Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Turner tribute a fond farewell
A dedicated firefighter has been farewelled with a life honorary member award by the Wairau Valley Fire Brigade.
About 60 former and current firefighters came to bid farewell to senior firefighter Wayne Turner at a party at the Wairau Valley Peace Memorial Hall.
Turner, who joined the Wairau Valley Fire Brigade at the age of 45, has retired after 24 years of volunteering.
In spite of his long and dedicated service to the brigade, he said he found it very difficult to leave.
‘‘I found it very hard because when you join a volunteer organisation like this, it’s very hard to leave but you feel that you are letting the team down, because you have been doing this for so long and you know everyone intimately,’’ he said.
But to get past this, Turner took advice form this previous area manager who had left the brigade due to his declining health.
‘‘I can point at my hips and I can point at my knees and say, that’s why I have decided to go.’’ Turner said.
‘‘I have enjoyed the journey in the last 24 years, we have had some good times and some bad times, but that sort of goes with the territory on this job,’’ he said.
‘‘But I’d like to say to all the past and present members, that I have never travelled with anyone I wasn’t glad to have beside me in the appliance, you’re a pretty special bunch."
To the new recruits, Turner had some advice.
‘‘Train to become the best you can, because those you help deserve it.
‘‘The other one is brigade unity, you need to keep fostering it because when everything suddenly turns to custard, your team-mates are going to be the only people you can depend on, so stay friends with everyone, talk to everyone and try not to get cliquey,’’ he said.
The idea to become a firefighter came in 1995 when Turner was away hunting with his friends and one of them suggested he join the brigade.
‘‘I thought about it and well why not, it’s a community thing, it’s one way of getting to know the community and perhaps giving back,’’ Turner said.
‘‘You are helping people and giving something back and unlike other jobs, this has been a most interesting job, with the fire service we get called out for almost anything.’’
Turner started
off as a recruit, moved up to a qualified firefighter, and then progressed through his ranks to become a senior, a support assistance and a dedicated trainer.
‘‘Even though we were volunteers, Turner was always professional, especially when it came to training, because he was a training co-ordinator so he made sure that all our training was up to date,’’ said Wairau Valley Volunteer Fire Brigade senior station officer Ian Topp.
During his service in the brigade, Turner has seen many fires, but the one that he still remembers is the 2000’s Boxing Day fire in Marlborough that tore through 7000 hectares of grassland, threatening houses and killing livestock.
Turner fought the fire the entire day on an empty stomach and in the evening, was called to another job in the Seventeenth Valley.
I was driving the tank, but ‘‘Turner was putting out most of the fire because he was with the hose most of the time,’’ Topp said.
‘‘We spent the night trying to sleep on the ground in someone’s front yard.
‘‘The brigade will miss him because most of the time he did more than what he was required to do."
Another senior firefighter, Rex Gray, also retired on Saturday after 12 years of service to the community.
Saving people is something he will miss the most, along with the crew he worked with, Gray said.
‘‘If we can turn up to a fire and and get it out before the house is fully involved is a job well done.
‘‘The camaraderie of a small brigade like that is just great, we are all neighbours and we all know each other, out of the fire brigade as well,’’ he said.
‘‘When you are going to a burning structure, you are risking your life and you have to watch out for each other, and there wouldn’t be one of them I wouldn’t trust."