At that time, RAF Catterick was still a working airfield, although mostly only communication types for the RAF Regiment depôt (but we had little to do with them), and from time to time ex-operational and transport aircraft were ferried in at the end of their working lives. I was always a bit sorry for these quite serviceable aircraft as they touched down for the very last time - they were destined to serve again, but only as fire rescue fuselages and at last, as fire hulks. Some crash carcases came in on low loaders (the "Queen Marys") - that wasn't so bad.
Of course, only the "proper" fire tradesmen on their Courses were allowed to practise on these, and not amateurs like us. There was a good deal of classroom work, most of which I've forgotten, but we must have been instructed in the chemistry of fires, much about the best methods of tackling the various kinds of fires, all about domestic fire extinguishers, fire hydrants (all I remember is that the big "T" keys worked the opposite way from the domestic tap), etc, etc.
The things I recall best were all on our practical training. Our fires were all small scale, a half-inch of avtur or avgas in a large drip tray, and we soon saw the importance of killing a fire before the container it was in (our tray or a wing or fuselage) gets hot, for when it rises to the flash point of the fuel, the fire will always strike back at you. It is not generally realised how dangerous petrol vapour really is, and how far it can travel. Nowadays the sight of a lit cigarette at a filling station would arouse instant horror and uproar, but a generation or two ago we were much more careless; people would puff their pipes, or have a cigarette stuck to the lip as they filled up, and no one would bother.
A never failing source of amusement (for the bystanders !) was the fireman's pole. It all looks so simple and easy when you see it done for real or on film, but when it comes to
your turn to follow the instructor's demonstration, it's a different matter altogether ! Even a one-storey descent (and in some stations there are, I'm told, three or more floor descents), you're fifteen feet or more above ground - and you know what it's like at the top of the five-metre board for the first time.
In fact, when you step out into the void, inertia will hold you in position quite comfortably for the fraction of a second it takes to snuggle into your smooth 4-in pole and wrap your legs round it (these are your brakes, if you use ungloved hands for the purpose you'll likely get "pole burn"). But this is not natural; many a tyro, launching himself out at his pole with the courage of despair, has been known to suffer a broken nose, or lose a tooth as he goes at it like a bull at a gate.
Still more enjoyment (but not for the pretend "victim") may be derived from practice on a piece of life-saving equipment so good, so simple, so relatively cheap and so foolproof * that I wonder why fire safety regulations do not require it to be fitted under an external window sill on every floor of a multi-storey building above the first (and there's a case for
that, too - many a house dweller has been overcome by smoke inhalation before someone can get a ladder up to the bedroom window).
It must have a trade name (but I don't know it). It works like this: you start with a man-carrying steel cable (or nylon would do, I suppose), the length of window sill to ground. A simple underarm strop is fixed to each end. The cable takes several turns round the wheel of a pulley anchored by a couple of feet of cable to a strong point under the inner sill. The pulley wheel has a centrifugal brake built in. (It's obvious now, isn't it ?).
Break out the kit, open the window, chuck out long end and strop, then the pulley block which will setlle just outside the sill. First out puts on strop and steps outside. Brake restricts him to something like parachute descent speed (10 ft/sec ?), though obviously the brake can be tailored to whatever speed you want. From a 100 ft building (say 8 stories), No.1's on the ground in 10 seconds, the other strop's up top, No.2 puts
that on and away.
It works like a charm (I can vouch for that!): we had it at the top of the hose-drying tower (you mustn't put a hose away wet). Of course you must be careful to drop
straight down, any attempt to launch off into space is going to swing you back hard against the wall. Even in the case of the eight storey building, no extendable turntable ladder could get up there, and if it could it couldn't take people out at anyway near the rate which this simple device can do.
One hazard remains, and we were explicitly warned of it. But there's always
one who has to learn the hard way, isn't there ? You must watch your feet on the way down - for there's an empty strop coming up ! And it's coming up at 10ft/sec: you're going down at 10ft/sec, so...
He managed to get one leg in, the strop rode up (at about 14 mph, and he was a heavy chap): the resulting howl chilled the blood of all on the station and was heard in Catterick Village (over the other side of the old A1). Then he was trapped in the air midway; they had to lower a rope down to him so that he could hoist himself up a few inches to take the strain off the cables and enable him to get the leg free. After landing he waddled away rather stiffly, and was never the same man again (or at least not for quite a while !)
Moral: all of you young fellows, take heed of what your Instructor is telling you, and mock not his grey hairs, or the like may happen to you one day..
Goodnight, everybody.
Danny42C.
* "There is no such thing as a foolproof system - you only breed a new kind of fool".