london f.B pros and cons

[guest28]

im a wholetime firefighter serving in bristol who is relocating to the south east ( wifes job).
eventually im goining to need to transfer into a local brigade , id prefer to continue working in a city brigade but have heard mixed reports on london such as poor moral, excesive discipline, a bullying culture and general disinterest from the fellas themselves.
id especially appreciate any info from firefighters who have transfered into london on the brigade culture and frequency of working jobs, im told they are few and far between although this seems improbable, compared to other brigades.

thanks

[guest28]

id just like to add that the reports ive been given have all been from firefighters who claim to have enjoyed their time in the brigade but who have transfered out of london for various reasons so perhaps the views are not entirely without bias or resentment.

[messy]

Poor morale - Yes (is Avon different?)
Excessive discipline - No.
Bullying culture- No and if you say it again I'll punch yer face in!!
General disinterest. - Yes
Working Jobs. - Depends where you're located. We've many quiet Stations and a few really busy ones

The job is changing rapidly. London, perhaps, will be more PC than your old Brigade. Minorities seem to have a unbalanced influence in all matters and those who try to redress the balance are branded racists, sexist or some other type of 'ist'

LFB's latest IRMP is about to be implimented which is closing a west end station and moving 10 others from areas where rescues are often made (inner London), to areas where fire deaths occur - the suburbs (where many of the victims are dead prior to us turning out). The net result will be more fire deaths

New Dimension is huge in London. We are getting about 60 new dimension vehicles. (we've only got 112 stations - sorry 111 from June so virtually 50% of stations are getting new kit). Some of it is primary crewed (IRUs) so FFs who joined the fire service are becoming disillusioned by (in effect - as the IRU rarely turn a wheel)) being off the run for large parts of their shifts.

Add that list to the list of yet-to-be-agreed changes to: working conditions, Pensions, shifts et al, and you'll see why morale is a little low right now.

But come and join us. We a big impersonal outfit, but you get London weighting and a better quality of football than you will have been used to.

So if you are a one legged black asylum-seeking lesbian from a broken (single parent) home - see you next week. If you are not, it might take a little longer!!!

[guest28]

i am a black lesbian ( praise allah) , and im actually very offended by your discriminatory remarks and i demand an apology , there is no room in the modern service for heathen bigots like yerself.

anyways thanks for the info, yeah youre right, people are a bit disalusioned with the proposed changes brigade wide , although i was refering more to the urban legend of firefighters catching the train from scotland to croydon and then getting a case ofthe f*ck 'ems all tour.

As for IRU's are you seriously telling me that firefighters are manning these appliances 24/7
any propsed shift changes being booted around? and how much is the london waiting?

whats a busy/quiete station in london ?
quiete in bristol would be 1500-2000 and busy would be 3500-4500

As for the footy im pretty confident that once youve been to the memorial ground to watch rovers versus s****horpe youll never again hanker after champions league pre-madonnas. im actually a spurs supporter but hey ,progress is being made.

[messy]

Those urban legend are true. There are scores (maybe hundreds) of FFs commuting 100+miles and camping out on the stn or on a mate's floor. My last station had four FFs commuting from Wales and a previous stn had a LFF from Spain!!

Yes 5 of our 10 IRUs are manned full time (the remainder are switched manned).

As for what is quiet or busy, LFB only record 'on ground' calls, whereas the true figure is obviously always higher. The quiestest: Biggin Hill do about 250 calls and the busiest?? always a debatable issue. Soho always rate themselves as busy with about 3500 but many are afas, but for busy 'working' (rather than posing) stations, head east to the crappy end of our fair capital. Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Poplar, Dagenham.

Which part of London are you moving to?

[guest28]

suprised at the number of calls soho gets ..people always refer to soha as the busiest station in europe which clearly it isnt if it only gets 3,500ish.
im moving to bishops stortford nr harlow so would be hoping to be posted nr the M11 in the east end somewhere.

[messy]

Go east then mate (as my previous post) and good luck!!

[colin todd]

Messey, I am arranging to have a leg amuptated (can you recommend a good hospital), I hope to get a good sun tan this summer, I seek asylum from a landlord in Scotland who is still looking for me to pay the rent from the 1970s. I am arranging to have a sex change. My mother once didnt speak to my father for a whole week. When can I start. Could I join your watch, so you can show me the ropes. The only thing is I dont chew gum, and I do not find men attractive, particularly those of a certain large met brigade. Notwithstanding, I meet the other criteria. Other than a small fire in a car, caused by a short circuit in wiring I installed myself, I have never fought a fire, but hey how difficult can it be? One of your esteemed colleagues rejected one of our FRAs recently, writing a contravention notice and telling the client to get an FRA carried out but that anyone with common sense can do one (you dont need a consultant), so I imagine operational firefighting is very similar??I wont be there long anyway, as my back plays up from an old weightlifting injury, so I hope to be out on medical before too long, so I may not actually have to go to any fires.

