Firemen gave me my blaze of glory!

THE summer heath fires reminded me of the time in 1953 when I was a junior newspaper reporter responsible for recording the activities of residents in a small Dorset village. These were usually very boring, but often in the summer a fire would break out or there would be a blaze in a thatched cottage roof. Then I would snap on my bicycle clips and race away behind the fire engine, hoping for a scoop — or at least a bit of excitement. On one particular day, I watched as the part-time firemen dealt with the burning conifers and heather, and was about to return to my office, when I saw the parked fire engine was going up in flames. The red-faced firefighters quickly turned their hoses onto the blazing appliance, but it was completely destroyed. However, I got my scoop with three lines in the next day’s Daily Mirror under the heading For Whom the Bell Tolled. After that, I was not so welcome when the firemen went about their work!

Brian Davis, Billericay, essex.