Fire Brigade Practise

great photo opportunity Balcony, bit of unusual controlled drama to spice up the day.

Great photos, just shows how vunerable all those on top floors have been .

Nice to know they are well trained.

Good to know it was only a practice !

Memories of being a small child and watching my Dad - who was a fireman - on their 'open day display' running up the extendable ladder and coming down with another fireman on his back in the famed 'firemans' hold', then running excitedly over to him asking if I could have a piggy-back because that man just had one! (Swiftly 'rescued' by mum and taken away for a ice-cream to take my attention off the display and allow Dad to get on with it!). It's amazing what these brave men can do. I bet it kept you enthralled, Balcony? :o)

glad it wasnt for real balcony, great viewing, better than tv at the moment lol

You are quite right, Sandra, much better than TV! :-))

The "spice" was a little "insipid", Bampy - the firemen didn't seem to take the operation very seriously. They drank more mineral water than they used to fill up the hoses! Everything was so slow! If it had been a real fire then there could have been victims & much greater damage to the building.

The ladder was sent up to "rescue" a "victim" who was brought down in the basket. But he was standing up & talking to his "rescuer" then he jumped off the platform when it was near the ground. I was surprised to see just how quickly these ladders can be deployed, never having seen one in action before.

My brother's a fireman in East London, and he's told me some of the things that have happened. One time they had to practice going up the outside of a building using hook ladders, climbing up one floor at a time. My brother was the one who had to be "rescued"; he was slugn over another fireman's shoulder, so that he was looking down at the ground about a hundred feet below, held only by the fireman's arm - and he was telling him jokes on the way down so that the fireman was shaking with laugher.

Mad, the lot of them, but thank heavens for them

Thank goodness he has a head for heights! A good sense of humour must be essential given the dangerous tasks they often have to undertake!

lol didn't remember until it was too late to edit my post that he'd said he was telling jokes to distract himself from the drop.

The station he used to work at covered Canary Wharf; they went up while it was still being huilt - the photos he took show the fire engine looking like a Dinky toy, the (then) top level only had waist-high rails, and they were playing "saved you" right on the edge!

He's told me some of the things that go on, and I'd love to do a book of anecdotes, if I could get other firemen to share - and if the London Fire Brigade would agree! Bro told me, when he was in training, one of the "old hands" telling him about being chased down the road by a German fighter during the Blitz. There must be hundrreds of anecdotes, sidelights on history - some of them even printable!