually does is give me a huge

1998
02:39:51,320 --> 02:39:58,280
amount of strength because I'm presenting myself in my most vulnerable state and offering you an

1999
02:39:58,280 --> 02:40:06,600
opportunity to be kind. And if you choose not to, I can take great satisfaction in knowing immediately

2000
02:40:06,600 --> 02:40:10,840
you're not someone that's going to contribute something positive to my life. I don't need you

2001
02:40:10,840 --> 02:40:17,880
in it. And it's a very quick, simple way of cutting out negativity and people that aren't

2002
02:40:17,880 --> 02:40:24,680
going to be around you. And my watch know me like that. And not solely as a result of me, obviously,

2003
02:40:24,680 --> 02:40:30,200
but there were a few of us like that. And what it's meant is as a watch, as a whole at my station,

2004
02:40:30,760 --> 02:40:35,400
we all are very open about things. We'll all come in and we'll say, I've had a bit of a rough day,

2005
02:40:35,400 --> 02:40:40,200
what's been going on? I mean, granddad this or whatever it is, and we'll talk. And there won't be,

2006
02:40:41,080 --> 02:40:47,000
it's like an unspoken rule that, as you know, the piss taking and the banter and the mocking

2007
02:40:47,000 --> 02:40:53,160
and all that stuff, the cussing at fire stations is there as far as I'm aware, world over. It doesn't

2008
02:40:53,160 --> 02:41:00,040
really change that much. But the one thing that we have at my watch and at my station, certainly,

2009
02:41:00,040 --> 02:41:05,640
is if someone opens up to you, that's the time when you shut the fuck up and you listen and you

2010
02:41:05,640 --> 02:41:11,800
support them. You don't mock that you have to have an environment in which you know you can open up

2011
02:41:12,440 --> 02:41:17,000
and it's a safe environment. And you're not going to be judged for it. You're not going to be mocked

2012
02:41:17,000 --> 02:41:21,400
for it. You're going to be supported. And my watch are amazing at that. And I know that I am very,

2013
02:41:21,400 --> 02:41:26,920
very lucky to have that. I have the same support from my family as well. Brilliant. Well, the other

2014
02:41:26,920 --> 02:41:30,840
thing of the vulnerability, and I agree 100%. I think that that's when we talk about brotherhood

2015
02:41:30,840 --> 02:41:35,240
and sisterhood. That's what it's about. Of course, you should be dropping buckets of water on each

2016
02:41:35,240 --> 02:41:40,200
other in the back of the engine bay and all that stuff. That's what firehouse humor is. But yeah,

2017
02:41:40,200 --> 02:41:45,240
when you see someone's hurt and we're all guilty before we kind of became really aware of the

2018
02:41:45,240 --> 02:41:50,520
mental health thing, I think we all look back and go, oh shit, when I was messing with person X,

2019
02:41:50,520 --> 02:41:53,480
they were probably actually hurting. And I feel like a bit of a dick doing that now.

2020
02:41:53,480 --> 02:42:00,600
But when you're vulnerable, you open the door then. It's an invitation to other people to say,

2021
02:42:00,600 --> 02:42:05,960
I'm hurting too. And I've heard this from so many people. When they've come on the show and they've

2022
02:42:05,960 --> 02:42:10,760
told their story, then people come out of the woodwork in their department like, dude, I heard

2023
02:42:10,760 --> 02:42:17,640
you talk about what happened. Can I have a word? I'm going through this. So that's the other thing

2024
02:42:17,640 --> 02:42:23,240
is you become a beacon for other people and not in an egotistical way. You just do. You just

2025
02:42:23,240 --> 02:42:28,840
do. You've put yourself out there with the courage of being vulnerable, which now has opened the door

2026
02:42:28,840 --> 02:42:35,160
for other people to reach out and say, I'm hurting too. Yeah, exactly. And I did, I know we touched

2027
02:42:35,160 --> 02:42:40,040
on it briefly earlier, but with the poetry thing that I found the same with that as well. When

2028
02:42:40,040 --> 02:42:45,800
after I wrote this, the poem about how I felt about Grenfell, the brigade contacted me and asked

2029
02:42:45,800 --> 02:42:52,120
to publish it in their sort of London Fire Brigade magazine. That's then I know at that point then

2030
02:42:52,120 --> 02:42:57,480
that is going to go on the, on the intranet and every single firefighter at every fire station in

2031
02:42:57,480 --> 02:43:07,320
London is going to know that I write poems. And as a quite a masculine sort of bald headed boxing,

2032
02:43:07,320 --> 02:43:16,040
football playing firefighter, that's a bit of a risk. You're opening yourself up to a lot of banter.

2033
02:43:16,040 --> 02:43:22,760
And I was overwhelmed with the support that I got from firefighters all over London, sending

2034
02:43:22,760 --> 02:43:27,960
messages saying, you know, that each person would relate to a different part of the poem

2035
02:43:27,960 --> 02:43:32,760
in a different way and would pick parts out and say, oh, I really relate to this bit. Thanks so

2036
02:43:32,760 --> 02:43:37,640
much. I couldn't find the words to explain how I felt about this. And this sums it up perfectly.

2037
02:43:37,640 --> 02:43:42,840
Thank you. And, you know, and again, not in a narcissistic way, but I was really proud that,

2038
02:43:42,840 --> 02:43:47,080
and I remain really proud that something that I've written, there is nothing but

2039
02:43:47,960 --> 02:43:52,520
my emotions and my emotional state at the time. And it just a true account of how I was feeling.