[Paul]

Colin,

Clearly you have missed your way.  If you had of been honest in the first place and disclosed this information, who knows what could of happened.  You could of found yourself in the heady heights of Stn O by now, especailly with the experience you have with dealing with car fires.

I guess you shouldn't have sleepless nights wondering what could of been??  But you.ve only got yourself to blame in keeping this to yourslef.

 Although it may be a good idea to let LFB know which leg your having off then you can be teamed up with someone with the oposite one off, a bit like a 3 legged race, only with two.........so nothing like really.

Paul

[colin todd]

Stn Officer, STATION OFFICER?? My goodness, Mr Smith, I actually tacked the fire fearlessly and bravely with a CO2 extinguisher, without the need for fire service intervention. I would have thought this would have qualified me for the Queens Fire Servie Medal and a synecure as a CFO.

[Paul]

Yes Colin Stations Officer???

You did say that you do not find men attractive, along with not chewing gum,

 come on!!

On the other hand, without fire service intervention you say??  Could save LFB a small fortune.

you could be head hunted!!

[messy]

Colin: I cannot support your application as we do not recognise sweaties as a minority in London. There are many such immigrants sleeping rough across our fair city, even the Houses of Parliament are full of em. Some have the cheek to move down here, steal our jobs and then abuse our finest public servants who are only trying to do their best.

I reckon we English should rebuild Hadrians wall and fit it with panic bolted doors (obviously opening to the north) so we can get out if there's an emergency. The only items allowed south through the wall would be Irn Bru, haggis and oil.

If you start to integrate with the local community (including the fire safety community) I will look at your application again

[colin todd]

Yes LFB would have made pumps 30 on approach to the incident. Equally, it would have taken them a long time to get there, as I was in edinburgh at the time. But hey the guys from LFB will go anywhere to show them how its done. Shame that fire safety enforcement in the capital of england is such a shambles, whereas in the capital of a certain other nation that forms part of the UK the officers are polite courteous and are not into chewing gum. Messey, I am integrated as of today, when one of your borough commanders wrote to me with an unreserved apology for the fact that one of your I/Os failed to recognize a suitable and sufficent FRA as such. Thats a first for a certain large met brigade, so I guess he must like me. I feel so humble and honoured I could cry with emotion.

[Lee999]

Mr Avon

As a former LFB (F26 Bethnal Green to be precise) turned county man i'm in a position to advise you.

Most of the things you hear about LFB are true to an extent. Dis-interest from the troops, poor equipment on the machines, even dare I say bullying and harrassment of vulnrable prople.
But it's not all bad, LFB has an infrastructure and traditions which are second to no other Brigade in the world in my opinion.
From what you have written, I suspect what you really want (like most of us if we are honest) is action. You want a busy station.
As our collegue stated earlier, LFB has got alot of very, very quiet stations. Biggin hill being the usual scapegote!
Out of the 112 (111) stations they have, there are about five or six busy ones. When I say busy, i mean in terms of FDR1 fires. They are located just south of the river - Brixton, Peckham and in the East end - Bathanal Green, Homerton and upto the buisiest when I transferred - Tottenham. The common theme here is large populations of people from the lower end of the social scale. Avoid anything in the west end unless you have ambitions to be a Fire alarm enginer!
The busiest stations I've mentioned probably receive between 3000 and 4000 calls a year.

If you are moving the Bishops stortford then I would urge you to consider Herts. They have an exelant reputation but again, are not very busy.

Lee

PS You dont mention at which/stage in your career you are. If you are a FF then I cannot recommend LFB. if you are an Officer then I think i probably can.

[Lee999]

Mr Avon

As a former LFB (F26 Bethnal Green to be precise) turned county man i'm in a position to advise you.

Most of the things you hear about LFB are true to an extent. Dis-interest from the troops, poor equipment on the machines, even dare I say bullying and harrassment of vulnrable prople.
But it's not all bad, LFB has an infrastructure and traditions which are second to no other Brigade in the world in my opinion.
From what you have written, I suspect what you really want (like most of us if we are honest) is action. You want a busy station.
As our collegue stated earlier, LFB has got alot of very, very quiet stations. Biggin hill being the usual scapegoat!
Out of the 112 (111) stations they have, there are about five or six busy ones. When I say busy, i mean in terms of FDR1 fires. They are located just south of the river - Brixton, Peckham and in the East end - Bethanal Green, Homerton and upto the buisiest when I transferred - Tottenham. The common theme here is large populations of people from the lower end of the social scale. Avoid anything in the west end unless you have ambitions to be a Fire alarm enginer!
The busiest stations I've mentioned probably receive between 3000 and 4000 calls a year.

If you are moving the Bishops stortford then I would urge you to consider Herts. They have an exelant reputation but again, are not very busy.

Lee

PS You dont mention at which/stage in your career you are. If you are a FF then I cannot recommend LFB. if you are an Officer then I think i probably can.