2040
02:43:52,520 --> 02:43:59,320
It's not clever. It's not, you know, anything I've gone to university for. It's not boastful.

2041
02:43:59,320 --> 02:44:07,960
It's just raw and, and full of feeling and to know that that has helped people across the services.

2042
02:44:07,960 --> 02:44:15,160
I know it's for police officers and paramedics have related to it as well.

2043
02:44:16,040 --> 02:44:22,600
It's something I'm really proud of to have, as you said, to positively affect people and help

2044
02:44:22,600 --> 02:44:26,760
other people come forwards and discuss things that maybe they were afraid to discuss before.

2045
02:44:27,320 --> 02:44:31,240
Absolutely. And like you said, vulnerability is strength. There's no question. So people want to

2046
02:44:31,240 --> 02:44:36,040
view themselves, you know, I think that's what's so crazy as well. I look at us like Yin and Yang,

2047
02:44:36,040 --> 02:44:40,600
you know, you are this, this tough physical firefighter, police officer, whatever.

2048
02:44:40,600 --> 02:44:46,280
But the reason you joined is your soft side, your empath side. So, you know, you have to have both.

2049
02:44:46,280 --> 02:44:52,040
So that has to apply in the station as well. You know, we can, we can haze the shit out of

2050
02:44:52,040 --> 02:44:57,240
each other and it's hilarious. But when, when the time is right, we also have to pull that,

2051
02:44:58,280 --> 02:45:03,160
you know, that compassionate side that we show complete strangers and use it to each other as

2052
02:45:03,160 --> 02:45:07,240
well. If someone's just, you know, got a child that's terminally ill, that's just found out

2053
02:45:07,240 --> 02:45:12,040
their wife's cheating or husband's cheating or whatever it is. And I've been through the second

2054
02:45:12,040 --> 02:45:17,720
example. You know, you've got to realize that it's time to shift gears from, you know, station clown

2055
02:45:17,720 --> 02:45:24,840
to friend. That's it. Exactly. And it's really important to know when that shift needs to take

2056
02:45:24,840 --> 02:45:31,560
place. And if you can, you can hit that magic combination of, of a bit of clown and a bit of

2057
02:45:31,560 --> 02:45:35,800
emotional support in the same conversation, then, you know, that, that for me is the holy grail.

2058
02:45:35,800 --> 02:45:40,520
If someone can, can empathize, sympathize with me and make me laugh at the same time, then,

2059
02:45:40,520 --> 02:45:45,640
you know, that's a win. Absolutely. Well, hey, it's been over two and a half hours. I said it was

2060
02:45:45,640 --> 02:45:50,440
going to be an hour and a half, but you know, I think this, no, no, no, it's no, don't apologize

2061
02:45:50,440 --> 02:45:55,160
at all. I think it's, it's the beautiful thing about this, as long as both people have time,

2062
02:45:55,160 --> 02:45:59,960
you know, this needs to go as long as it takes to tell the story. And I think that, you know,

2063
02:45:59,960 --> 02:46:04,840
we honor the people that responded to the fire. We honor people that were lost in the fire and

2064
02:46:04,840 --> 02:46:10,040
the families of, you know, everyone else involved to tell the story properly. And, you know, your

2065
02:46:10,040 --> 02:46:15,560
story is so powerful. I'm so glad I got to hear it. So if people want to reach out to you, what's

2066
02:46:15,560 --> 02:46:24,360
the best way to find you online or, you know, any other medium? So my pseudonym for online purposes

2067
02:46:24,360 --> 02:46:31,880
is Rocky McChopChop, which is a weird family thing. So if anyone wants to find me, I'm on Facebook,

2068
02:46:31,880 --> 02:46:39,400
Rocky McChopChop, and I'm on Instagram, same name. And if you want to look, take a look at the

2069
02:46:40,040 --> 02:46:47,000
three minute short film based on the poem I wrote following the fire at Grenfell, if you go on

2070
02:46:47,000 --> 02:46:55,560
Google and type in Grenfell Voices, the firefighter, that should bring it up there. Brilliant. Well,

2071
02:46:55,560 --> 02:47:01,960
I want to thank you, you know, so much. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to tell a story like

2072
02:47:01,960 --> 02:47:07,880
this, especially, you know, detailing what it was like trying to facilitate rescues and, you know,

2073
02:47:07,880 --> 02:47:13,080
the feeling, the crushing feeling of the inability to save and then your journey out of that. And,

2074
02:47:13,080 --> 02:47:17,160
you know, there's so much value that I know is going to resonate with so many people that listen

2075
02:47:17,160 --> 02:47:23,560
to this. And, you know, I just I'm always in awe of the courage of people that tell the story and,

2076
02:47:23,560 --> 02:47:28,840
you know, you're no different. So thank you so much for taking time away from your family to

2077
02:47:28,840 --> 02:47:31,960
tell your story and I hope it's going to have a ripple effect around the world.

2078
02:47:33,400 --> 02:47:39,160
Yeah, and thank you as well for providing a platform for it to happen because, you know,

2079
02:47:39,160 --> 02:47:44,600
I can imagine this is a very time consuming thing and without the platform, you know,

2080
02:47:44,600 --> 02:48:12,760
it's hard to make your voice heard sometimes. So, yes, thank you. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.